Billy Baeder’s late father purchased a 1933 $10 silver certificate for about the price of a compact car when Baeder was still a teenager. As he grew up, Baeder became a collector himself — and today he owns the most valuable piece of currency printed since 1929. Back in the middle of the Great Depression,…

World War II changed everything in American society. From people moving from farms to cities and women assuming a greater role in the workplace to a shortage of cotton leading to shorter dresses, much of American life was disrupted from 1941–1945. Changes in coinage also led to errors by the United States Mint — and…

There’s a lot going on in the world of rare coins, gemstones and precious metals. Here’s a roundup of some of the biggest news that we’ve been following the past few months: Brazilian gold ingot sells for nearly $200,000 As we mentioned in a previous post, the 2013 Long Beach Coin, Stamp & Sports Collectibles…

Gold has been admired and desired by humankind since the dawn of recorded history — from gilded Egyptian funeral masks and golden scepters of forgotten empires to pieces of eight treasured by pirates and bricks of bullion stacked in Fort Knox. Have you ever held a gold coin or gold jewelry in your hand and…

There’s been a lot of talk about inflation recently, and what investors can do to protect themselves should the United States enter an inflationary period. Throughout history, investing in gold and precious metals has provided a great hedge against inflation, because when inflation pushes the dollar lower, gold typically increases in price. While inflation does…

Carson City is only one of seven cities in the past 200 years to be home to a United States Mint. Compared to metropolises such as Philadelphia, San Francisco and Denver, Carson City, located in northern Nevada, seemed both tiny and in the middle of nowhere. But it had something that the other cities didn’t…

If you want to see the treasures of the famed Ship of Gold, you’ll need to book your ticket for Southern California later this month. The 2013 Long Beach Coin, Stamp & Sports Collectibles Expo features a display of more than $10 million worth of gold that was recovered from the ship as well as…

Imagine this: you open up one of those old boxes sitting in your basement or attic and find a small leather bag. Inside the bag are some old coins, so you sit down and begin to sift through them. Most likely, you’ll have a handful of historical curiosities, which might be worth a few dollars….

Back in the 1790s, the United States was quite a different place. George Washington gave the country’s first State of the Union address. Thomas Jefferson was in charge of the first U.S. Census, which asked a total of six questions. The largest urban area was New York City, with a population of just over 33,000…

The doors to the Bellevue store opened and in walked a family — mother, father and three children — absolutely covered in dirt. “Even their car was dusty,” says Adam Richey of West Seattle Coins and Bellevue Rare Coins. “They walked in with these filthy paint buckets in their hands, all of them giddy and…

Back in December 1904, three years after he took office, Theodore Roosevelt sent a famous letter to Treasury Secretary Leslie Shaw that ushered in a new age of American coinage. Here’s what he said:  I think our coinage is artistically of atrocious hideousness. Would it be possible, without asking permission of Congress, to employ a…

A friend was recently cleaning out his family home’s basement when he came across a locked box that hadn’t been opened in perhaps decades. He dusted it off, turned the lock and was surprised to find it contained a cache of out-of-circulation coins: Liberty coins, Morgan silver dollars, Mercury dimes, Franklin half-dollars and more. Not…

Recently, it was widely reported that a very rare 1796 U.S. half cent fetched a whopping $357,000 at a European auction held by Wooley and Wallis of Salisbury, England. Also known as the Liberty Cap Half Cent, this coin was certainly a prime offering as there were only 1,390 ever minted by the U.S. Mint…

In October, a man with a metal detector stumbled upon a “nationally significant” haul of rare coins. This amazing find consists of 159 pure gold Roman solidus coins from the fourth century. The amateur treasure hunter — whose identity has not been revealed in order to protect his privacy — was sweeping a private field…