Also, remember that there is no hurry to spend your money. Take all the time you need to check a seller's references carefully. With relatively few exceptions, coins available today will still be available at the same price next month. Don't buy in haste, and if you are just beginning your interest in rare coins, by all means don't buy anything on someone's investment recommendation unless you independently verify the price, grade, and market potential. Remember that anyone who cares to have a few business cards printed can call himself a professional numismatist; there are no rules against this.

On the plus side of the ledger, once you have found a firm with which you want to do business, you have the opportunity to build a fine relationship which will last many years.

Dealing With Dealers

In terms of the total volume of business transacted, the most popular way to acquire coins is by direct purchases from dealers. It has been estimated that there are over 6,000 people in the United States alone who designate themselves as dealers, or professional numismatists. Some individuals sell coins only on a part-time basis at club meetings, coin shows, and elsewhere, while others are part of large companies with an international clientele.

As I noted earlier, before you buy coins from any source it is a good idea to have some general idea of what to pay, and how rare the pieces are that you seek.

Prices are not precise, and virtually all older coins trade within a range. For a given Morgan dollar, prices can often be found ranging from, say, $200 to $275. It will pay you to investigate this and other situations. Is the $200 coin unattractive, poorly struck, or otherwise not as desirable as one priced at $250 or $275? Is the $275 piece an aesthetically pleasing coin which stands as one of the finest of its issue, or is it simply overpriced? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions.

If a coin is common and is traded frequently, then there is no hurry to buy it, and you can investigate at leisure. In the Morgan silver dollar series about half of the different issues are readily obtainable, therefore you can pick and choose. Continuing the same example, among rarities in the Morgan dollar series, such as 1889-CC, 1892-S, and 1893-S, top grade specimens do not come along with frequency, and a purchase decision may have to be made quickly. Still, you want to be sure of paying somewhere within a reasonable price range.