Where Do You Buy Your Coins At?

yea, stay away from ebay. When buying online I always include the price of shipping in with what I pay for something vs what I think its worth.

ebay is perfectly fine if you know how to authenticate and grade coins to a certain extent. There is a somewhat unfair bias toward ebay on these boards. My advice would be to keep researching ad studying, and slowly start making a few purchases.

ebay gets a pretty hard knock on CCF because it's not geared towards YN and newbies, and buying and selling means that you have had some grading experience and being able to judge coins via a digital photo. You can't rock a digital photo to determine a slider AU/BU from a genuine MS coin. Some sellers have great photo skills but mediocre coins that sell more than book, while others have so-so photos but gem coins. So it is really a mixed bag out there, and employing your gut feeling when a coin doesn't look right to you. paleoguy45 is right on the money about not buying from a seller with a no return policy, there is a reason why they don't want the coins back. Generally, Santa isn't selling on ebay. If you purchase a Gem BU coin at AU book, expect to receive an AU/BU coin. On ebay you have to act as your own coin dealer in order to land "deals." A typical deal is paying for a correctly graded coin one grade under, e.g. paying XF for an AU or 62 for 63/64 as long as the price spread between grades is not huge.   

As a newbie, you want to avoid the splashy ads in the newspapers, even some of the ones in the coin magazines. Those businesses operate on volume and use terms like select bu, choice bu, etc on overpriced overgraded/cleaned raw coins. If you live near a metropolitan area, there is at least one coin show at a large hotel or convention space at least once a year if not more often. Go and talk to some of the dealers there to get a feel of the market on your collecting specialty. Get to know the ask and bid prices on the weekly/monthly Greysheet, the periodical most reputable coin dealers use. Coin clubs have sort of gone of the way of rotary telephones and landlines because of the Internet. Whatever your coin interest is there is some information you can Google and research such as on CCF.  A piece of advice I heard early on: Buy the book before buying the coin. Read up on your collecting interests before spending alot of dough. Books are the cheapest part of any expensive hobby, but will save you much headache and anger later. If you get burned once or twice, remember that we all started with nothing and no information about the hobby either, it's a learning process. Welcome to the hobby, there is so much to learn, do and enjoy.

I have had decent luck on ebay. I wouldn't buy a high end or rare coin on there though. It is nice for picking up some minor coins and sets for fair prices. I have picked up some things very cheap, you just have to be patient and be willing to have self control and not go crazy in bidding wars. Local coin shops are my favorite way to go though because I like the info and conversation that I get with the dealers and I prefer seeing coins in hand rather than just in pictures. Find a local dealer that is nice to work with the has fair prices and then supplement that with some online purchases.

ebay is not that bad if you factor in shipping costs to your initial purchase price. There's been a couple purchases I've made where I got extremely lucky, and some where I paid maybe overpaid a little. As long as you have some general knowledge in coin grading, you can distinguish for yourself if your getting a good deal. Just be patient and don't make impulse purchases just because you "want" that coin.

I dont buy coins on ebay anymore ever since my brilliant mailman delivered my Buffalo silver round to some lucky persons mailbox other than mine. I live in an apt. complex.

Now I just go to the coin shop, good guys over there! Cash and carry, no paper trail on silver bullion I buy.

to the forum. About half of what I buy comes from this very site. I just recently found a new pawn shop in town that will sell the coins he gets very cheap, like at or below melt for silver. I also have one coin shop I try to make it to about once a month just to learn and make an occasional purchase. Been a member of ebay for about ten years now and I have a feed back of 17 or something like that so I avoid the Bay most of the time. I have also used the Auctionzip and Proxybid site to get a couple of bargains.

Littleton Coin Company is incredibly overpriced and your friend should not buy from them. The World Monetary Exchange is also overpriced, after looking at their website.