Coin Dealers

Coin dealers trade in not only rare coins but also rare banknotes and precious metals.

Coins of interest to collectors often include those that are circulated for only a brief time, coins with mint errors and especially beautiful or historically significant pieces. The term numismatist applies to collectors and coin dealers as well as scholars using coins as source or studying coins. Coin dealers are often called professional numismatists – they authenticate or grade coins for commercial purposes. The buying and selling of coin collections by numismatists who are professional dealers advances the study of money, and expert numismatists are consulted by historians, museum curators, and archaeologists.

Antiquarian dealers and auction houses will from time to time offer for sale collections of coins though rarely individual coins. Coins and collections offered for sale in this manner would be independently authenticated and valued by a professional numismatist or coin dealer. The grading and valuing of coins follows different systems in Europe and North America, whilst in Australia an “adjectival” or descriptive grading system is used, ranging from limited run “Proofs” which are cut on new dies and have never been mixed or circulated through to “Poor” which is self-descriptive.

Coin grading services are a relatively recent phenomenon, having emerged in the 1980s as a response to the need for coin dealers and general buyers and sellers to agree on common measures of a coin’s value. Such services are an effort to bring more confidence to investors in rare coins under the guise of being “official” gradings and valuations.