Buying rare coins isn’t monkey business! It takes a lot of money and even more guts to lay out hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a single coin, of course, unless you’re rolling in dough and have plenty of pretty pennies to spend on buying a pretty penny.
However, having bought a few pretty pennies myself, I’ve learned a lot about what goes into making a decision to buy a rare coin, and that you don’t want to just go dropping $500 or $1,000 (or much more) on buying rare U.S. coins unless you’re knowledgeable about the rare coin you wish to buy.
Here are 5 lessons I’ve learned about buying rare coins that I wish to share with you:
- Don’t go buying rare coins until you know more about what you want.
They always say buy the book before the coin. Why’s that? Because the rare coin market is full of counterfeits, and many of these fake coins can look quite convincing to the unassuming coin buyer. For example, there are only four “types” of 1909-S VDB pennies that can be authentic (based on placement of the S mintmark, shape of the S, and other characteristics)Read more: 5 Important Things I Learned About Buying Rare Coins