How to Start Your Coin Portfolio

When you start coin collecting, it’s best to focus initially on bullion value. Though investing in rare coins can be very profitable, it is more difficult to gauge what the collector market for a particular coin might look like five or ten years down the road. Investing in modern bullion coins, such as Canadian Maple Leaf silver coins and American Gold Eagles, is a great way to get started. These coins all contain high-grade gold or silver, making them excellent precious metal investments. At the same time, they’re also handsome coins, which is an important factor for any coin collector.

Some older coins can be good stores of bullion value as well, though in some cases there’s also some numismatic value involved in the price of the coins. For example, American quarters and dimes minted prior to 1965 contain 90 percent silver and are frequently purchased by coin investors for their metal content. Ordering a mixed bag of junk silver coins is a good way to fill out missing dates in your collection while simultaneously investing in silver metal.

Some coins, such as American silver dollars, exist somewhere on the borderline between being bullion investments and numismatic investments. These coins are common enough that they don’t have immense amounts of collector value, but at the same time, they sell for prices that are higher than their raw bullion value. These coins aren’t necessarily the best investments from a growth perspective, but they do hold their value reasonably well. Since coins that fall into this category tend to be older, they’re also a great deal of fun to collect for those who love the historical appeal of numismatics. Pre-1933 gold coins also fall into this category, though their bullion values are of course much higher than silver coins.

Finally, there are many coins that are predominantly numismatic investments. Though the bullion value of the metal is still factored into the overall price of these coins, their scarcity causes their collector value to make up the bulk of their final cost. If you wish to invest in coins predominantly for their collector values, it’s important to know exactly which coins will be most in demand among collectors.

Typically, rare dates and mint marks are two of the largest contributing factors to a coin’s numismatic value. Rare minting errors can also add to the value of a coin. If investing in coins purely for their numismatic value, it’s important to deal in certified coins only. Certified coins are those which have been inspected and graded by a recognized organization, then placed in a protective holder.

One last factor to keep in mind is that, contrary to popular belief, a coin doesn’t necessarily have to cost thousands of dollars to be a good investment on the basis of its numismatic value. One of the best examples of an affordable coin that is mostly valued as a collector piece is the 1950-D Jefferson nickel. Considered a key date and mint mark pairing, a 1950-D nickel can sell for $70 or more in uncirculated grades. Though extremely high compared to its face and bullion values, the numismatic value associated with this coin makes it reasonable for collectors on a budget. Source

How Much My Gold Scraps Are Worth

 

 

This video gives a little insight into what all a goldsmith does when given precious metals. This video is focusing more on gold collections. How he collect gold scraps, what he does with them, and how much they are worth!

"my name is Jordan Mantzke and I am a goldsmith. I'm starting a vlog to help enrich my life and maybe a few of yours. One of the most common questions I get is what do I do with all of the gold scraps and shavings. In this video I finally answer that question." 

How Did Gold Discovery Help the U.S. Mint Expand?

 

 

"Moments at the Mint" is a series focusing on the intersection of important moments in  U.S. history with the work of the United States Mint. In this episode, we explore how the discovery of precious metals influenced current and historic Mint locations across the U.S.

In the early 1800s, America experienced its first two gold rushes: first in North Carolina and then in Georgia. Demand on the Philadelphia Mint to melt, refine, and produce coins from this gold pushed the Mint to its limits. In 1835, Congress passed legislation to establish three new branch Mints located in Charlotte, NC; Dahlonega, GA; and New Orleans, LA. Charlotte and Dahlonega concentrated on processing the miners’ gold into coins, while New Orleans minted both gold and silver coins to keep up with a growing America.

In 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederacy gained control of these three facilities, sporadically making Confederate coinage before converting all of them to assay offices. The U.S. regained possession of the facilities in 1862. Dahlonega never reopened, and Charlotte opened briefly in the 1870s as an assay office. The New Orleans Mint opened in 1879 to produce silver and gold coins until it stopped coining operations in 1909. Learn more here...

Are U.S. Coins and Currency Becoming Obsolete?

With the creation of checks, debit and credit cards, and electronic funds transfer technology, physical coins and currency use in everyday commerce is diminishing.

Coins and currency are used as a medium of exchange to facilitate commerce. They can also serve as a unit of account and as a store of value.

You don’t necessarily need to have custody of physical coins and currency to serve the purposes of a unit of account or store of value. Further, with the creation of checks, debit and credit cards, and electronic funds transfer technology, the use of physical coins and currency in everyday commerce is diminishing over time. In the United States, coins and currency are used in less than 10 percent of transactions.

