How The Hobby of Collecting Coins Began

Very few things tell more about a country inof art as well as a collection of valuable legal
fewer words than the coins it produces. Coinstender, is widely thought to have begun with
hold a wealth of information on their small faces,Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, who is often
from the year of their birth to the languagecalled the father of the Renaissance. Although
spoken at the time, from the metals a countrythere is reason to believe that Roman emperors
holds valuable to the cultural influences andand citizens paid prices higher than face value for
historical figures that its people hold valuable. Coinscoins that were no longer in circulation, Petrarch
can also be strikingly beautiful in their own right,was known to be an avid collector, and often
with the top designers of a nation striving to havespoke of his collection in his writing. During the
their motif chosen for immortality on the face ofRenaissance, popes and nobility began collecting
a coin. With so much information and beautycoins for their artistic and historical value, and the
contained in so small a package, it is no surprisename "the hobby of kings" was born. So popular
that coin collecting has been a hobby nearly aswas the pursuit and trade of ancient Greek and
long as the concept of coins themselves. AnRoman coins in this time period, that a brisk
understanding of the long history of coin collecting,business in high-quality counterfeits sprang into
once known as "the hobby of kings," will makebeing. Today, these counterfeits even have a high
this pastime even more enjoyable.value, due to their age, quality, and historical
The Origin of Coins and Coin Collecting The hobbysignificance.
of coin collecting began nearly as soon as the firstCoin Collecting in Modern Times Coin collecting has
coins were minted in Asia Minor, around 650 B.C.been a favorite pastime of many people with a
Before that time, gold and silver ingots were thereverence for history, including U.S. Presidents
most common form of legal tender. BecauseThomas Jefferson and John Adams. The
there was no standard, however, each tradedevelopment of two large coin organizations in the
necessitated a careful weighing and examinationmid-to-late 1800s, the American Numismatic
of the precious metals being offered, and it wasSociety (ANS) and the American Numismatic
easy for unscrupulous merchants to pass off aAssociation (ANA), helped spark American interest
lesser quality of gold in trade. Coins, which werein building and maintaining a coin collection. Today,
printed on standardized weights of preciousthere has been an explosion in American interest
metals and stamped with a governmentin coin collecting, in large part due to the ease and
guarantee of value, was the answer to thisavailability of obtaining interesting coins. The U.S.
unwieldy, easily sabotaged trading process. WithinMint has successfully increased interest in starting
one hundred years, the concept of coins hada coin collection through the minting of specialty
been adopted by all of the major trading cities incoins, such as the bicentennial half dollars released
the civilized world.in 1976 and the current release of quarters
At the beginning, coin collecting had a verycommemorating each of the fifty states.
practical reason - there were no banks in which toCoins and Coin Collecting,
store money. People hoarded coins as a way ofYour guide to getting the very best from your
safeguarding their wealth. Those coins that werecoin collection.
especially beautiful were hoarded the longest,Coin collecting can be started as simply as getting
often being passed down within families.a special state quarter for your birthday. Or you
Coin Collection in Renaissance Times Modern coinmay use a coin collection to help you visualize the
collecting, where the coins are viewed as a workhistory of your state or country.