Digital Camera

jaycutler, I basically did same as you. I looked online for reasonably priced camera that my local store had, then went and took sample image of some pocket change.

Growing up, my father did the whole camera with changeable lenses, tripod, remote shutter, everything for an amateur photographer. I like my pictures to come out well, but its not that important to me.

That answer is simple:

1) The ability to manually control settings: aperture, exposure and ISO.

2) A reasonably-short minimum focusing distance.

3) Manual white balance.

With those in-hand, and a little elbow grease, you will be able to make the camera shoot nice images of coins regardless of how much you paid for it. There may be some compromises over more expensive cameras, but the goal is reachable. "Ease of use" may or may not be an acceptable compromise, depending on how you define the term. All the words I used in the three conditions above should be things any photographer understands.