Looking to begin a coin collection.

[soaptaco]

I have lately been very interested in coin collecting. You may have read some of my other posts but I actually have an uncle with a massive coin collection. I have always been interested in looking through it. In fact I am going to have the oppurtunity to visit there in a few months and plan on having him go through some of his coins with me.

I am going to ask a bunch of newbie questions, just bear with me please.

[DaCoinenator]

What is the best way to learn about collecting? I found coin collecting for dummies, would this be a good start?

[newbie]

With certification of coins being so important is there any book I can buy that would explain in clear and understandable terms exactly what standards are used by these various certification organizations?

[J.Cordeiro]

I haven?t read Coin Collecting for Dummies, but judging it by their other books, it should be pretty good.
I don?t think there is a ?best way? to learn about coins. I think it would be best to determine what type of coin you would like to collect and concentrate on that type of coin at first.
The internet is a very good place to start. From forums to encyclopedias like Wikipedia [-- login to view link --]
If I had to recommend a good book to start with, it would be The Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000 by Krause. Not only will it give you prices of world coins between those dates, it will give you information that you can apply to any particular type of coin. As a matter of fact, I have started both my children with Krause?s reference catalogs.
I don?t really deal with certificate coins so I would not be the best source of information about that.
Good luck and let us know what type of coin(s) you decide to collect.