The more you know about coins, the more interesting and fun coin collecting is. The easiest place to look for information is on the Web. And then coin collecting is just a hop, skip, and a mouse-click from being as profitable as it is interesting. Some Web sites to start with include the following:
CoinFacts.com: CoinFacts.com is probably the best all-around factual Web site about U.S. coins. Each type and date of colonial, private gold, and federally issued coins are described and pictured.
CoinGrading.com: Need to learn how to grade a coin? Don’t we all! Expert coin grader and numismatist Jim Halperin’s site is a good place to begin your education.
CoinLink: CoinLink is a first-class site with plenty of well-written and interesting articles and stories about coins.
National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution: Go to this site, click on Collections, and click Coins, Currency, and Medals. Here you can find fabulous presentations about all manor of U.S. coins. The Smithsonian houses the largest and finest coin collection in the world.
NumismaLink: NumismaLink is an educational site that’s a good source of online information about coins, medals, tokens, and paper money of the world, including the United States. It lists other interesting sites, numismatic organizations, and various world mints, with an emphasis on bibliographic sources. This site is as good a place to start as any.
Numismatic Bibliomania Society: This online home of a nonprofit society promotes research and the collecting of rare and common numismatic literature, including auction catalogs, dealer price lists, periodicals, books, and other printed materials on the subjects of U.S., foreign, and ancient coins, tokens, and medals, as well as U.S., colonial, private, and broken banks, and foreign paper money.
University of Notre Dame Library: This site is a really interesting source of information about historical U.S. coins. If you’re looking for information, this site is well worth visiting.
U.S. Mint: The U.S. Mint has been issuing a flood of new commemorative coins consistently for 20 years. If you’re interested in recent modern issues, all you have to do to get in on the action is go to its Web site and see what’s new.