As someone who sells a lot of coins, I have some selling tips/tricks/thoughts that I’d like to share. 1. Don’t Get Into a Forced Sale Situation. When it comes to buying coins, most people (dealers and collectors) are sharks. If they know that you are in a situation of desperation, it is likely that they’ll take advantage of you.

Reader F.N. of New York City recently asked me an interesting question: “Do you collect coins and if so what do you collect?” I’d like to take the chance to give you a brief history of what I have collected in the past and supplement this with some thoughts on collecting coins in general. I started early in numismatics. I was pretty much hooked by age seven, and was obsessed with coins by the time I was nine or ten.

In my day-to-day dealings with collectors, I note at least two distinct typologies. First, there is the collector who has either been buying coins since he was a child, or who was a collector as a kid and has since rekindled his early romance with numismatics. And then there is the newcomer who is generally introduced to coins through precious metals/bullion/modern coins. The lifetime collector versus the precious metals advocate.

I was thinking the other day about the cycles of availability that run through the coin market. Around ten years ago, the market was flooded with rare date Proof gold; today you almost never see it. In the late 1990′s, there were a number of wonderful collections of Charlotte and Dahlonega sold at auction; today you rarely see more than a few interesting pieces scattered here and there.

I’d like to thank collector John Toffaletti for writing this interesting study of 1856-S eagles and contributing it to raregoldcoins.com for publication. I think you’ll find it very interesting and it contains information that has never been published before. There appears to be new interest in the older gold coins from the San Francisco mint. This is especially true for the double eagles, but also for the other denominations.

I get calls from potential new gold coin collectors nearly every day. Some of them have spent a good deal of time researching the gold coin market and have a good idea what the coins that they may be buying will cost. Others have no clue and are almost charmingly naive about what they can buy given their budget.