Starting Back Up

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Welcome back, Garoyn. Job One for you is to digest the enormous changes the Internet has wrought in the hobby. Your local brick & mortar store is a dying breed, quickly being replaced by the One Hozillion places coins are now available for purchase on the Internet. Unfortunately, the Internet is not a nice place, and among the thousands of reputable dealers online (you'll see names you recognize) are a great number of places you wouldn't walk in at night.

So, learning to vet online businesses is on your list.

Photography (in addition to being my personal passion) is a near-imperative skill. In addition to its' obvious bragging value - you can brag louder about your coins if your images are clearer - the ability to shoot good images gives you an understanding of how to interpret those less-than-good images you'll frequently see online. It's a huge advantage as a buyer over those less-equipped to understand what they're seeing in those execrable ebay auctions.

If you're a good grader, you will consistently undergrade images of Mint State coins. Digital photography is harsh. We have a dedicated Photography forum here - I daresay this is The Place on the Internet where you'd most want to be to learn coin photography - and an introductory thread there will result in far more than you ever really wanted to know on the subject.

Register at Heritage Auctions (ha.com). It's free, and they won't ask for financial data. You will then have access to their astonishing archive of high-resolution digital imagery of prior sales going back to ~1995 (high-res begins 2005-ish). Almost two million auctions. If that's not enough to whet your appetite for current market results of coin sales, try this:

http://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/

All of Heritage's results are there, as well as just about everybody else's. You don't need price guides any more for the coins in these categories, because you can see what people are paying today for them as your guide to value.

I'm guessing you know what to do about that green stuff; if not, we can help there too.

Coin Community's purpose is to develop and nurture newer collectors and Young Numismatists. We hold to probably the strictest ruleset of any adult forum on the Internet as a result, especially with regard to language and behavior. We're not stupid enough to believe there are no wolves among us, so off-forum contact via messaging (among other things) are limited before certain postcount and time goals are met.

If you are not here to learn, you are expected to teach. We count some of the foremost numismatic experts in the country as active members who share that purpose. An outgrowth of that is, we'd far prefer you to start a fresh thread on a given topic - even if we just discussed it two weeks ago - rather than bump an old, similar thread. That way it becomes a new thing which readers will look at rather than some bumped older, two-page thread they'll pass by.

Wander around. See what's what. There's a ton of underutilized information in the left column links on this (and every) forum page. We have one of the better forum Search functions you'll find; if you're any sort of experienced forum member you'll know how hard that can be to achieve. Just don't leave questions unasked in your mind.