What kind of research do you all do before purchasing a coin? To be specific, what books, websites, magazines etc. are usually helpful? Do you know any dealers or have friends that give you advice?

Thanks!

If I like it, and the price seems right, I'll buy it. Some people like to look in catalogues/trends when buying at a store or show, but I rarely do myself.

With fakes, those you get used to in time.

I guess the only research I do for the coins/notes I want is market trends to make sure I'm not getting ripped off. But if its something I really like and/or need, I'll pay what I feel is kosher for it.

Once I start going after varieties, though, then I'll need to pour over books.

Until I become comfortable with the grading and value of a particular series, I usually go back to the books that I've used in research such as Bowers Guide to Indian Head Cents and/or Rick Snow's Grading guides for IHCs. For large cents, I recheck the EAC grading standards and do a comparison from there. I'll often check the recent auctions on ebay for value info or a few dealer websites that I feel I can trust.

I will use the Krause catalogs to compare value vs. market, compare against e-bay and use my gut. Sometimes it will be worth it to me and not worth it investment wise.

If it's common material then I'm completely satisfied using my redbook & ANA grading book to get me through a purchase.

Anything beyond common I do not buy until I know enough about the particular series. To do this I'll leverage books specializing on the series, specialized websites, and I'll even get input from a dealer. I definitely believe that the short term expense out weighs the long term risks of getting taken.

nothin just my brain helped me alot can bargin with dealers pretty nicely eheheh an only 2 coins i got r fake in my life thank god an didnt pay alot for em so don mind ^_^ actually i like 1 of em alot ^_^ looks nice

What happens if the only literature available at the local and university libraries are Red and Blue books from the 70's? I'm kind of short on coin publications.

I tend to check book, catlalogs, mags, the internet to get an idea of roughly where the price should be. No book is ever exact. Sometimes you will pay a little more, sometimes less.

But you should definately form some kind of idea of what the price is and how much you are willing to pay.

I suppose research would be lifelong, for there is just so much to learn.
For instance, learning about strikes -- a fully struck vs. a weakly struck coin & strike quality for an overall issue.
Another thing is cleaning. For instance, Anthony Swiatek says that many of the earlier commemorative issue coins (pre-1955) have been cleaned, so on those issues you'd have to keep an eye out.
You have your standard reference works and pricelists, but you would do yourself well to find books on specific topics, like some by Q. David Bowers, or newsletters by people like Swiatek.
Getting familiar with the varied sources of research information is going to aid anyone.

Hopefully Anton won't mind my doing this since it is to help someone out. But if you are looking for information on just about any coin TreasureGirl then I would suggest that you try looking here - Numismatic Resources. It is a special section that I created for doing research on coins and no you do not have to be a member of the forum to use it. Anyone can access it at any time and it is fully searchable. I also update this section as time permits.

Anyway TreasureGirl, if you cannot find the info you want by using that link, then feel free to email me ( gdjmsp@qwest.net ) at any time and I will either find it for you or show you where you can find it yourself

As usual I always recommend looking up coin shows. Go to as many as you can. If none available, then the research becomes a lot harder. The reason I mention coin shows is if large enough, you can do a lot of window shopping there. For instance if you know you need coin X, then just go from dealer to dealer looking and asking about coin X. If rather common, you'll see many in different grades for different prices. Fantastic way to learn about grades also. If you can go to some don't forget that it could be just like any other type of shopping. You can look, look, look and then go home.
I used to sit down, make a list of what I want, another list of what I need. I would make columns for prices and fill them in by the Red Book, The PCGS web site, a few on line dealers and finally what I think if a good price. The trouble with this is since I'm old and forget things, I usually end up at a coin show and the list is at home.
As far as literature on coins being available, since you obviously have access to the internet, that is about the greatest place to find out everything. For Lincoln Cents, for instance, there are probably millions of sites for just that coin. Same with all coins. I never could see buying a book on coins when there is so much information available right here. And then there is that thing called a printer. When you find something you really like, print it out. Then you could make your own book with what you want in it. I do that but can't remember where the book I made is.