Effectively, the U.S. dollar became the world’s reserve currency in July 1944 by agreement of the 44 nations at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, N.H. Other nations agreed to peg the values of their currencies to the U.S. dollar, with the U.S. government agreeing to redeem gold to governments and central banks at the rate of one ounce of gold for every $35 of U.S. currency tendered. In effect, this replaced the previous gold standard underlying the monetary systems of most major nations. 

Because U.S. coins and currency were then “as good as gold,” central banks flocked to add American currency to their official reserves in lieu of adding more physical gold. This increased global demand for physical U.S. currency.

However, when then-U.S. President Nixon “temporarily” closed the gold exchange window in August 1971, that started the slow process of lower international demand for U.S. coins and currency.

At one point, over 90 percent of international transactions were priced and paid in U.S. dollars. Today, the dollar is still used for about 60 percent of such commerce but is almost certain to diminish dramatically in years to come. This decline in the use of U.S. dollars had decreased the need for foreign banks and businesses to hold physical American currency.

According to the International Monetary Fund, U.S. dollar reserves (in the form of currency and U.S. Treasury debt) made up 71 percent of total central bank reserves at the end of 1999. By the end of 2020, the percentage had dropped to 59 percent. Worldwide, central banks today hold about $12 trillion of reserves, with about $7 trillion consisting of U.S. currency or U.S. Treasury debt.

A number of actions are underway around the world that will further diminish the use of U.S. coins and currency in the future.

Central banks in China and Japan are the two largest foreign holders of U.S. Treasury debt. Just over 10 years ago, China’s central bank held $1.35 trillion of U.S. currency and U.S. Treasury debt. That total is now down to $775 billion, where much of the decline has been displaced by that central bank’s purchases of physical gold. According to the Federal Reserve Bank, Japan’s central bank holdings of U.S. Treasury debt fell from $1.3 trillion in January 2022 to only $1.1 trillion in January 2023.

At the beginning of 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joined the BRICS consortium of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Palestine, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam are among more than 30 nations that have expressed interest in becoming members of this consortium. This consortium is actively working to develop an international payment system that will not use the U.S. dollar.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the U.S. and several other countries imposed economic sanctions on that nation. As a result, Russia has stopped accepting payment in U.S. dollars for its massive exports of energy, mineral, and agricultural products.

On July 1, 2024, the Bank for International Settlements announced that India, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (with Indonesia as a special observer) are planning to establish a digital instant payment system to settle transactions among the nations, avoiding the use of the U.S. dollar.

In addition, numerous nations have made bilateral agreements to make payments between them without using the U.S. dollar.

With the trend of using coins and currency in everyday commerce domestically and the surge in developing international payment systems that do not use the U.S. dollar, could U.S. coins and currency someday become obsolete?

Source

How Much Does the Weight of Coins Vary When First Minted?

 

 

This video is in response to Packing and Stacking's question "what if a few coins where minted differently and weigh more or less?'. The variance in weight of the coins from the minting process is very minimal. A coin being worn down or having something like gum stuck to it would be a much more significant change to the weight. I'm still hopeful that my theory theory might help find rolls that have silver quarters or halves. I've already abandoned the idea for dimes where the weight difference isn't significant enough and in nickels where there is no difference in weight.

The 2007 $1 Million Canadian Gold Maple Leaf

The $1 million Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin is a novelty coin, if there ever were one, and it tips the scales at a whopping 100 kilograms or about 220 pounds. Only six of the nearly pure gold coins have ever been made, as of December 2022, and each has a face value of $1 million. They were used as a promotional showpiece for the mint’s one-ounce Gold Maple Leaf coins.

In October 2007, the Guinness Book of World Records certified the coin as the world’s largest gold coin. The coin’s front shows Queen Elizabeth II, while the reverse shows a Canadian maple leaf. The coin is 50 centimeters (about 20 inches) wide and just over an inch thick.

The coin was sold at auction in 2010 for 3.27 million euros, or just over $4 million at the time. In 2017, one of the coins was stolen from a Berlin museum. Three men were convicted of the crime and sentenced to years in prison, but the coin was never recovered.

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The 723 Umayyad Gold Dinar

The 723 Umayyad gold dinar is one of the most prized Islamic coins, and it was struck from gold mined at a location owned by the caliph. The coin bears the marking “mine of the commander of the faithful” and it’s the first Islamic coin to mention a location in Saudi Arabia. About a dozen examples of the coin are in existence, according to experts.

In 2011, the coin fetched 3.7 million pounds (about $6 million) at auction, the second-most expensive ever sold at auction. In 2019, another version of the coin was sold for the same amount in pounds, but the dollar value came to about $4.8 million. Source