Trust
Editorial standards
What you can expect from content on this site, and what we deliberately avoid publishing.
What every page aims to do
Every guide on this site is meant to help you do one of the following: identify a coin or understand what affects its value, choose the right kind of service for your situation, prepare for a conversation with a professional, avoid a common and costly mistake, or understand how our founding Guild standards work. If a page doesn't do at least one of those things, it doesn't belong here.
No invented price tables
We don't publish static dollar-value tables for coins. Coin values shift with condition, market demand, and metals prices in ways a fixed table can't reflect responsibly, and a table format tends to encourage treating age or date alone as the whole story, which it isn't. Instead, our coin-value guides explain the factors that actually drive value — date, mintmark, condition, and demand — so you can reason about a specific coin rather than look up a number that may already be stale or simply wrong for your coin's actual condition.
Clear separation between education, referral, and transactions
We're explicit throughout the site about what each kind of help actually is: a market estimate is informal, a formal appraisal is a signed document for a defined purpose, grading and authentication are third-party services we don't perform ourselves, and a sale is a separate transaction with its own figure. We don't buy, sell, grade, or authenticate coins, and our guidance doesn't require using any particular referral.
No fabricated reviews, credentials, or results
We don't publish testimonials, expert quotes, member profiles, or partner claims that aren't real. We don't cite a member count, governing board, accreditation, or enforcement history for the Guild membership program until those things actually exist. Where we describe something as in development or proposed, that's a deliberate choice, not a placeholder we forgot to update.
How we use outside sources
Where a guide references outside material — for example, general background from the U.S. Mint or the Smithsonian's numismatic collection — it's there as a stable reference point, not a claim of endorsement, partnership, or affiliation with Coin Appraisers Guild.
What we never tell you to do
We never advise cleaning a coin. Cleaning is one of the most common and most damaging mistakes a coin owner can make, and no guide on this site will ever suggest it as a way to improve a coin's appearance or value.