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Jan
23
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Rare coin collecting is a popular hobby and a great way to make an investment in the future, but some people don’t even know where to begin. Well, one of the best places to begin building a collection of rare coins is in your own home. It’s true! You may have some great rare coins in your home without even knowing it.
You should sort through your change jar every once in a while, looking for particularly old coins. Although you aren’t terribly likely to find a very valuable coin that has been circulating for a couple of years, you really never know what’s out there. In fact, even some of the state quarters can be worth fifty dollars or so. For instance, some Wisconsin state quarters have an extra leaf on the corn, and they can be worth quite a bit more than twenty-five cents.
Once you get done with that, start looking in places that might house older coins. If there are boxes of keepsakes in your attic or basement, check there. Check in old jewelry doors and hatboxes or anywhere else that someone may have tossed extra change fifty years ago.
Also, check around with your older friends and relatives. If they have jars of coins that have been sitting around for ages, which is not uncommon, they may contain some very valuable coins. When you do this, though, be sure that you’re being fair to the actual owners of the coins. You could either offer to buy the coins from them for a fair price or, after having them appraised, split the proceeds if you decide to go ahead and sell them.
While you aren’t likely to find a coin worth a thousand dollars in your coat pocket, you could certainly make some money by searching through your change. Once you find coins that you think could be valuable, you should try to take them to a coin show to get them appraised. Be sure that the appraiser is really taking time to look at the coins, since sometimes they will flippantly move through coins at a large show simply because they see so many.
If you can, try to arm yourself with information about the coin before you get it appraised. You’ll want to know what type of coin it is, and if you can find it, also look at the date it was minted and its mintmark, which tells you which city it’s from. This information will help you get a ballpark value for the coin.