American Numismatic Association

25 Sep 2018

Best Coin Research Sites

A large part of coin collecting is the research aspect. There is the common phrase, “Buy the book before the coin.” This also applies to websites, as well. Make sure to do your research before buying a coin. This is incredibly important so you don’t pay too much, so you know exactly what you’re getting, and so you know if it’s actually a good purchase, among other reasons. The following is a list of my favorite online coin research websites and the reasons why, whether it be for general research, pricing, or numismatic news. I have not been sponsored by any of these companies and the list is in no particular order.

Coin Week

https://coinweek.com/

Coin Week is my go-to website for numismatic news. They almost always have new stories that are both interesting and well-written. While this is not necessarily the best place to go to find information on a certain coin, you can search for the specific coin and, chances are, you’ll find at least a few articles. I also find their videos on YouTube to be of great quality and very interesting and educational, one of the most popular being their “Cool Coins” video series.

Coin World

https://www.coinworld.com/

Another awesome news website that I frequent is Coin World. Along with Coin Week, this is another site for numismatic news. One of the ways Coin World differs from Coin Week, however, is their magazine, which is available at very affordable prices, in either weekly or monthly options. Additionally, they have a newsletter. If you sign up for it, they will send you numismatic news to your inbox about once a day. A very good news series Coin World has for researching specific coins is their “Know Your US Coins” series. They provide a large quantity of information about specific coin series, which is very helpful for learning the basics of a coin or coin series.

Newman Numismatic Portal

https://nnp.wustl.edu/

This is a large database of out of copyright numismatic books available for free online. It also lists many in-copyright publications, as well, but they are not available for free. This is a great resource for finding out information about coins for free. While the information is outdated, they have an incredibly large library and many of the books are still useful and valuable today.

Coin News

http://www.coinnews.net/

Yet another news website that starts with “Coin,” Coin News is not my first pick for news. It is a fine site with lots of good information, but I feel Coin Week and Coin World are better overall. This is still a good website to check out.

American Numismatic Association

https://www.money.org/

Being the most popular numismatic “club,” the American Numismatic Association, or ANA, has a lot of great members and benefits of being a member. Many of the blogs on the ANA are incredibly helpful and interesting, written by fellow numismatists. Additionally, they are the publisher of The Numismatist publication, one of the most popular and best coin magazines. In my personal opinion, The Numismatist and Coin World are both on a similar level and are both great choices, whether you choose one of the two magazines or both of them.

PCGS CoinFacts

http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/

In terms of learning more about specific series and finding the prices of your coin(s), there is no place better than PCGS CoinFacts. Even though the website looks aged, the information is frequently updated with up to date prices. The pages include high-quality pictures, basic information about the coin, since as mintage, weight, diameter, metal content, et cetera. It also shows the PCGS population for the specific years and grades. PCGS CoinFacts also has a very modern, easy to use mobile app, which is incredibly helpful. I generally prefer NGC for grading, there is no comparison between PCGS CoinFacts and NGC Price Guide.

Comments

Kepi

Level 6

These are all great resources! Thanks for your research!

iccoins

Level 4

Thanks :)

World_Coin_Nut

Level 5

Very helpful blog. I think we all have our favorite sights. A lot depends on our collecting interests.

iccoins

Level 4

Thanks :) Yes, it does. I tried to put the more generic sites that have great information about a variety of coins. There are definitely a lot of sites I use just specifically for a type of coin, such as EACs, Ancient coins, world coins, etc.

Ancient Collector

Level 4

Since I collect ancient coins I sometimes just want to get an overview of that a general class of coins look like. For instance, I am trying to identify the minter of an ancient silver brockage that I purchased as being Roman Republic. I called up Roman Republic Denarii on Google and looked at the images. I am presented with hundreds of images of different Roman Republic denarii - all in one place with no need to click back and forth between photos. By being able to view a wide variety of coins covering a large period of time, I come to the conclusion that the coin is actually a Greek Drachm. I could have spent hours looking at photos and plates of various reference books to try to match the obverse of the coin. This way I know I will need to change my area of search. So don't dismiss something as general as Google as a good search tool.

iccoins

Level 4

Agreed :) I definitely use my search engine all the time. (I don't use Google, but it's still a search engine). That's how I was able to find all of these awesome sites that I frequent!

NumisMATist

Level 4

The National Archives is pretty good too! They have an email service that I use all the time!

iccoins

Level 4

Good to know! I haven't used that before. I will definitely check that out :) What do you search to find what you're looking for?

CoinLady

Level 6

As a writer, I appreciate this. Thanks!

iccoins

Level 4

Thanks :) I enjoy writing as well.

JimmyD

Level 4

Great blog, thanks for taking the time to give us the heads up on those publications. I’ll take a look and pick a favorite. I need to keep up better with current coin events. Jim

iccoins

Level 4

Thanks :) You can pick a favorite, or you could use them all :)