Petrarch, who lived in the 1500s, is thought to have been the first person to collect coins. A century later, Hubert Goltz went to see coin collectors all over Europe and guessed that there were about 960 collections in total. Coin collecting became a favourite hobby of royalty over time. In 1756, Francis I of Austria wrote about the gold coins he had saved. One of the first coin catalogues was made by the British Museum. Because of this, there are now more than 100 books about coin collecting.
Today, the word "coin" refers to standard issue, commemorative, or presentation pieces that have been approved by the federal mint. This doesn't include privately made coins. Gold, silver, copper, and nickel are the most common things used to make coins. Alloys like copper and nickel are also used to make coins like the US 25 cent piece, which are cheaper to make than coins made of just one metal.
You can collect many different kinds of coins. One can collect a certain denomination based on when it was made, where it was made, the mint mark, proof sets, uncirculated condition, the amount of metal in the coin, its design, or any mistakes made by the mint. It's up to the collector, in the end, to decide what to collect.
Once the collector has decided where to collect, it's time to get started. The US state quarter is an area that is often seen today. They are often found in small amounts of money. There are commercial booklets that can hold the quarters. If a collector just wants quarters from all 50 states, they are not hard to find. Since so many have been made, the value of coins that are already out there is low. When coins are in use, they get dinged, scratched, and worn in other ways. Uncirculated mint coins are a good choice for a collector who wants to build a collection that will gain value over time. Most of the time, these are available when a coin first comes out, and they don't get worn in any way. Their worth is more than what coins are worth right now.
Coins made of metals other than the usual ones can also be collected. Before World War II, copper was used to make pennies. When copper was needed for the war effort and couldn't be used for coins, the government gave the go-ahead to make pennies out of steel. After the war, copper was once again used to make pennies. This made the steel pennies worth more. To make a penny today, it takes more than a penny's worth of copper.
Congress is looking into making pennies out of other types of metal. If this happened, the value of the last copper pennies and the new pennies would both go up. The value of a penny can also change if the way it looks changes. On the back of pennies for a long time, there were designs of wheat. The design was changed, which made the old design more valuable. A word of warning: the value of each coin depends on how many there are and how good they are. Coins that are easy to get or are worn may gain value over time, but not as much as coins that are brand new from the mint.
A coin collector can find coins in many different places. There are coin clubs, dealers, auction sites online and on TV, and even companies that only sell coins through the mail. You don't have to have a lot of money to collect coins. Pick your area of expertise and then get started.
