TECHNOLOGY IN COIN COLLECTING
By Bob Webster
The bus trip to the Michigan State Numismatic Society show on November 18, was a great time. In addition to all the dealers with their wares to sell, there were numismatic displays to check out, as well as some training sessions. There was one that I personally attended, which was “Using Technology in Coin Collecting.”
A lot of good material was covered, and some of the more useful bits will be listed below. Basically, your best tool, if you have one and a lot of people do, is your cell phone/smart phone. This mini-computer has more computing power than NASA used for space flights in the 1970s, and it can be very helpful in collecting.
One app that is useful is called “Coinoscope.” It is free to download. It uses the phone’s camera to scan the coin. Once that is done, it will attempt to identify the coin, provided the picture is good enough. From
there, you will have the country of origin, composition of the coin, and a lot of other information. This is especially helpful with foreign coins. I have used this app a number of times and it works quite well.
Another really good app is called “Pingcoin,” which is another free download. Cell phone microphone technology has improved to a point to make this work well. This app, which provides easy instructions of use, helps to determine if a coin is actually gold or silver. To use it, you ping the coin with the app on, either with your finger or a pen. Gold or silver, depending on what you ask it to detect, will give a certain resonance frequency. If the resonance frequency peaks match, then the coin is made of a precious metal and not a worthless base metal. This can be a useful tool to help determine if a coin is a counterfeit. I tested this app and found that it works quite well. You may have to ping it a couple of times to get a good sound, if it was able to differentiate between silver and other base metals.
There are also a number of useful websites that can be used on a home computer as well as a cell phone. One is numista.com and it is free to use. This one has a listing of banknotes and coins from around the world. Once you enter the choice you want, it has a very long list of countries. This list includes countries that no longer exist, such as the Ottoman Empire.
This will allow you to, with a little searching, find the note or coin you’re after. It may take a little effort to find what you’re after, but there is a lot of good information, such as years made, composition, correct weight, etc.
Another free website is called the “Numismatic Porta”l (nnp.wustl.edu). This site is free to use and is a compilation of auction listings for U.S. coins, as well as a library of articles and other auction listings.
The articles are from several different periodicals, including older ones from Coin World. There is a lot of information there, and I have honestly only skimmed the surface of what it has to offer. There is also a section on U.S. coins specifically, with entries for many different varieties and years. If you want information on what items are selling for, that is a good source.
Another website that I know I’ll be using quite a bit is “Photograde” from PCGS (pcgs.com/photograde), which is also free to use. This site has every type of coin produced in the United States, including colonial issues. It lists examples of graded coins so you can compare your coins with the pictures listed, so It’s easy to use. I personally like this one a lot.
One more site, quick, easy to access and free, is wikipedia.com. It has articles for almost every U.S. issue, including commemoratives. It gives a quick and dirty on the background of a coin, and other information that you may need away from home, including composition, weight, and diameter, which you may need at some point. It does give mintage numbers for some, but not all issues. You won’t get a lot of in-depth information there, but it still may be helpful.
Besides the websites and apps already listed, there are a few other tools that are helpful. One is a pocket scale with accuracy down to 0.01 grams. Checking a coin for proper weight is just one tool (besides a magnet) to determine if a coin is counterfeit. If a coin is more that 1% over weight (for uncirculated or proof issues), or 2%-3 % lower for circulated issues (to account for wear), then there may be cause for concern. Combine that with a website (such as wikipedia) and you can arm yourself a little better against counterfeits.
You can find a pocket scale such as this on Amazon for $15 to $20 (including shipping). You can also find one locally at Meijer in the cooking section for $19.99.
Another tool, which was demonstrated at the show, is called the “Sigma Metalytics PMV3.” Unlike other tests for gold or silver, this unit will use electrodes and the unit base to determine the content, or legitimacy, of your gold or silver coin. It requires no chemicals or the need to scratch to surface (as chemical tests require.) It is a very nice unit. The big negative is that it costs in the range of $900 to $1,000, so that prices it out of the range of a lot of collectors.
One more tool that can be useful in detecting counterfeits is a digital caliper. The Red Book and wikipedia provide the diameters for all U.S. issues, and counterfeiters are often a little inaccurate. An inaccurate diameter is a sure sign of a counterfeit. These tools are actually quite affordable, with prices on Amazon being anywhere from $12 to $25 dollars.
Lastly, there is a number of small microscopes specifically designed for use on coins. There is a number of different styles, with the “Elikliv” model. These, including the one demonstrated at the show, allow strong magnification with a large LCD screen and LED lights for a very up-close examination of coins. If you attach it to your computer, you can save pictures of the coin if you would like to. The prices are very reasonable for these and similar units. Amazon had them for anywhere from $40 to as much as $180, so they are very reasonably priced.
After sitting in on this session, I know am really looking forward to the next big show we go to so I can try to sit in on another educational session!