NGC and PCGS Special Grading Label Elements
Coin collectors frequently use coin grading services to authenticate and grade their coins to establish their value and certify the grading results. Part of that process involves returning the grad...
New Zimbabwe “Bond Notes” Take Familiar Path
Not content to run a country without its own money, Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe came up with a new scheme to invent a currency with his nation’s name on it. In November 2016, the African Export...
coin collectingCoin collecting is fun! For more than 2,000 years, coins have been meticulously spent and collected. Some coins have value that far exceeds its currency. Plus, a coin collection is a...
Is There a Fortune in Your Pocket?An extremely rare mismatched Sacagawea dollar coin sold for $120,000 at auction on January 10, marking the third time this variety, known as a “mule coin,” has top...
After internal strife and the murder of Joseph Smith, Jr. by an angry mob in Illinois in 1844, his successor, Brigham Young, led a group of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) faithful 1,100 miles across th...
Mixed Loose Natural Faceted GemstonesPrecious and semiprecious gemstones have been given for centuries as ways to commemorate birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions. They are even co...
Popular Coins to Collect in Circulation Today
If your tastes run more toward prospecting than purchasing, you’ll be pleased to know that there are plenty of collectible coins still in circulation. There may even be a few diamonds-in-the-roughs...
Platinum vs Palladium – Precious Metals to Invest In
Platinum and palladium are two precious metals often overlooked by investors who prefer sticking with the more familiar gold and silver. However, both metals offer potential rewards to investors wh...
Paper Currency vs. Metal Coins
Metal coins have been around for thousands of years. They’re small, convenient, and easy to recognize. And until recently, they usually represented a specific amount of precious or semi-precious me...
Obsolete US Coins - Trade Dollars
Since its inception in 1792, the US Mint has produced several coins that are no longer in circulation. With the exception of gold coins nearly all were small denominations that fell out of favor fo...
Obsolete US Coins, Three-Cent Silver "Fish Scales
Before the three-cent nickel, there was the “fish scale,” so-called because the coin was so small a few laid on a counter would resemble the rough skin of a fish. Why Three Cents? In the early 1800...
Obsolete US Coins - The Twenty-Cent Piece: 1875-1878
The Twenty-Cent Piece: 1875-1878 Some coins outlive their usefulness—two- and three-cent coins, for example. Others, like the half dime, are replaced by newer versions. And some were simply bad ide...
Obsolete US Coins: The Half Dime-1792-1873
Wait! you say. Half a dime is 5¢ and that’s a nickel, isn’t it? Well, that wasn’t always the case. When the US Mint opened in 1792, the coins it was tasked with producing included several that are ...
Obsolete US Coins-The Half Cent Copper: 1793-1857
In 1792 a US cent was worth about 20¢ in today’s money. By 1850 it had peaked at just under 26¢ making a half cent equivalent to today’s dime or more. And since commodities typically const only a f...
Since its inception in 1792, the US Mint has produced several coins that are no longer in circulation. Some were too similar to other coins and caused confusion, others were unpopular and had littl...
Notorious Counterfeiters - The Omega Man Mystery
Most counterfeiters achieve their notoriety after they have been apprehended and identified. But the identity of one master counterfeiter of US gold coins remains unknown to this day. Known as The ...