About Coin Collecting
Coin collecting is the collecting or trading of coins or other forms of legally minted currency. Frequently collected coins include those that were in circulation for only a brief time, coins minted with errors, or especially beautiful or historically interesting pieces. Coin collecting can be differentiated from numismatics in that the latter is the study of currency, though both are closely related.
Coin Conditions & Value
In coin collecting, the condition of a coin is paramount to its value; a high-quality example is often worth many times more than a poor example. Collectors have created systems to describe the overall condition of coins. One older system describes a coin as falling within a range from "poor" to "uncirculated". The newer Sheldon system, used primarily in the US, has been adopted by the American Numismatic Association. It uses a 1-70 numbering scale, where 70 represents a perfect specimen and 1 represents a barely identifiable coin.
Several coin grading services will grade and encapsulate coins in a labeled, air-tight plastic holder. This process is commonly known as coin slabbing and is most prevalent in the US market. Two highly respected grading services are the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) and the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS). However, professional grading services are the subject of controversy because grading is subjective; coins may receive different grades by different services or even upon resubmission to the same service. Due to potentially large differences in value over slight differences in a coin's condition, some commercial coin dealers will repeatedly resubmit a coin to a grading service in the hope of a higher grade. The grading services came into being (PCGS being first) in an effort to bring more safety to investors in rare coins. While they have reduced the number of counterfeits foisted upon investors and have improved matters substantially, the goal of creating a sight-unseen market for coins remains somewhat elusive.
The generally accepted scale of adjectival descriptions and numeric grades for coins (from highest to lowest) is as follows:
- Mint State (MS) 60-70: Uncirculated
- About/Almost Uncirculated (AU) 50, 53, 55, 58
- Extremely Fine (XF or EF) 40, 45
- Very Fine (VF) 20, 25, 30, 35
- Fine (F) 12, 15
- Very Good (VG) 8, 10
- Good (G) 4, 6
- About Good (AG) 3
- Fair (FA, FR) 2
- Poor (PR, PO) 1
Damage of any sort (e.g. holes, edge dents, repairs, cleaning, re-engraving or gouges) can substantially reduce the value of a coin. Specimens are occasionally cleaned or polished in an attempt to pass them off as higher grades or as uncirculated strikes. Because of the substantially lower prices for cleaned or damaged coins, some specialize in their collection.
Types of Collecting
A few themes are common and are often combined into a goal for a collection.
Coins from around the world.
Country collections
Many collectors attempt to obtain a sample from every country which has issued a coin. In contrast to those who collect coins from all countries, many collect coins from only one country. The country selected is often their own.
Year collections
Rather than collecting one example of a type, some collectors prefer to collect by year. For example, they might collect one Lincoln cent for every year from 1909 to the present. This is probably one of the most practical ways to collect US currency. Most bookstores sell specially designed books, or coin albums, for the purpose of collecting coins by year.
Mintmark collections
Many collectors consider that different mint marks give sufficient differentiation to justify separate representation in their collection. This increases the number of examples needed to complete a collection from one per year to several per year. Some mintmarks are more rare than others. This is a great way to collect coins and to have a great time doing it.
Variety collections
As mints issues many thousands or millions of any given coin, there are generally multiple sets of dies used. Occasionally these dies will be slightly different. Generally this is in a very small detail, such as the number of leaves on the ear of corn on the recent US Wisconsin state quarter. Varieties are more common on older coins, when the coin dies were hand carved.
Type collections
Often a collection consists of an example of major design variants for a period of time in one country.
Subject collections
Collectors with an interest in a subject (e.g. ships or dogs) may collect only coins depicting that interest.
Composition collections
For some, the composition of the coin itself is interesting. For example there are several collectors of only bimetallic coins. Normally only precious metals like gold, silver and platinum fit this category.
Period collections
Many collectors restrict themselves to coins issued after the 18th or 19th century, while others collect ancient and medieval coins. Coins of Roman, Byzantine, Greek, Indian, Celtic, Parthian, Merovingian, Ostrogothic, and ancient Israelite origin are amongst the more popular ancient coins collected. Specialties tend to vary greatly, but some approaches include the collection of coins minted during a particular emperor's reign or a representative coin from each emperor. Coins are often a reflection of the events of the time in which they are produced, so coins issued during historically important periods are especially interesting to collectors.
Volume collections
Collectors with an interest in acquiring large volumes of a particular coins (e.g. as many pennies as they can store). These usually are not high-value coins, but the interest is in collecting a large volume of them.
About Mint Marks
A mint mark is an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced.Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed. Another problem which could occur would be a dishonest mint official debasing the coin, or putting less precious metal in the coin than specified. The first mint marks, called "Magistrate Marks" were developed by the Greeks, and named the Magistrate in charge of producing that coin. Debasing a coin, or otherwise tampering with it, was a very serious crime, often punishable by death in many civilizations. For example, in 1649, the directors of the Spanish colonial American Mint at Potosi, in what is today Bolivia, were condemned to death for seriously debasing the coinage. The initials of the assayer as well as the mint mark were immediate identifiers when the coins were inspected.
In the 19th century, numismatists did not generally collect coins according to mint mark; rather, they attempted to obtain date sets of coins. A turnaround began after 1893, when A. G. Heaton's "A Treatise on Coinage of the United States Branch Mints" was published. Heaton cited example after example of mint-marked coins that were much scarcer than Philadelphia products and that should bring high premiums. When the United States abandoned silver coinage in 1964, mint marks were removed from the new copper-nickel coins in the belief that it would reduce the removal of coins from circulation by collectors. The silver coins quickly disappeared from circulation, and it was feared that if collectors saved too many of the new coins, there would be a serious shortage of coinage. Mint marks were returned to United States coins in 1968.
Information taken from Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License.