So as most of you have probably noticed last weeks Numismatic Tools Of The Trade is a little late. As the saying goes though better late than never. Without further ado here we go. This weeks subject is my Superior Master-25 Gun Safe or in my case coin safe. I spent a lot of time researching gun safes and that research led me to the champion and superior safe company (they are both the same company just diffenet product lines). If you have been in a sporting goods, hardware, or big box store recently you probably have seen a gun safe or at least a little home safe. After my research I found that just because they have a big name behind them, have nice plush interiors, or look very secure they aren’t necessarily the best choice. lets start with the small home safes first and foremost if you don’t bolt them down the thief will just carry them off with no real effort. The second issue is that the steel on them is usually so thin that I have seen people cut them open with a standard circular saw. With those kinds of draw backs and the fact that my collection is always growing I quickly moved on to looking at gun safes. Here is where things get tricky. So you are at your local sporting goods store and you see the gun safes. You think well today is the day that I pick one out. You take a good look at them all and with security on your mind you probably gravitate to the one with thickest door and while your brain is on the right track you have just been tricked. These company’s use the trick words composite door a lot. The company’s that make these trickery safes know that security is important for this product but people will always be enticed by a low price so they meet our brains halfway. They keep the metal content down to lower price while giving the illusion that there is more there then their really is. That is what a composite door is, it may look like it is 1” or maybe even 2” thick but in reality it is only a thin piece of sheet metal wrapped around some fire resistant sheet rock. The Problem with this illusion is that when a criminal starts to pry on a composite door that sheet metal will give with just a little bit of effort. This is one of the main reasons I went with the Superior safe master series because the door starts with a 3/8” steel plate. Then they add two sheets of fire resistant sheet rock and a 12 GA. Steel sheet to finish if off. The whole door edge is also increased in material and construction to help prevent pry attacks compared to the competition. The body at 10 GA. Steel is also above the average most box store gun safes. So remember always compare and do your research before making such a big investment. Also remember that if you have one of these composite door safes it is not the end of the world you just need to take extra steps to preventing the worst case scenario.

With this blog for the most part I will be staying away from books and magazines just for the reason that there are so many out there. They are all great and have valuable information that is needed to be a successful numismatist but a Morgan Dollar book is not much use to a large cent collector. So listing a lot of books that not everyone will be interested in or use is not the point of this blog. With that being said I did have to start this blog out with the red book just because it is the main general source of information about U.S. coins. If you are collecting any U.S. coins at all this is a reference that you have to have on your book shelf. As most of you that are reading this know the red book comes in many different versions every year and are always well worth the low cover prices. I myself prefer the deluxe editions as they contain more information overall and every year they focus even extra information on a single �denomination. The one in the photos focuses on cents but I am longingly waiting for the dollar version to come out in about three years. For those of us that would prefer not to have to drag an Encyclopedia with us every where we go they also make a regular hard cover and spiral bound edition. They contain enough information that you will be covered in the field but will be missing some more advanced data. If you are currently using the regular edition I would definitely recommend checking out the deluxe edition the next time you see a copy.

I have just recently decided to start a set of $2.50 Gold Indians. It is a short run of 15 coins with only one expensive key date. I think it will be a fun and rewarding short term goal set. Well short term if you define it as a couple of years but definitely a lot less time than it will take to finish my Morgan Dollar set. I have posted pictures of my first coin for the set below.

I was recently looking up what most people claim is a complete date & mint set of Morgan Dollars and exactly how many coins that was total. The answer of 97 puzzled me because even if I included the 1878 7 Tail Feathers & 1878 8 Tail Feathers that would only add up to 96 coins total. �Which is one short of the 97 coins total everyone is talking about. My only guess is that they are also counting the 1895 proof only issue which would put most of the coin collecting community out of reach of a complete set. �My interpretation is that a compete Morgan Dollar date & mint set is 95 coins total. One coin from each year & mint excluding 1895 Proof only and one of the 1878 Tail Feathers. Which I know the two Tail Feather varieties are very important issues for the series but lets be honest no one would knock you for only having one or the other if you had the rest of the set. In closing this just goes to show that you should not collect how other people tell you too but how you want too. I am building a Morgan Dollar set of 121 coins consisting of only one proof, each date & mint mark, and major varieties. If you get a chance go to my collections and check out my progress so far on my Morgan Dollar set.

If you are like most collectors you wish that there was a convenient, easy to use, and most importantly portable way to inventory your collection. I am here to say that I have also been looking for that one great software or app to get the job done and I think I have found a couple of options that you might like. Now I know I will get some backlash for this but neither of my choices are Collector's Assistant. This might be a wonderful software but for me price was a little to much $100 out of the box compared to $50 for CD of what I have, even cheaper if you download the digital version or go with the app.The first software I am going to talk about is Liberty Street Software's CoinManage. This coin software is very flexible and configurable. It's key features are a large database of U.S. coins, PCGS slabbed coins can be automatically entered with just the scan of the bar-code, comes with built in reports or make your own custom reports, and can be loaded on any windows laptop. This software runs on window vista, 7, 8 & 10. You can find it on Amazon, Liberty Streets website, or eBay. It cost around $50 for the CD, $70 if you want U.S., Canada, U.K. database, or $90 if you want CoinManage Deluxe and CurrancyManage.The Second one I am going talk about is an Apple & Mac app called US Coin Plus. This app is also very flexible and configurable. It's key features are a large database of U.S. coin that is ever expanding with frequent updates, auto updates to the bullion value, comes with built in reports or make your own custom reports, can be backed up to the cloud and restored to any other Apple device, and can be loaded to any Apple iPad, iPhone, or Mac. You can find it in the App Store for $6.99 and in the future there may be some in app purchases for upgrades. This is currently what I use since I always have my iPhone with me and can check my want list and coins I already have.