Coin Collecting Information

Peter Gitundu asked:


Since the birth of the internet, there has been more trading going on now more than ever. The internet made it easy for people to meet not only nationally but internationally. This way people also get to showcase their merchandise through the internet and get that numbers in the millions. However it also gave rise to more scrupulous criminals who use the net for their own gain.

With the internet, also came the online coin dealers. As a coin collector or dealer you should know that there are many people who want to take things from you without having paid or traded for you in the most unfair way possible. This is why I say that, although the internet is the best place to meet coin collectors and other dealers it is also the most dangerous place to make deals or buy coins.

This is not to say that there are no honest people that go online. There are but the risk are starting to out way the means. If you are interested to use online coin dealers then you must be careful and make sure to do background checks on the dealers that you intend to use. Rare coins are a hard commodity to get and the use of online coin dealers might actually lead you to one or two but such commodity might be stolen or worse. Make sure that any dealings you do online are legal both by whoever your dealing with laws and by U.S. laws as well. So be careful as you surf the net and use dealers from far away countries.

Cindy Heller asked:


According to history, King Croesus of Lydia was the one who introduced gold coins around 643-630 B.C. A pale yellow mixture of gold and silver called the electrum was a natural resource in Lydia. As people did not know how to separate these two metals, the first gold coins were a mixture of gold and silver.

In 560 B.C., the Lydians found out a way to separate gold from silver. At last, real gold coins were produced along with silver coins, although gold was considered to be more precious than silver. In 546 B.C., the Lydians captured Persian army and when the Persians walked around the Lydian kingdom, they were astonished with the gold coins. The Persians started learning to mint gold coins and after some time they used them for trading.

In the past, one of the most progressive nations in the world was Persia and they popularized the used of gold coins around the world. As a result, gold coins became an important currency for commerce. Many nations used them for trading and for some people, collecting gold coins became a way to accumulate wealth.

After many centuries, gold coins were stopped being used as a currency in 1933 because most countries considered them too expensive. There are some gold colored coins today, but they do not contain any gold.

How to determine gold coin values

As gold coins are not circulated anymore, they become valuable. Many collectors are chasing them to add their collections and to gain profits from them. If you want to gain profits, it is essential for you to understand factors that affect gold coin values as discussed in this section.

The first factor is age where the older the coin, the higher its value. These coins are antique artifacts and their age can reach centuries old. Some tests can be done to check the coin’s authenticity and age if you want to determine gold coin values based on this factor.

The second factor is condition. Weathered coins will have lower values than good condition coins. There are some qualities that collectors look for to determine gold coin quality, such as the sharpness of the relief, the text, and the edges. Normally it is more difficult to sell weathered coins than coins that are in a relatively good condition.

The last factor is its rarity. When a gold coin is extremely rare, its value will skyrocket. In general, there are two factors that affect rarity. The first is the number created and the second is the number of coins that has been lost, damaged, or destroyed. There is a rare double eagle $20 gold coin minted in 1933. It was worth more than $7 million in an auction.