Silver – The Poor Man’s Gold

One of the best coins to begin your coin collecting with, is the buffalo nickel. This particular nickel was minted from the years 1913 to 1938. It was the first time that the image of an American Indian was placed on US coinage, and therefore it is also called the Indian head nickel. Many people also consider this to be one of the best designed coins in US history. So, if you are looking to add one of these to your collection; where do you look?

If your collection is like most, it will have a lot of wheat back Lincoln cents (1909 to 1958), common silver coins, and proof sets. Most dealers pay two to three cents each for common wheat back cents. They will pay more if you separate out the early rarer dates, such as, 1909-S, 1911-S, 1913-S, 1914-D, 1931-S and others. Use your Red Book to identify the more expensive dates.

(Q) If gold is fluctuating wildly in price I don’t want my new buy order to be held up with some sign up procedures. If one of our readers wants to open an account at BullionVault, how long does your sign up, fund and buy process usually take?

“>coin dealer Kernersville near you, or a coin show, go. Browse, ask questions, get to know the proprietors and learn. You don’t have to buy anything. Get to know what you’re doing first.

(Q) If I send BV a million US dollars tomorrow and buy gold and a month through some act of God, your company fails, where does my gold ownership stand? Is there a permanent record located with a audited third party where I could claim my proper ownership?

The second value is the precious metal value of the coin. For instance pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and nickels actually have a high content of silver. The use of silver was discontinued in this coinage because the cost of the metal rose to the point that the metal content of the coin was worth more than the face value. Many of us can remember the same thing happening to the price of copper and the changing of the metal content in a penny to compensate for the rising cost of the precious metal in 1982.

This low-tech coin collecting method is not fancy but it will get you started finding coins worth collecting without a lot of trouble. If you find coin collecting enjoyable and decide to keep going it will be time well spent.