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How much coins are worth? Starting out Coin CollectingThe invention of money was critical for the advancement of both ancient and modern economies. You can only spend so much time and energy bartering chickens for bricks for rope for a saddle before you realize another means of exchange and value is needed -- enter money onto the scene. Even early Roman and Greek coins look much like ours today, with a profile face on the front (obverse) and some other decoration on the back (reverse). Some large early coins are magnificent works of art in terms of their engraving, and are worth tens of thousands of dollars and more, especially for surviving gold coins dating back 2000 years or more. As long as there have been coins, there have been collectors. Some collect coins for the variety, some just for certain styles, types, or country or origin, some like paper currency, some like silver, some like gold, some like ancient coins, some like Greek coins, some like medieval coins. Whatever your taste, once you start entering the world of coin collecting you will be shocked and amazed at what is out there -- and you'll be shocked by a lot of the prices for rare and valuable coins. In this guide we'll take a look at some of the best sources for buying and selling coins online, we'll see how you can find out how much coins are worth, and find ways to add to your collection without even leaving your home.
Buying and Selling Coins Online - Gold Coins - Silver CoinsBefore the invention of the Internet, coin collecting, like most hobbies, was limited in its scope and accessibility for the average person. If you wanted to buy or sell coins or bills, you can just a few options: find a local numismatist, or coin dealer, who had a shop and some inventory on hand; follow trade shows or swap meets for coin dealers and collectors when they were in town; buy coins through auction catalogs; or trade coins with other local collectors you got in contact with. No matter how you looked at it, it was difficult to match up buyers and sellers, and the universe of coins available to you was small. Enter the Internet -- now coin collectors from all over the world can access thousands of coins available for sale at any given time, in just about category and condition imaginable. Ebay is probably the biggest online trading spot for coin collectors. Ebay breaks out its coin auctions into a number of broader categories -- US Coins (everything from Morgan silver dollars to wheat cents to colonial coins), Canada Coins, Bullion (silver, gold, and platinum eagles, etc.), Ancient Coins (greek coins, roman imperial, roman republic, china, celtic, persian, etc.), World Coins, Exonumia (collectibles, medallions, etc.), and Paper Money. As a beginner getting into coin collecting, you could spend a month keeping an eye on auctions, checking out what kind of coins or currency you like the best, and maybe even place a few low bids on some items to get started. As you watch auctions proceed and close, you can see what people are willing to pay for various coins and get a feeling for the market. But remember -- just be a WATCHER for a month or more before buying much, as you will learn a LOT during those first 30-60 days that could be very expensive mistakes if you start bidding and buying without knowing true values and what kind of coins you really want to invest in. And that is the nice thing about coin collecting, unlike a lot of other hobbies. When you buy good quality coins, you are making an investment that will likely hold its value and increase over the years, meaning you can always sell it off if you need to and recoup much of your money, maybe even make a substantial profit.
Coin Paper Money AuctionsWhile Ebay has some real gems, it also has a lot of garbage. Many more sophisticated coin buyers favors some of the reputable online coin dealers that have some of the most sought after coin inventory. Check out a site like Eastern Numismatics at Ecom.USCoins.com. They've been in the coin business for more than 30 years, and they offer everything from US gold bullion to US Gold coins to large and small paper money to US proof sets to US coins and foreign coins and ancient coins. For example you can buy $10 face value of silver Mercury Dimes (100 coins) for $144. How about that $5 Indian Chief Silver Certificate you wanted from 1899? $1125. For another site, check out David Hall Rare Coins at DavidHall.com. They have been serving the rare coin market for 30 years and they have more than 1000 associate dealers. On the 1-70 scale, they specialize in coins 65+ rated by PCGS, so you will not find a lot of budget coins here, but they offer a great selection of more expensive coins and can help you find specific coins you are looking for. Finally, check out LittletonCoin.com for everything from uncirculated new Washington dollars to ancient Greek and Roman coins. Located in Littleton, NH they've been working in the coin and stamp trade for decades.Finding Out How Much a Coin is Worth? Rare Coins - Coin DealersHow much are my coins worth? How much is this old silver dollar worth? Are bi-centennial coins worth anything? Unless you are a coin collector, these are common questions from people just getting started in the hobby or from people who are given collections from relatives, and they wonder what they are worth. Many people stash away old coins and bills that are barely worth their face value. Maybe your grandma saved rolls of coins from the year you were born, or bought rolls of coins in 1976. Problem is, almost all currency from the recent decades was printed or stamped in the hundreds of millions of units - nothing is very scarce or valuable. Still, you want to know how to value your coin collection. If your collection is not too exotic, you can probably pick up a coin guide pricing book like The Red Book - A Guide Book of United States Coins, the Blue Book - A Handbook of United States Coins, or in a magazine like Coin World or Coin Age. You can also take your coins to a local coin dealer and get them appraised. They can usually tell you pretty quickly if there is anything of value in a collection, since they are always on the lookout for rarer pieces. If you find you have coins in special sealed, individual plastic cases with PCGS barcodes on them, you are lucky because those coins have already been officially graded and evaluated, all you need is the grading code to find out their current value.Originally coins were graded by dealers as "good", "fine", or "uncirculated", but there were too many in between gradings to properly value expensive coins properly. To get around this problem, in 1986 the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) was started to independently appraise and grade coins, allowing consumers to buy or sell coins, knowing that their grading was guaranteed. So while the marketplace still determines the value of a specific coin given a specific grade level of quality, you at least know the guaranteed grade level of your coin and it will never change, and dealers can't call it anything else. So again, if you have coins in these plastic shells marked with a PCGS label, you know you are holding a professionally graded, guaranteed coin that can quickly be valued by asking coin dealer, looking online, or checking in a coin magazine for the PCGS rating. Is there an online list of coin values where I can find out how much my coins are worth? Sure - you can check out NumisMedia.com/fmv for coin values on gold coins, dollars, half dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, cents, and proof and mint cents. The listings for F, VG, VF, XF are free, but you need to be a member or dealer to see the MS scale values. Also check out PCGS.com for pricing on all kinds of coins.
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