Reddit reviews A Guide Book of United States Coins 2017: The Official Red Book, Spiralbound Edition

Grab a bunch of Saflips. They're archival quality and contain no chemicals that will harm your coins, like PVC. I store mine in slab boxes.

For your banknotes, I'd highly recommend one of these binders. It'll hold about 45 notes before it gets too full. I comes with 20 sleeves and you can buy refill packs of 10 sleeves.

If you want to try and fill a binder for each of your coin types, I would highly recommend Dansco albums.

Also, grab a copy of the 2017 Red Book. It's the standard coin guide for American coins. Also available on iBooks.

For me, I found a good place to start coin collecting was to learn about what coins there are to collect.

I live in the US and had seen some older US coins, so I started there. I bought a copy of the Red Book (a great coin and price guide) and also looked at the PCGS Photograde online site for better images of US coins and how they look in various conditions.

Then I selected a series to collect (Franklin half dollars), acquiring one specimen for each year and mint mark produced. As /u/whynotminot noted, it's a short and relatively inexpensive series to complete.

Since then, my interests have taken my hobby all over the place.

Welcome to the hobby and good luck!

Pricing Morgans is a knowledge-based art. For starters, LOOK AT THE COIN! Of course, for a newbie it's comforting to have the certified slab. But I've seen some over-priced higher-grade coins that are downright ugly. And some beautiful coins might be under-priced because they are technically down-graded (dings, nicks, scratches).

It's very helpful to have several Price Guides. For retail prices, get a 2017 Red Book -- which has lots of great info. There's also a Morgan Red Book. Lots of other Morgan books too.

You'll also want to know dealer pricing -- the Greysheets. Monthly subscriptions are pricey; instead, get the $45 single-issue 7-Pack ("The Works"). Prices rarely change quickly, so the single-issue works well for many months.

Also look at "Sold" listings of online auction sites (ebay, Heritage, etc.). There's a learning curve... well-worth the time & effort.

Lastly, initially set a per-coin budget... say, $100 - $200. After awhile, you know which coins are worth more.

It's a great hobby. Enjoy the hunt!

I've had luck with estate auctions, especially with silver. Other than that, if you don't have a good coin dealer near you, get an up-to-date red book, find the coins you like, and get on eBay. There's a lot of crap on there, but you can find some really good deals too.

Whitman Red Book is gonna be one of your best friends. eBay sold listings or greysheets are gonna be you best bet for up to date value/pricing.


I would honestly just decide how much money you want to spend and find a LCS (local coin shop) and go pick out something you like. Decide if you wanna buy just one coin or maybe a few for cheaper. Make sure to pick a coin up and really examine it closely, don't just decide by looking at it in the case. Also don't just pay the listed price, see if you can talk the dealer down a bit (sold listings/greysheets can help with this), just don't make an insulting offer.

These things you will not be afforded buying a coin online. And the experience is part of the education process. That fact that you've already studied puts you ahead of most and you'll just keep learning as you go.

Blue Book or Red Book

Congrats on getting into the hobby! I'm not sure that either of these is of any significant value, so if they were in my pocket I'd probably save the money and not grade them.

If you haven't already, get yourself a copy of The Red Book to help you better understand the value of coins you might be interested in, and what to look for when evaluating a specific coin.

I'd also spend a little time on youtube learning about luster (particularly cartwheel luster) so you can better spot coins that have been cleaned...before learning it the hard way like I did!

Well as a noob collector, I might be able to help! Advice is more if you live in the US.

1. Not sure what your asking per say, but if you have a particular type of coin/country/era that you're into, its always best to get those from your local coin shop/pawn shop. I started off going through my parent's change and then as a cashier got really lucky over the past couple years. Roll hunting is a great way to start, but you gotta be patient and get through lots of regular rolls to get to the good stuff. I started with wheat pennies and Canadian coins which lead to silvers and all the other good stuff. Filling up those books of Wheaties, Indian pennies and even older Nickels is a inexpensive way to begin. Once you've figured out which specific coins you want, then the shops are a good place to get the more expensive ones. Even flea markets are good, but only for the small stuff. If you know people that have caches that are interested in getting rid of them, even better.
   
   1a) if you live in an area where you have lots of land, its not a bad idea, otherwise its not needed unless that's your thing.
   
   
2. Coin shops/Pawn shops, best way to go, making relationships with a trusted one goes a long way.
   
   
3. Not too sure, keep more in with the price guides, [Red Book] (https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Book-United-States-Coins/dp/0794843891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488225553&sr=8-1&keywords=coin+guides) or [Blue Book] (https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-United-States-Coins-2017/dp/079484393X/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=079484393X&pd_rd_r=YZ75YMYGQ38N96AW5ED0&pd_rd_w=B1VpT&pd_rd_wg=gC1Hv&psc=1&refRID=YZ75YMYGQ38N96AW5ED0) these are great to have starting off for the sake of simplicity :P
   
   
4. Coin holders as I've said before are great for displays and keeping everything organized, never buy the uber cheap ones. On the cheap end you can use durable plastic bags and washed out dry glass containers from honey or jams. Those containers for camera films are also a good way if you have those. Then for the nice ones get the plastic holders and then have larger container, wooden or whatnot, house all/most your collection. Magnify glass is another must, helps out with finding markings and errors.
   
   That's about it, may have gone overboard into detail lol, but hopefully you find something here useful. Happy hunting :)

"Penny" is a British term that continued to be used out of habit, even after the U.S. developed their own one-cent coin. It is the same way that people still refer to native Americans as "Indians," even 500 years after we realized they weren't. Ironically, one of my favorite coins that I collect is called the Indian head cent. I'll admit that I even say "penny" sometimes out of habit, but the statement I made is still an undisputed fact.

Source: I collect coins, and primarily focus on variations of the U.S. one-cent coin. I have The Official Red Book guide to Lincoln cents, which goes into great detail about the history of these coins. It even begins the first chapter with "Tradition of the 'Penny'," which explains the transition from the "penny" to the "one-cent" coin. I would highly recommend this book, even for non-collectors. I also have, and would recommend, A Guide Book of United States Coins: The Official Red Book, which has a new edition each year (to update current market values), and covers every U.S. coin. These books have loads of interesting history, as well as high quality images of each coin, including all of the error coins.


I'm sure you meant well by doing a 2 second Google search to challenge my years of reading and collecting, but I think you misinterpreted my comment. All I intended to do was share my knowledge.