ANA Coin Collecting Course Review

Wikyva (A.K.A Chris), one of the most active members of the coin collecting forum, recently decided to take the ANA’s correspondence courses. Here’s his report on the first one (originally posted in the forum).

Some of you may recall that I recently signed up to take the ANA’s correspondence courses so that I could become a real live certificate bearing numismatist. I completed my first course last night and took the test that was at the end of the book. Tomorrow … I am sending it in to the ANA to be graded. Here are my thoughts on the first course which was Introduction to Numismatics.

First, it was written in the early 1990s and hasn’t been updated since. Therefore, it was out of date in some areas. For example, there was no mention of the internet and resources that you might be able to find online. There was also no mention of any grading service other than the ANA’s own grading service. At several points in the material it mentioned that if you had a key date coin you might want to send it to the ANA for certification. Of course, if I did that now the ANA would just laugh at me. Also no mention of the CAC! image

Second, because there had been no updating of the materials, there was no discussion of the state quarter program and how it might have changed the hobby. Again, that might have been an interesting topic to cover.

Third, the materials had some tips on how to avoid getting taken advantage of as a novice collector. No mention of the cable shopping networks which would be a good thing to warn novice collectors about.

Overall, however, I enjoyed the course and thought it did a pretty good job of introducing the different areas of the hobby. There was a discussion about currency and exonumia as well as about coins. Now I am moving on to the next course …. Grading US Coins.