Coins DIG

It is easy to get started collecting these authentic artifacts of history. They are surprisingly inexpensive and you don’t have to worry about being sold a fake if you follow a few simple steps. The best investment at first would be $15.00 to $25.00 for a good general reference on ancient or Roman coins. There are three titles that represent excellent value for the price you will pay for them. These are: Handbook of Ancient Greek and Roman Coins by Zander H. Klawans, The Handbook of Roman Imperial Coins by David Van Meter, and Ancient Coin Collecting by Wayne G. Sayles.

British treasure hunters continue to strike it rich. The latest significant find consists of an extremely rare ninth century Anglo-Frisian gold solidus.

It was brought into Spink earlier this year by a lady who uncovered it in a field near Salisbury, England, in March. Once the earth had been dusted from the coin's face, she knew she had scored something special. On June 25 it was sold by Spink for a tidy £9,300.

The US state quarters are being released into circulation in several batches, with the earliest states to join the Union being released first. Each year – over a 10-year period – 5 US state quarters are minted and released.

These are commemorative quarters, one representing each state with a design on the tail to signify a distinct feature of the particular state.

Available now from the Perth Mint are two coins that are ready to slug it out against each other, like the figures they represent. The Transformers Silver Proof Collector Coins, one featuring the heroic Autobots leader Optimus Prime and the other depicting the evil Deceptacon leader Megatron, were minted with the approval of Hasbro and Dreamworks.

A hoard of gold coins found by a builder in the cellar of an Oxfordshire flat has sold at auction for £76,360.

The 400-year-old coins, minted during James I's reign, were valued by auctioneers at about £50,000 and were found in Chipping Norton 30 years ago.

They were bought by private buyers and trade dealers in a specialist coin auction in London.

The two rarest coins were sold earlier to the British Museum. There were 50 bidders for the remaining 57 coins.

Some 70 million visitors are expected to visit Shanghai in 2010 for the World Expo where China hopes to "bring the world at home, and for the world to feel at home." To celebrate the occasion, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is issuing silver and gold proof World Expo Shanghai 2010 commemorative coins.

Three coins have been struck in the first series release: a 1/3 oz, 23 mm, .999 fine gold piece denominated in 150-yuan, and two 1 oz, 40 mm, .999 silver coins with a face value of 10-yuan.

Among all the collectible items you might want to diversify your investment portfolio with, rare coins offer the most potential for profit, as there are more wealthy coin collectors than there are say, collectors of stamps, baseball cards, comic books or just about anything else.

Sadly, counterfeiters have figured this out too. A simple search on eBay and a few online auction sites show that it’s common for rare coins to attract bids of $1,000 or more — and that means huge profits for those who can pass off counterfeits bought for a few dollars as the real thing.

In keeping with this column's focus on "Basics & Beyond," this month I will go back to basics and review a Smithsonian Book written by David Ganz: Guide to Coin Collecting. Ganz is among other things a lawyer, a politician on the local level, the author of many numismatic books and articles, and "a nationally recognized numismatics expert." In other words, Ganz is definitely someone qualified to produce a coin collecting guide.

In Chapter One, Ganz starts at the very beginning, with the history of coin making. He writes, "Coinage began some 2,800 years ago in the kingdom of Lydia, located in modern-day Turkey. In Lydia, coins were made of electrum, a natural gold-and-silver alloy.&" Obviously, even at the very beginning, gold and silver were important indicators of value. In his discussion, Ganz mentions Chinese spade money, cocoa beans, and "knife money" that was used in a number of countries.

To dispel the ongoing crisis temporarily, Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FJCCI) today organised a coin fair, where Rs 8 lakh worth coins were released in the market today.

The coins were distributed among the city shopkeepers. The coin fair was jointly organised by FJCCI, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in association with Bank of India at Chamber Bhavan.