Worth It

A few well-known gold coins.

Note, in view of comments received – I’m tired of explaining:
Please do not get hurt / upset / tense by the way I handle the coins.
These are common BULLION coins, they are NOT rare / collectors / numismatic coins.

That means their only value is in their weight, not their face condition.
It means that they are handled and traded heavily by bullion dealers and (within reason) their face condition does not affect premium or spot price.
Bullion coins and bars are traded for gold content and weight, not surface condition. All bullion is handled unprotected – because it’s sold in large quantities, individual coins are not slabbed or protected.
Every coin I buy has been handled/stacked/tipped/wrapped in rolls by previous bullion dealers, and most are heavily marked by handling. When buying bullion, this is really not a problem.

If you’re concerned about numismatic value/face condition of coins, don’t buy bullion!

And there are plenty of videos on youtube with coins in plastic slabs, you’ll be happier there.

Hope that clears things.

Duration : 0:9:51

(more…)

A fast-food cup leaked in my car, and the soda dried on the coins. I then put them in a cup of water to try to get the soda to dissolve, which it did for the most part. Now they’re all… oxidized? I don’t know if that’s the right word. Anyway, I was hoping there was a simple answer that didn’t involve expensive polish for collecter coins. These are just normal pocket change coins. Thanks!

I don’t think I am ever drinking Coke again!!

Is there a strategy to getting higher quality coins from the mint?

It’s like anything else, it’s just a matter of luck. While large coin dealers do buy in large quantities and usually first strike sets, they tend to get the better ones. But just because they are the first ones minted doesn’t really mean anything as the mint changes to new dies often.

I have bought bags of coins from the mint and can go through 250 coins and find only one or two that would grade at a 69 or 70. so one never knows.

Wheat Pennies, Indian Head Pennies and my 1838 large cent.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE REST OF MY COLLECTION, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AS I WILL BE RELEASING THE REST OF THE VIDEO’S IN THE FUTURE!

Duration : 0:3:51

(more…)

Getting a single pound coin to stand on its side without falling is hard enough, but to get 10,000 of them set up as dominoes you’d have to be insane

Duration : 0:2:20

(more…)

I just heritated a coin collection,with some old coins dating between early 1700 and 1945,i have some bronze,copper,silver and other material coins.But all of this coins are pretty rusty,and I don’t know how to clean them,I’ve heard Coca Cola works pretty well,but i don’t know for which type of metal this works.
I have no idea how to take care of this coins,any help would be extremely appreciated.
Thank you.

Please, please, please do not do anything at all to your coins especially with a wire brush.

Cleaning coins devalues them and collectors will not purchase cleaned coins.

As coins get older they develop what is called a patina, this protects the coin and sometimes is very attractive.

Coin collectors are constantly telling stories of people who have inherited a collection, then cleaned them thus destroying the collection.

A coins value is determined by its condition as well as rarity, cleaning a coin does not restore a coin, like cleaning car tyres will not put back rubber and actually damages the condition that collectors are looking for.

The copper coins with green stuff on them, separate those out, this is called verdigris and is commonly known as coin cancer, it is not worth trying to do anything about this unless it is a particularly rare coin.

Buy some coin albums, place the coins into them, join some online forums about coins, cannot suggest which as I do not know the country or countries your coins are from but you will find out about your collection and how to look after it, including proper handling and storage.
Failing that your local coin dealer can do a valuation for you, they may charge for this though.

Some coins and banknotes have unusual denominations. For example, there are coins of 4 doubles and 8 doubles in Guernesey, coins of 4 taris in Sicilia, 6 roubles, 15 kopecks, there are banknotes of 3 roubles. These values (4, 6, 8 and 15) are not common for coins and 3 is not common for a banknote. Do you know other coins and notes with odd denominations?

As BD in NM wrote the U.S. has had some strange denominations. He did not mention the 2 1/2, 3 and 4 dollar gold coins. One thing about other countries what may seem an odd figure to us is not to the people living there. Back in the days of state sanctioned banks, the ones before the Civil war, $3, $4 and $7 bills were not uncommon. The big thing today is coins from countries that don’t exist. They are selling coins from Atlantis and the like. There is even paper money from the Antarctic. See if a library near you has the Krause/Mishler Standard Catalogs of world coins. The 1601-1700, 1701-1800 and the 1801-1900 volumes are a great place to find the odd denominations. They used to take the Spanish colonial coins and divide them up in to 8 parts and each part was worth 12 1/2 cents American. That is also how the coin became known as a pieces of 8. Coinage is an interesting thing to study for you can learn a lot about a country and what happened at certain times. The U.S. 3 cent piece showed up, because sending a letter went up to 3 cents. Most odd denomination money was made for a reason, some practical and many not.

How It’s Made

Duration : 0:5:10

(more…)

THE COUNTERFEIT COINS

You are presented with eleven stacks of silver dollars, each consisting of ten coins. One entire stack is counterfeit, but you do not know which one. You do know the weight of a genuine silver dollar and you are also told that each counterfeit coin weighs one gram more than it should. You may weigh the coins on a pointer scale (i.e. a scale that gives the exact weight of what is placed on it).

What is the smallest number of weighings necessary to determine which stack is bogus?

You can do this all in one weighing.

Take 1 coin from the first pile, 2 coins from the second, 3 coins from the third, etc. Don’t take any from the 11th pile.

That will give you 55 coins.

If the reading is accurate (the expected weight) for all 55, that tells you that pile 11 has the counterfeit coins. Otherwise the difference from the expected reading tells you the pile #.

If the reading is off by 1g, that tells you that pile 1 has the counterfeit coins (since you took *one* coin from that pile).

If the reading is 2g over, pile 2 has the counterfeit coins.

etc.

Answer:
One weighing.
Take 1, 2, 3, … , 10 coins respectively from the first ten piles.