Ancient Coins

Ancient Coins - $10 Million Worth Of Pennies

Can you imagine carrying $10 million in pennies? Well maybe if you had the coin collection that was recently sold in Long Beach, California, it wouldn't be so difficult.

288 pennies brought that $10.7 million in an auction. The collection consisted of 301 rare, early American pennies. Often referred to as 'large cents', these antique copper coins are about the size of today's quarters. They were minted during the time of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, roughly 1793 to 1814.
At the end of the auction, there were 13 pennies left. These remaining coins were expected to be sold within a week of the auction.

The auctioneers were as surprised as the collection owner at the prices the coins were bringing. Two 18th century pennies broke the record for the highest price received for a rare penny. A sweet price at $632,500. Hopefully the new owner feels like he got his 2 cents worth.

Other coin collectors had been waiting decades for these coins to come back on the market. The pennies are well known, and the owner had been holding onto them for years.
The auction officials said a sale like this one happens once in a lifetime. The turn out was exceptional. About 200 collectors were there with hundreds more placing their bids over the phone and on the internet.

The collection owner guesses he had spent a little over $5 million on the pennies, so that was a nice return on his investment. Read more...

Coin Values

Coin Values - Even Coins Get Grades

Coin grading is the process of attempting to determine a coins value. It provides a basis for both buyers and sellers when deciding on the quality of a coin and it's market value.

When people first started collecting and grading coins, they were divided into two groups or grades. Coins were either new or used. But after awhile those grades were much too broad. Something a little more defining had to be used.
Even though the grading system today is much more sophisticated, it's still based on human interpretation.

If you submit the same coin to 2 different grading services, you may get 2 different grades. Sometimes even the same service will give a coin a different grade if it's submitted more than once.

This has been taken advantage of by coin sellers trying to get a higher grade for a coin so they can put a higher price tag on it. One company had the idea to use computers to grade coins. But the computers showed less consistency than human graders did.

Coin grading is a continually evolving process. As more and more people start collecting and more coins are passed around, the grading system grows. More distinctions are made and more categories are created.

So even though the grading system is a good basis for determining the value of collectable coins, it's not something to be believed and followed blindly.
The best thing for any new collector is to learn some basic coin grading on their own.
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Coin Collecting

Coin Collecting - Starting Your Collection

Collecting coins as a hobby is fun and easy. You just look through your change everyday and pick out the ones that interest you. Or the ones that are different or unique.

Everyone knows wheat pennies are old and so are buffalo head nickels. And if you look closely, you can still find them being spent everyday. But, if you're interested in coin collecting for profit or as an investment, there's more to it than just looking through your pocket change.

Coin collecting is a very serious business for a lot of people. People all over the world make their living with it. Coin collecting has been a business for generations. And there's the very real chance of losing a good chunk of money if you just jump in with both feet without knowing what you're doing.

When you're first starting out, take it slow. Do your homework. There're many different areas of coin collecting to get into.
Look around and find a specific niche that interests you. If you just jump in and start buying everything that catches your interest, your collection will have no order or consistency.

Then later on when you do began to concentrate on one particular area, you'll just have to sell the other coins to make room for what you're really interested in. And this could result in financial losses.
You could start by visiting a local coin shop or attending a coin show. That'll give you an idea of what's out there.
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Coin Buying Tips

Set a limit and stick to it

- It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of finding a coin (or two) you've been looking for and spending more than you should. If you set a limit on how much you're going to spend before going to a coin show or into a coin shop it'll be easier to stay within your budget.

Don't invest more money than you can afford to lose. Nothing is guaranteed to go up in value.

Look for coins graded by a major grading service

- There's lots of grading services but not all of them are reputable. Become familiar with the major services and stick with them.

Buy from established dealers or shops

- You wouldn't buy stocks from just anyone and you shouldn't buy coins from just anyone either. At least not unless you're a long time expert. Buying from reputable dealers or shops gives you the ability to return the coin if you decide you're not happy with it.

If it sounds too good to be true

- Yep, it probably is. Nobody's giving coins away, so that unbelievably cheap coin is probably just that-cheap.

Major coin shows can be a great place to find both a large selection and a large variety. The dealers come from all over the country and they're very knowledgeable. And they're usually quite willing to share their knowledge.

Buy a good book on coin grading, then you can learn about the grading for the coins you're interested in before you buy them. Read more...