If you follow economic news in even the most cursory fashion you are, no doubt, aware of the fact that the news has been pretty grim for the last few days. Lehman Brothers is gone, Merrill Lynch has been sold in a distress situation to Bank of America, AIG is looking perilous and the stock market yesterday had its single worst day since immediately after 9/11. How does this affect the rare coin market?   
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For those of us who experienced the coin market’s ups and downs in the 1980’s and 1990’s, perhaps the biggest surprise has been the relatively quiet Proof gold market of the past few years. While prices for Proof gold have certainly risen since the beginning of this decade, new collectors don’t seem to regard these coins with the same degree of awe that was seen in the recent past.   
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Someone recently asked me a question that I thought was interesting and that merited a detailed response. To paraphrase this question, they basically asked me this: can you tell me some ways that I can improve my collection while spending little or no money? Are there any actual ways that you can make your collection better without dropping a lot of coin (bad pun intended)? I believe that there are and here are a few that came to mind: 1.   
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After the dust settles from a major coin show and a major auction, there are always a number of things that can be learned. I learned a lot from the 2008 FUN show and, more specifically, from the Heritage FUN auction. 1. If someone is wealthy and they really want a coin, price no longer appears to be an object. Case in point: the 1805 quarter that was sold as Lot 2775 in the Platinum Night 2008 session.   
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