Paper Currency Collecting: Where To Begin?

Buy the Book,
Paper Money of the United States by Friedberg. It's the Bible of US Paper Money, both Large and Small sizer notes, and has a lot of different sections on Paper Money such as CSA Currency, Fractional Currency, etc.

And collect what you like, not what I or others like, please never forget that Currency collecting is NOT always about how much money it's worth.
Bill Collector

Gammon,
Be careful, Remember what I said,

"Collect what you like, not what I or others like, please never forget that Currency collecting is NOT always about how much money it's worth"

There are guys out there that will try an convince you that what they collect is the way to collect. Master Shake has it right, it would be very smart to follow his advice.

Again,
Collect what you like, no matter what others say and show you. I can show you my entire collection of about 200 US Bank Notes but unless you know what your looking at it wont help you. The bottom line is Buy the book, study it, read the different sites, and educate yourself before you start spending money on Bank Notes.

After looking at all the color Photos in the "the book" you may decide that you only want to collect Large Silver Certs. and if that's the case, the other notes wont mean much to you.
Bill Collector

books... Books... BOOKS

no really get the books, just pick them up cheap from on line book stores, the values they show don't change much and if they do change the easiest place to find trends is on the net. The most current edition is already old before it's printed so get ones that are a few years old and save a ton of cash to get more currency



don't move an inch this place is great.

@The Bill Collector: I added the "Paper Money of the United States" book to my wishlist in Amazon. Once I clear up some pesky finances come tax season and put some money away, I'll be looking into getting it then. Sounds like a masterful idea to me.

@Master Shake: Would you suggest that, if I want to become proficient, I should focus on one currency type? What's a good currency type to begin with that is cheap and readily available?

@jm20thengr: In addition to getting a currency book with sleeves, I understand it's best to get a sleeve for the currency to put into the sleeve? That way the current has two sleeves for protection against the oil of the finger as someone thumbs through a book. What are they called? Where can I find them?

Sorry about the delayed response everyone. University hit me pretty hard there for a bit in terms of workload. Things have cleared up tons though.

@Gammon: You can collect however you like, and I don't think you have to stick to one particular type to become proficient at understand the hobby. Unlike coins, the grading standards for paper money are quite easy to adapt to and learn. When people collect coins it is most often beneficial to learn one or two commonly traded and very available series to begin with and get a feel for grading. You don't have to do that in currency collecting as you can use the same grading standards among different types of currency.

I was simply stating that many people in this hobby tend to start their collection among certain types, whether that be nationals, large size, MPCs, fractionals, or small size. But in no way do you have to pick a certain type and stick with it. I, for example, have mostly large size notes with a couple obsoletes, a few small size notes and one national bank note (hope to collect more in the future.) But I'm a simply a type collector for now and just grab whatever I happen to like, with Friedberg numbers being unimportant to me.

@Gammon: I wish I could be more help but I am in no way involved in the world currency market. The only thing I can say is that I know the Zimbabwe notes have gone up in value over the last year but there is no way of knowing if that is just a fad or not. Often times things like that lose the collector interest and values drop. However, non of that stuff is so expensive that you would lose your butt on it or anything like that if such an event does occur.

As far as availability of notes goes, I've been to CPMX and the Memphis IPMS and I can tell you that there are far fewer tables for world currency as compared to US Paper Money. However, Heritage Auctions does a sell a decent amount of world paper money and I know they have an auction coming up at the end of April so you should check that out and see if anything strikes your fancy.

Q: 1) Is there any value in historical currencies?
A: They have as much value as you put into them. What I mean is you can use them as educational tools to learn/teach about the currencies' history. The value you get out of them can be priceless. Obsolete notes are quite literally useless. Think about coins, too, we pay crazy premiums for the right to be the coin's temporary custodian, when they're actually worth less than what we pay. The time and love you invest into them is what counts, not the dollar signs.