Hi guys! Today my blog is going to be about gold dollars, so let's begin. The gold dollar, the smallest denomination regular issue US gold coin, first appeared in 1849, when the government introduced two new denominations, the dollar and double eagle, to exploit wast quantities of yellow metal coming to the East from the California Gold Rush. Gold dollars were minted continuously from 1849 through 1889, although mintages were largely restricted after the Civil War. Today most of the demand for gold dollars comes from type coin collectors, who desire one each of the three different design variations. Type I gold dollars, with Miss Liberty's portrait identical to that used on the $20 double eagle, were made from 1849 through 1854, while Type II dollars, with an Indian princess motif, were struck in 1854 and 1855, plus in 1856 at the San Francisco Mint only. Type III dollars, featuring a modified portrait of an Indian princess, were made from 1856 through 1889. In the early years, from 1849 through the Civil War, the gold dollar was a workhouse denomination. Those of the Type I design, 13 mm in diameter, were used often in everyday change, and most examples seen today show wear. In 1854 the diameter was enlarged slightly to 15 mm, to make the coin more convenient to handle. The Indian princess design, introduced that year, created problems, as it was not possible for the metal in the dies to flow into the deep recesses of Miss Liberty's portrait on the obverse and at the same time into the central date digits on the reverse, with the result that the majority of pieces seen today are weakly struck on the central two digits (85 in the date 1854, for example). To correct this, the Type II portrait, with Miss Liberty in shallower relief, was created in 1856. Among the three design types of gold dollars, by far the scarcest is the Type II. The total mintage of type II gold dollars amounted to fewer than 2 million pieces. Contrast that to the Type I gold dollar, for which over 4 million coins were struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1853 alone! Similarly, the Type III gold dollar was minted in quantities far larger than the Type II�Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you learned something, and have a great day! � � � Source PCGS CoinFacts

Hello everyone! Today I decided to write a blog about the US mints.

Dear ANA Members,�

Last week I acquired a new 1923 Standing Liberty Quarter to add to my collection, which is what inspired me to write this blog. Designed by Hermon MacNeil, this is one of the most popular coin designs for collectors. The prices of these coins are generally much higher than other coins minted in the same time-period. The overall mintage of the Standing Liberty Quarter series is much lower than the popular Mercury Dimes and Buffalo Nickels. From 1916 to 1924, the dates wore off much sooner than any of the details. This is because the date is the highest part on early date Standing Liberty Quarters. This led to extreme difficulties for grading companies, like PCGS and NGC, as well as collectors and dealers. There is essentially only one that that is required to grade coins. That is that the coin must be identifiable by year, denomination, series, variety, etc. Unfortunately, many of the earlier Standing Liberty Quarters ended up “ungradable.” Coins that may normally be a good, or sometimes even a very good example, may be ungradable simply because of the lack of the date. From 1925 to 1930, the date was recessed, which was very beneficial. The coins weigh 6.25 grams and are composed of 90% silver and 10% copper.

There are countless different coins any collector can collect. There�are�tons of options for US coins, world coins, ancient coins, and even currency and tokens. You need to choose what you want to collect to allow you to be the happiest collector you can be. I already did an article about this for the types of sets you can collect, but you don’t even have to go into a set, but rather, collect something that fits you that may not even be a traditional route. The following are some important things to consider before starting a collection. Even if you’ve been collecting for years, you can always change it up and collect something different.