Where do you look for coins?

Here are some of the most common places to find coins for your collection. Keep a sharp lookout though- coins can often turn up in the most unexpected places: on the ground, in an attic or basement, or any forgotten corner. In general, these are good places to start:

Coins that you get back when you buy something will occasionally contain an interesting piece. Many countries' currencies resemble each other in size, shape, weight, and color so people often mistake them for their own country's currency. Also, older coins with a slightly different design than the current ones or just a very old or rare date will be overlooked as well.

Bank rolls will occasionally have the odd or unique piece in there, too. You can request rolls from the bank, search through them, then cash them back in again. However, they're inconvenient to deal with for the most part- many banks don't like to deal with loose change and some banks will only accept loose change at certain hours on certain days so they can turn it into rolls. (If your local bank does take loose change, find out the times they take it and ask if they have machines that count out the coins and put them in rolls. The machines are fun to watch!) You could also turn them in at a Coinstar machine; they're often located in supermarkets. You do lose a small amount of the money as a processing fee, but it sorts out the change and gives you a receipt that you can take to the service desk to redeem. If you need to get rolls of quarters for laundry, they can be useful for finding silver quarters or state quarters. Otherwise, bank rolls are useful only if you can't get access to large numbers of coins any other way.

Mint bags are the same idea as bank rolls- you can buy a bag of coins straight from the mint and pick out any that are valuable somehow (double strikes, off center strike, etc) and then cash in the rest. The idea of this one is that while the coins are technically "circulated", they will not have the wear and tear that comes from heavy circulation, so they will be in better shape and fetch a better price than coins that have been circulating for a long time. This can get expensive, it can take a long time for the order to arrive, and since they're all of very similar quality it takes very careful searching to pick out the unusual ones, so it's not recommended for absolute beginners.

Penny dishes ("Take a penny, leave a penny") are a good place to look for Lincoln wheat cents. Cans used to collect money for charity causes often end up receiving foreign coins that people want to get rid of, but be sure to ask before sifting through them. A good policy I found was to offer to replace any foreign or interesting coins with a current American equivalent, and to search through them in front of a witness. They still have their money, and you get a coin for a very reasonable price. This also works for the next item below.

If you work in fast food, retail, or transportation businesses that deal with a lot of small change (toll booths, transit stations, etc.) you will all see a huge amount of coins pass your way during the workday. I found lots of interesting world and American money while working in fast food. Again, always be sure your boss knows that you're a coin collector, that you replace whatever you take out with current money, and that you search for coins in front of a witness or you could be accused of theft.

Coin shops are an excellent source, although they can be overwhelming the first couple times you go in. They'll often have bins of cheap, common coins (5 for $.25 or something similar) or they'll have many examples of the same coin at different price ranges. I once spent close to an hour poring over various walking liberty half dollars before deciding on one that was in good enough condition and that I could afford. You can often find decent examples of many coins for under $10.

The phone book is best for finding local coin and antique shops. If there is a local coin collecting club, it may be listed there as well. Yahoo yellow pages will do just as well as a phone book, with the added advantage of being able to search places outside your local calling area. The web is also a very good source for finding local, national, and international coin collecting info. You can also use the web to find contact info for magazines, clubs, dealers, auctions, and sites. There's more on this in the links section.

There is also a book, entitled The Official Whitman Coin Dealer Directory that lists dealers, mints, wholesalers, and paper money dealers by state. It retails for about $5.95 and can be found in coin shops and maybe some of the larger bookstores.

There are also several sites that have online dealer directories. See the links main page for a short list of the best sites.

Antique shops and pawn shops will often have a small coin selection. However, these shops do not specialize in coins so they often may not have the variety or the quality that you're looking for. Since they don't specialize in coins, they may also overcharge you if they don't properly assess the value of the coin. Then again, they may undercharge, too. Some people even make this their specialty: they search for valuable coins that have been underpriced because the dealer didn't recognize its value. (This is called "cherrypicking".) It's definitely a case of "let the buyer beware"- if you're going to get into serious coin collecting, make sure you have a fairly good idea of what the price ranges for a particular coin should be before you buy it. My advice to beginners is to stick to the relatively cheap coins. This can mean either the ones in the bargain bins, or even a nice example of a more common coin.

Flea markets can be a treasure trove. You can "cherrypick" here, as well, but to do so successfully, you'll need to be well-informed on the current prices of coins and have a pretty good eye for grading. Beginners can use flea markets to fill out dates in a series or find cheap coins from other countries.

Friends and family, especially those living abroad, can be a great help to a beginning coin collector. They may have some unusual coins set aside already that they would be willing to give to you to get your collection started, or they may just be an extra set of eyes keeping a lookout for something interesting that comes along.

Auctions, particularly online auctions, are becoming increasingly popular with collectors. I would recommend them with some hesitation for beginners since there is the chance of getting scammed. For more details, read the Ebay question. (See the links section for online auction houses.)

Coin shows are a great option, but not one I'd recommend to the beginner. It requires a fair amount of preparation to make the most out of them. However, if you feel up to the challenge, take a look at I'm going to my first coin show: what do I do? for ideas on how to get ready for one. The site CoinShows lists shows by state (US) and by country.