How to Determine the Value of a Coin

Video Transcript

"You've just come across a wonderful old coin. It must be valuable right because it's old? Maybe, maybe not. Hi I'm Rui and we are going to talk about how to determine the value of a coin. There are quite a few methods to determine values of coins and we're going to talk about a few of them now. One silver and cold coins are always worth more than their face value, especially the older coins so as a collector or a beginning collector those are the coins that you definitely want to start looking for. Second and this is the one that some people don't quite understand and others really find unbelievable are mint mistakes. A lot of times when these coins are minted they're minted by more recently modern times by machine so there are mint mistakes. There may be a letter missing or a number missing or what is called a double stamp where the coin is actually stamped twice at the mint. These are rare and make the coins incredibly incredibly valuable. Another thing is understand the grading system from very fine to poor and everything in between. You can basically when you look at coins you can have a look and see and see what kind of condition they are in and decide somewhere in that range of fine to very good or poor. You can pick up a blue book at any coin shop or book store. It is a coin blue book similar to the ones used for cars but they are for coins. It gives you a good value of what coins are worth. You can pick up an antique or collectibles guide and it gives you a variety of the most common type of collectible coins and gives you a good idea of their value as well. You can do some research and find coins similar to the ones that you have and see if you can look and see if they are on sale in magazines on line, newspaper classifieds and see what people are selling the coins for and it will give you a decent idea of what the value is. A certified appraisal works. That usually costs money and make sure that you know the difference between an insurance appraisal for the replacement of the coin and just an appraisal for what the actual coin is worth itself. But remember coin prices are determined basically by the market, scarcity and condition. Coins are really only worth what people will pay for them. Now this coin for instance if you have a coin similar to this one, this is a 1962 50 cent cameo piece and it is in incredible condition. You could use an antiques and collectible guide because it is a common coin or you can use a coin blue book value and you can look this coin up. I looked up this coin and a coin in this condition is probably valued at about $65 to $70 so it is actually, once you know what the coin is and you are a pretty good judge of the condition of the coin, it is actually pretty easy to determine the value of these coins. Again I'm Rui and good luck collecting."