Collecting Tips
Ruth Calloway
Latest from Ruth Calloway
U.S. Coins
The History of the U.S. Nickel, From 1866 to Today
The five-cent piece is the plainest thing in an American pocket. No silver, no gold, no eagle on the back, just a president and his house. It is also the only denomination still circulating in essentially the metal Congress gave it in 1866, and the one lawmakers are arguing over right now. The history of […]
U.S. Coins
When Did the U.S. Stop Making Silver Coins?
Ask a room of coin buyers when American money stopped being silver and you will get three answers, all partly right. The dime and quarter went first, the half dollar hung on five more years in a watered-down form, and the silver dollar had quietly stopped circulating long before either. The line most holders use […]
Collecting Tips
How to Clean Coins Without Destroying Their Value
Somebody hands you a cigar box of dark silver dollars from a grandparent’s dresser, and the impulse arrives before the thought does: make them look like money again. Every coin shop in America has watched that impulse walk through the door about an hour too late. The blunt version is that most cleaning takes value […]
U.S. Coins
The History of the U.S. Penny, From 1793 to 2025
On November 12, 2025, at the Philadelphia Mint, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach pressed the last circulating one-cent coin the United States will make. It closed a run of 232 years, longer than any other American coin has managed. The penny outlived the half cent, the trime, the twenty-cent piece, and every circulating gold coin, yet […]
Collecting Tips
How to Insure a Gold and Silver Collection
The stack in your safe is real money. Your homeowners policy does not see it that way. To most standard policies, a shelf of gold and silver counts as loose change, capped at a figure that would not replace a single ounce. That gap is quiet until the day you file a claim, and by […]
U.S. Coins
The History of the U.S. Quarter, From 1796 to Today
Reach into a pocket of loose change and the quarter is the coin you notice first: heavier than a dime, wider than a nickel, the workhorse of parking meters and laundromats for generations. It is easy to take for granted. Yet the 25-cent piece has one of the longest and most restless design records of […]
U.S. Coins
The U.S. Branch Mints: Where Your Coins Were Struck
Turn a U.S. coin over and look for a small letter near the date or the design. That letter is a return address. It tells you which building struck the coin, and behind each one sits a piece of American history: a gold rush, a silver boom, a war that shut the doors, a modern […]
Collecting Tips
How to Spot Fake Gold and Silver Coins
The coin arrived in a plastic flip stamped with a famous mint’s name, and it weighed almost exactly one troy ounce. Almost. By the time the buyer thought to put it on a scale, the online seller had vanished. Versions of this story circulate through every coin club in the country, and they all end […]
U.S. Coins