Many times, people will start a hobby that costs money without knowing much about it. Usually this happens with collecting type hobbies because people assume that they just have to buy a bunch of something expensive to make a collection. Well, you wouldn’t begin the hobby of sailing by buying a quarter of a million dollar sailboat would you? First, you would learn how to sail. The same thing goes for coin collecting; before you buy it, you need to learn about it.
The background of coin collecting is called numismatics, which is the study of coinage and antique money. Professional numismatists are people who have studied coins for years and who make money by trading coins. You don’t need to be a professional in order to build a successful coin collection, but you do need to know a little bit about coins and buying coins before you start buying them.
Many unethical coin dealers know that people who are just beginning coin collections haven’t researched the subject enough to know whether or not they’re getting a good deal. These people will overprice their wares to clients who are buying, and they’ll buy coins from people who are selling for a ridiculously low price. The only way to protect yourself against these dealers is to learn enough about coins that you aren’t easily taken in.
Instead of setting out to learn everything there is to know about numismatics, though, you could just learn about the specific types of coins that you want to collect. If you’re going for rare silver coins, for instance, pick up a book on the types and ballpark prices of these coins. These books will give you an idea of which types or varieties of coins are the rarest and which will be lower priced because they’re more common.
Also, you need to learn a little bit about coin grading. Basically, every coin that is bought or sold through a legitimate coin dealer is given a grade, which is a number on a scale of zero to seventy. Coins with the highest grades look like they just came from the mint, and they have no wear at all, and coins with a very low grade may have lots of wear or may even be unrecognizable. The combination of a coin’s rarity and its grade make it worth a certain amount, so knowing how to look for both of these things will get you far in your coin collecting hobby.