Collecting coins is a hobby that has been seeing a pretty big spike in popularity again over the past few years. There’s a few opinions out there on why that is, but it’s not necessarily important. What does matter is that for newcomers to the hobby-turned-investment-method, there are plenty of resources available to help them get started.
The thing is, when you’re trying to transition from a hobby collector to someone trying to create an investment out of your collection, there can be a few bumps on the road. This can be quite discouraging, to say the least. In fact, one of the hardest parts along the way can be figuring out where to buy the coins from in the first place.
Considering how a lot of us start, switching to a professional or official dealer can be quite jarring. After all, when you’re used to buying pieces from garage sales, consignment stores, or flea markets…well, other options can feel quite intimidating to say the least. Thankfully, there are ways to ease the process along, at least a little bit.
Wondering how to do that, and where to even start in your investment journey? You’ve come to the right place. These days, no one has to worry about not being able to find a place to buy their coins. Instead, it’s all about where to find the best deals for the highest quality pieces.
Why Coins?
Let’s address the elephant in the room – to some, it might seem a bit silly to invest in something like this in the first place. However, as you can see here, https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/coin-collecting-tips-for-beginners-768319, there’s actually a pretty big precedent for it. The most important thing to remember is that for investing specifically, you can’t just pick any old coin and call it a day.
Instead, it’ll mostly depend on the amount of precious metals that are in the coins themselves. Typically, it’s calculated as a percentage. That percentage will essentially tell you what the value of your piece is. Most of the time you’ll be looking for gold, but silver has some demand as well.
As far as why folks go for these over the traditional bullion, well, there are a few reasons. Perhaps the easiest way to think about it is this: how many other hobbies can be turned into stable investment ventures? There aren’t many. So, that’s the biggest motivation that folks have.
It certainly helps that precious metals are quite valuable. Because they don’t lose value over time, historically speaking, most folks view them as a safe asset to put stock into. The ability to turn something that you enjoy into a way to safely store your net worth is definitely appealing. It’s no wonder so many hobbyists are taking this approach.
How to Get Started
Most investors have one question on their minds when they’re interested in a new asset class, and that’s how to start as soon as possible. Thankfully, in this case, it’s pretty simple. You’ll want to decide what you’re going to focus on for your collection.
For instance, you may want to pick out only coins that have a certain percentage of gold so that they’re valuable on a few fronts, or do something similar with silver. You might also be interested in getting older coins that have value to other collectors – either is technically a viable strategy. However, the latter does stray a bit from precious metals, so keep that in mind.
Either way, you’ll probably want to start off a bit small. You could learn about Golden Eagle Coins and decide that you are intrigued by what they have to offer, as just one example, and from there you can pick out what you want in specific. Try not to broaden your horizons too much at first, and instead stick to a more focused approach.
This is to help ensure that you don’t get distracted or side-tracked from the initial goal that you set. Admittedly, when surrounded by pretty and shiny things, it’s pretty easy to get swept up in the moment. Just do your best not to lose sight of what you’re aiming to do, which is to store value and invest in these coins.
What it Involves
So – what else is there to know about investing in coins (and thus precious metals)? Well, something that a lot of folks seem to forget is the fact that to really become proficient at this (and eventually an expert), there’s going to be a lot of research involved. Part of that can be mitigated by the right coin dealer, but even then, there’s going to be some things that you need to know on your own.
A lot of the time, collectors need to have a grasp on things like what coins are accepted for gold IRAs, as you can see here: https://medium.com/@CanadianMint/thinking-of-becoming-a-coin-collectoede92e4f1387. Additionally, you’ll probably want to get a grasp on how the grading of coins works. Essentially, once you find your niche, try to learn as much about it as you possibly can.
Likely, that’ll involve knowing some history, specifically for the coins that you plan to buy. That way, you know what you’re getting yourself into before you actually make the purchases, right? Mainly, it’s a way to protect yourself against purchasing a fake or something that does not hold the value that the seller claims. That’s more of a risk with smaller, less reputable dealers, though.
Picking a Dealer
Now we arrive at the tricky part – picking a dealer to work with. Honestly, because there are so many out there, this can be a real pickle for veterans to the coin collection game and to newcomers. Still, there are a few strategies that you can use to make sure you’re finding the best one possible. After all, they’ll be the key to ensuring that your collection is in fact valuable.
First, think about what you want to buy. For now, we’ll use the example of gold proof coins, since they’re made specifically to sell to investors. If that’s what you’re going for, then obviously you’ll want to try to find a dealer that has those. Thankfully, that shouldn’t be too difficult, especially with some of the resources provided above.
From there, what is there to consider? Well, the quality of what they have to offer is going to be a big one, of course. If you’re ever feeling uncertain about how legit a seller is, then you might want to go online to read some reviews about them. Whether it’s from customers like you or from finance professionals, often that added perspective can help you figure out whether or not you want to commit to buying from a particular retailer.
Honestly, this is more important than ever considering how many online dealers that there are these days. Obviously, we shouldn’t go forward with the assumption that all of them are scammers – that’s just not realistic. Unfortunately, there are people out there who try to imitate legit sellers to make a quick buck. So, it is reasonable to at least approach these purchases with some caution.
Overall, though, if you start to work with a financial advisor to decide what you want to add to your investment portfolio, there’s a solid chance that they’ll recommend some form of precious metals investing. That might be buying bullion, but it could also very well be coins. Honestly, there’s a reason that more folks have started to go with the latter, and some of it really does just come down to personal enjoyment.
After all, collecting them can be both a hobby and an investment, and that’s just really appealing to folks. One of the most important parts of collecting is to pick something that you enjoy, so it makes sense that these tenets collide.