Coin Collecting for Dummies

By Ron Guth, Neil S. Berman, Neil Berman

Book Overview

There's a special comfort in collecting, in surrounding yourself with familiar objects and building a store of assets. The allure of money is especially strong. Coins represent real value. The warmth of silver and the weight of gold are irresistible to some. Coins travel throughout the world and through time itself, representing and absorbing history as they pass from one person to the next. Oh the stories coins could tell if they only had voices. Coin-collecting is a relaxing and inexpensive (although it can be very expensive ) hobby. If you buy properly, coins can be an excellent place to park your money for a rainy day, and if you buy the right coins and the market improves, you may even be able to make a profit on your collection. In fact, n umismatics (the fancy term for coin collecting) offers more riches than you may realize. This rewarding hobby also opens the door to some serious life skills, such as History Geography Observational skills Organizational skills Analytical tools. This book is designed to appeal to collectors at every level, from beginner to advanced. This is not a hardcore coin book; rather, Coin Collecting For Dummies is a great general reference that points you in different directions for further investigation. Perhaps the most important goal of this book is to get you excited - and to keep you excited - about coin collecting. Coin Collecting For Dummies covers all these topics and more: Deciding what to collect Storing your collection correctly Finding out about repaired, restored, and recolored coins Pricing world coins Finding a good coin dealer Buying at auction Understanding that condition equals value Exploring the wild side with rare, expensive, and esoteric coins Selling your coins No one needs coins, but if you decide to collect them, you certainly need this book. Coin collecting can sometimes be a confusing maze of choices sprinkled with little traps along the way. Sure, you can go it alone, but why not make your journey into numismatics a lot easier by picking the brain of an expert collector and learning from the mistakes of others.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764553895
• ISBN13: 9780764553899
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: For Dummies
• Length: 357 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Everyone has to start somewhere.

Usually, a “For Dummies” book, like a children’s book, will give you fundamentals to get off the ground on a subject. However, this book is too fundamental and too broad, and too narrow at the same time. Not that it does not contain helpful information, however, right from the beginning, I could find no mention of Notgeld or any porcelain coins. Neither of the references addresses the subject. This leads me to believe that other vertical collection markets are not being addressed or even mentioned in this book. The Author, Ron Guth, however, is an expert and collector in many fields of coins that are not reflected in this book. I bought some Notgeld from him. Next read - World Notgeld, 1914-1947: A Guide & Checklist and Other Local Issue Emergency Money. See what you missed.

Highly Recommended!

For any of you who are interested in coin collecting, or if you happen to inherit somehow a collection of coins, this is the book for you! It is filled with information on how to take care of your coins, what to look for when purchasing, selling, trading or anything else regarding coins. The book is full of knowledge that is easy to comprehend. Buy it for youself or for your kids!

This Book is Right On the Money

This is a great book to read - even for non-coin collectors. The historical data is fascinating. Well written, good touches of humor - informative and educational. I think it's appropriate for anyone from beginning to experienced collectors and just about anyone who's interested in money.

An educational collector's guide

Coin Collectors For Dummies is a paperback guide for beginning to intermediate coin collectors. With humour and style, author Guth explains numismatics, buying coins, choosing coins for your collections, U. S. coins, selling coins, and the part of tens containing the following: (1) the ten most valuable U. S. coins, (2) Guth's favorite ten U. S. coin designs, and (3) Guth's ten favorite web sites for the coin-collecting websurfer du jour.Sprinkled with cartoons, black and white illustrations, homely tales and guides, Coin Collecting For Dummies is the quintessential user-friendly coin collector's guide. An added perk: many bits of fascinating coin history are introduced, often in silvery-grey highlighted boxes. Coin Collecting For Dummies is a fascinating, entertaining, and educational collector's guide.Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

Immensely Helpful Introduction

I'd bought a few mint sets, and ocasionally thought about saving particularly good-looking coins. Someone gave me some more coins for Christmas, and I've exploded into coin collecting.There's a ton of stuff to learn. This book covers alot of it in a very approchable way, and isn't quite as condescending as most of the "For Dummies" books. The humour is a little too frequent for the level of the content, but the book is a great start for the new collector.There's a few sections the book could have done without, like the chapter on record-setting auctions. It would've been great to balance it with a section on the most underrated coins, or the best bargains.If you're interested in getting started, this book is for you. For anyone with experience, it's probably not appropriate.

Coin Collecting For Dummies

"Coin Collecting For Dummies" is a book both for the beginning and advanced collector (and coin investor)...it belongs in every coin collector's library! The adage "buy the book before you buy the coin(s)" applies to this excellent volume. The book is well written, easy to understand and covers everything the collector/investor should consider before, and while, collecting/investing. It is never to late to learn from the information in "Coin Collectring For Dummies"! Humor is sprinkled throughout the book which keeps information that is sometimes academic from being too dry. The beginning collector can easily feel that he is "on the wrong side of the table" (dealer versus collector) and the information in "Coin Collecting For Dummies" definitely "levels the playing field". The cost of this book is far less than the price of many coins...not reading this book will definitely "cost" the collector/investor with money ill spent! A must read!