This question has come up many time's. I'm going to give you my spin on it. We are member's of a great hobby. To think million's of us. Now I consider myself a collector. Why? Well I don't have a store of any kind. I don't sell coin's in large quantities. But most of all I like my coin's. Now that doesn't mean I can't sell a coin now and then. However if you do make sure it's not one of you favorite's. Because you will regret it it later. Of course we sell coin's, but on a small scale. There a reasons why you might want to sell a coin. Money to buy a coin you really like! But just to make a profit can lead somewhere else. You might like it. Now a dealer is one who does own a store. The story must be made up of many different coin's. Hundreds of them. Now your store can be in one place or you can travel and do show's. You might have an e bay store. E Bay calls it a store for a reason. They expect you to be there for a while. Not sell five coin's and leave. So what does that mean? It means you must have stock,and stock that is diversified. Now most of your time is buying roll's of coins not two or three. Raw coin's slabed coin's. Now that doesn't mean you can still collect. You can but to better have a lot of capital on hand. Money to support your store,and money to buy your coin's for your collection. If I have confused you it's really simple. Many people collect and sell. It all depends on how your budget is. If your lucky to have a large budget go for it. I consider us collector's and dealers. We basically collect more than we sell. Or you might be a full time dealer. That's the difference! Whatever you consider yourself li wish all of you  sucess. By the way if you have a store let me know. Thanks mike

Hi everyone! I don't know why I said that my blog's seem not to help anyone. That's not going to stop me from writing. I heard a collector state the he does not buy bullion. So I asked him do you buy the one ounce silver liberty that just celebrated  thirty years? He said yes to my surprise! I replied well that's bullion. He was shocked. I told him look it up in the RED BOOK. Then I informed him that the mint also makes gold bullion. It hit me that maybe other's don't know what bullion is and what it is not. Quick example. You have a collection of silver. Let's say silver hits sixty dollar's an ounce. So you need some money,and you collect the coin's to bring to the smelter. Now you have silver bar's and collectable coin's. What do you bring? You will get the same price for bullion as your collectible coin's. You see they don't care if your coin is a proof 70 or a one ounce bar. They don't care how much you paid for it either. So I say like I have said before diversify your collection. Yes buy bullion. Or should you rather melt a two hundred dollar coin. Some of today's bullion is very appealing,and not to expensive based on the market of the day. You can buy two ounce coin's for fifty dollar's. The five ounce bullion is cheaper per ounce. If you get a catalogue from Coast to Coast I saw five ounces for one hundred and thirty nine dollar's. What will you melt? Really if silver goes where the supposed experts say. You will be on your way to make some money! It's natural.

Hi everyone. Well I received my long awaited Makrk Twain Proof coin yesterday. The first thing I did was read the C.O.A.. Did you know congress authorized this coin in 2012. That means the design was probably two year's earlier. There was controversial problem's over the C.O.A. and the release dates of the coin. Well in my case they should of taken longer. Upon looking at this beautiful coin I noticed a small sliver of metal above the head of MR.Twain. I followed it with my eye piece,and it went almost a third around the obverse of the coin. This is not unusual with the mint. Believe me over the year's they have had their problems. Don't get me wrong most of the work is spectacular. Their designs have to change. Doe's the coin to back? No. I'm not Abel to repackage the coin,go to the post office and send it back. It goes in the mint's mistake pile. I'm sure everyone's order's will be fine. I just want you to know they are far from perfect. They always will be because coin's are made by people and machine's,and both break down. Maybe next time. I want people to know just because it's from the mint,doesn't mean its ok. Check every order every coin weather it's a penny or a KENNEDY half. If it's not up to your expectations send it back don't wait. After all it's your money,and you deserve the best ,we demand the best! There is one thing you don't do. What's that don't stop ordering. It's our country,our mint.

Hi everyone! Hope all is well. I wasn't going to write a blog today but I'm one shipment away from completing another compete set. I believe it's important to have some complete sets. As time goes on it gets harder to find coins to complete sets of coin's your interested in. The one I had the most fun with was the JEFFERSON NICKEL. Believe it or not my younger son and myself took on this project. We went through piggy banks change from pockets and just about every place you can get a Nickel. Now your thinking well it's probably all circulated. Not true. The hardest was the proof nickels. Some of them I had to order. I wanted to keep the budget under two hundred and fifty dollars. Well after exhausting all possible places and coins we decided to count them. We had close to four hundred coin's. I wet through everyone discarding the real bad ones and doubles. Checking the obverse and reverse. It took a year and a half but we did it. If you were to see it I think you would be impressed. The piggy bank coin's were in real good shape. Thirty five years and not moved. The world war two complete set I had bought year's ago. The price was so low I didn't count it in the final total. Well the final bill and I have receipts came to two hundred and thirty seven dollar's, not bad and a ton of fun. The way mint set's and proof sets and silver proof sets are going. The amount of set's left are running short. The company I did business with cannot make anymore Kennedy Deluxe set's. It's just to hard to find the coin's. The hardest were the p&d sets from the1980s. When they arrived at the 1992 silver proof set's well now there not cheap. Mintage are very important when it comes too putting a complete set together. I do advise people to either buy a set out right or have some fun make it a family project. We did get frustrated but old time collection is fun.I sound old,old time collection. Well the truth it made me feel younger. Look into at least an give it a try I think you will be surprised. Take care and be well. Mike