If you’re reading this, you must have at least a passing interest in collecting coins.  So how does this happen?   First, you likely have the collector gene… that little thing inside that makes us crave certain things that we find interesting and give us the treasure hunter mentality.   Collectibles can be beautiful, ugly, unusual, rare, valuable, historical, or just plain interesting to the collector.   Some collectors specialize in the most unusual minor nich...

      The key to finding a rare and valuable coin: expertise, patience and enjoying the search!   If you like treasure hunts, you will love numismatics and the pursuit of rare and valuable coins. Even with fairly common coins, there are many collectible “varieties” and “condition rarities” to be found that are worth a significant premium. But, before you get started, there are a few tips which might help you have more success.   First, have a focus for your searc...

  The old adage “change is the only constant” applies to the coin market. And January and February 2013 has seen some significant changes. We saw the first coin to top $10,000,000 in auction… the famed 1794 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar from the Cardinal Collection. This seems to have generated a great deal of confidence in the increasing value of the great numismatic rarities. Expectations are very high for the final sale price of the Walton example of the 1913 Liberty Nickel scheduled for a...

Tell me if you think this is a forgivable mistake.   At the F.U.N. Show last month, I was introduced to an acknowledged expert in the numismatics field. His table had a sign, “Fly-In Meeting, 3:30pm, at Booth #___.”   In a feeble attempt to make conversation, I said, pointing to the sign, “You must be a pilot. My dad is also a pilot, and we went to Fly-Ins all the time when I was a kid.”   With a roll of the eyes, he let me know that Fly-In Club means Flying Eagle-Indian Cen...

In sniffing around on the Internet, I discovered a wild assortment of opinions, and very little empirical research about the personality traits of a typical coin collector. Here is what I did find:   An abstract to a PhD thesis written by William S. Cahill1:   “A large number of individuals in the United States engage in the hobbies of stamp collecting and coin collecting. These recreational activities have long been believed to enhance academic learning for children although there...