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When it comes to starting a coin collection, there are two key questions you need to ask yourself:

1. What kinds of coins am I going to collect?
2. How will I obtain the coins for my collection?

[edit] What kinds of coins am I going to collect?

You’d think that most collectors seriously ponder question #1 before they start collecting. Not true. I know I didn’t. When I began collecting at age nine, I collected anything that was “old” (in my case, any coin that was older than 1960) and anything that was “unusual,” (that would be any coin my Navy father brought back from a foreign country). In other words, my collection had no focus— it was a hodge-podge of “wheatback” Lincoln cents I’d gotten in cafeteria change, pre-1965 Jefferson nickels, and some 1960's coins from the Phillipines, Hong Kong and Japan. After a while, I added some “old” U.S. coins that my parents helped me buy from a local coin shop and from a Boy Scout magazine ad: a 1942 Mercury dime, a 1935 Buffalo nickel and two Indian Head cents dated 1906 and 1907.

True, my collection had no focus, no “theme.” A coin collecting purist would have told me that I SHOULD have collected with a focus in mind– perhaps a collection of Lincoln cents, every date and every mintmark, until I had a complete set. But you know what, I enjoyed my hodge-podge of a collection, and that, in my opinion, is what collecting is all about! If your collection grows astronomically in value along the way and makes you a handsome profit eventually, great. If not, the enjoyment of the hobby should be a reward anyway!

You may NOT want to begin your collection with a motley group of coins with no theme. All I can say is, beginning that way helped me to EVENTUALLY find a theme and focus: a collection of all the major U.S. coin types from 1793 to present. However, you may decide you really like one particular U.S. coin type or SERIES, say the Mercury dimes. If so, you might decide to collect every date (1916-45) AND every mintmark from the Mercury dime series. Many do collect this way and find great satisfaction in completing a series collection.

There are INNUMERABLE types of collections one can build. We’ve already mentioned the “hodge-podge,” (which I guess is a theme in itself) and the series collection. Other ways to collect U.S. coins could be as follows: denomination types (for instance, all the cent types struck from 1793 to present), odd denomination types (half cents, two-cent pieces, three-cent pieces, twenty cent pieces), a U.S. coin from every decade 1790's to present, etc. Just use your imagination!

[edit] How do I obtain the coins for my collection?

When starting a coin collection, the most common advice is to look through your pocket change– or better yet, rolls from the bank!. Which is actually good advice– you pick up coins for your collection at face value. It’s actually how I started collecting coins– looking for old “wheatback” Lincoln cents in my school cafeteria change. Not only that, today, in 2006, there’s more U.S. coins to collect from pocket change than there have been in years! Besides the old stand-bys of Lincoln cents and Roosevelt dimes and Kennedy half dollars, we now have SIX different types of Jefferson nickels, we’re closing in on 30 different state quarter designs, we have the gold-colored sacagawea dollar, and THAT will soon be joined by a series of Presidential dollars– each U.S President to get their own dollar coin!

Another way to obtain collectible coins is through inheritance. Simply put, someone in your family kept a few old coins, possibly even a collection, and those coins are passed down to you. Some of us are fortunate enough to obtain collectible coins this way, but not most of us. Even if you were able to inherit some old coins, they may not be the type you like to collect.

An exciting way to obtain old, collectible coins is to dig them up yourself! This is where a good metal detector comes in handy. And absolutely, old coins can be found this way. But it helps to be skilled at using a metal detector. Not only that, even when you DO find a good place to dig for old coins, you must secure the proper permission from the property owner! And even if you DO have a good metal detector, are skilled at using it, have found a good place to dig AND have secured permissions, it still often takes hard work and patience to find and dig up old coins.

So when it comes to obtaining older U.S. coins (pretty much any pre-1940 cent or nickel, any pre-1965 dime, quarter or half dollar) or older world coins, most of us have to buy them. This bothers a lot of folks initially (“Gee, I have to BUY my coins??”), but it shouldn’t. Any antique will cost some money, and coins should be no different. There are coins out there to meet EVERY kind of budget, and just remember, an old coin is not necessarily an expensive coin.

An entire book could be written on the art of buying coins. My advice is, start slowly, ESPECIALLY if you are eyeing your coins as a long-term investment. The more reading you do, the smarter, more informed your coin buys will be. Have fun. Make some small purchases at first of coins that look interesting to you. Then do some more reading and see if you are satisfied with your purchase. Familiarize yourself with grading-- what does a "Good" coin look like; what does a "Fine" coin look like; what does "Uncirculated" look like? This web site is an excellent place to get started. Happy hunting!

[edit] What causes prices to go up?

I will attempt to answer this question by asking another question: What causes anything to increase in value? Answer: Supply and demand. If you had a coin which was unique in all the world and no other person wanted it, then its value would be almost nothing, but if ten millionaires wanted this coin and were bidding against each other the price would be very high.

Since the beginning of coin collecting there has been a steady increase in the number of collectors or an increase in demand. By the same token there has been a steady decrease in the supply due to coins lost in fires, lost at sea, buried and never located, melted for bullion, etc. So we have an increase in demand and a decrease in supply, followed by a price rise.

In a few cases coins have decreased in value due to decreased interest in the particular series. These same coins may or may not pick up this lost value at some future date.