A few decades ago, in the 1950s, the typical coin buyer was a numismatist. According to the best tradition, a numismatist was and is a person who buys coins for the intellectual satisfaction they provide. To the numismatist, the 1882-CC silver dollar is indeed a footprint of history, a footprint stamped directly upon a pile of silver ore brought up from the earth beneath the Nevada sagebrush.

To the numismatist, a 1787 copper coin bearing the imprint AUCTORI CONNEC (which translates to "by the authority of Connecticut") evokes images of that time shortly after the American Revolution when individual states had the right to coin money, and Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey did so.

In the case of Connecticut and certain other states, the job of minting was farmed out to independent contractors who at first produced coins struck from dies prepared with care, with many fine details, but who in the absence of legislative oversight later became careless and turned out poorly-struck pieces of light weight. As several hundred different dies were employed to produce Connecticut coins from 1785 to 1788, the numismatist can enjoy taking a magnifying glass to closely inspect the surfaces of this particular 1787 coin and to identify its specific variety according to a technical work on the series, The State Coinages of New England, written by Henry C. Miller and Hillyer C. Ryder and published in 1920 by the American Numismatic Society.

A few decades ago the average numismatist would eagerly pore through the pages of The Numismatist and The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine, enjoying the research articles therein. The discovery of a new variety such as the 1955 Doubled Die cent was a cause for excitement, and it was hobby-wide news when a new overdate, die combination, or other variety was first publicized. Changes in pricing came slowly, usually on a yearly basis. Each summer a new edition of A Guide Book of United States Coins was released, and every summer the typical collector would go through his record book and mark up the price changes which had occurred during the preceding 12 months.

Coin investment was popular then, as it had been for most of the preceding century. However, coin investment was considered as a side benefit to collecting. Forming a meaningful collection was most important, and investment benefits came naturally as part of the package.