Coin Values
What Are Factors That Affect The Value Of Coins?
When you are just starting in collecting coins, often the first question is: “What is the value of the coin?” The answer is, the coin will cost as much as you want to pay for it and the amount can vary considerably. For instance, a coin dealer can offer can be much less than a coin collector that really wants your coin badly to add to their collection.
The following are factors that can influence coin values.
1. Grade or condition of the coin. Your coin will be worth or valued more when it is in good condition. When in a perfect or unblemished mint condition, an “uncirculated” coin will be worth much more than a similar coin that has been in circulation.
2. The rarity of a coin is the principal basis for a coins value. Generally, the more rare a coin is determined to be, the higher it’s price. Do keep in mind that rarity has little influence on the coins age. Chinese coins are a thousand years old usually sell for about ten dollars because there are so many of them; while a “1913 Liberty Head Nickel” can sell for up to or over a million dollars because only 5 specimens are known to be in existence.
3. Bullion value. A coin’s precious metal content can also determine its value. A platinum, silver or gold coin won’t, in general sell for less than the coins value when melted.
4. Demand. There are coins that are in huge demand; sought out by many collectors, and if a particular coin is in huge demand the price will be even greater. Even comparatively plentiful coins can demand higher value when they are popular amongst coin collectors.
For example, “1916 D dimes” are way more abundant than the “1798 dimes” yet in spite of this, “1916 D dimes” sell for so much more since there are many more people collecting 20th century dimes than 1700 dimes.
So in conclusion coins value fluctuates depending on the state of things in the world of coin collecting. I can’t sleep at times because of the ups and downs. I’ll get over it though. You may want to consider getting legal protection in case you run into a fruadulent coin dealer. Prepaid legal services can help. Happy collecting.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 3:43 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.