Often called the hobby of kings, coin collecting is gathering momentum in the Magic Valley.

Coin collectors buy, trade, sell and sometimes hoard all types of coins from the multi-million-dollar 1804 silver dollar to the recently issued and widely-collected state quarters.

"I started collecting coins when I was about 7 years old," said Doug Gagliardi, of Twin Falls, who travels to Paul each month for the Empty Pockets Coin & Currency Club meeting.

"My first coin was a penny I found in Portland and a coin dealer who was about three blocks away offered me $11 for it," he said. "He even called my mom to ask if it was okay if he bought it. It was something that you would pay thousands of dollars for today. But back then $11 was a lot of money."

Club Secretary David Ryzak said people who collect coins are as varied as the coins they collect. Often they share an interest in American history and look at coin collecting as another way to grow their wealth - much like collecting rare dolls or paintings by famous artists.

Coins are attractive to many collectors because they are small enough to hold and many fit on a shelf or in a safe, Ryzak said.

"Most collectors don't collect everything. They will focus on something like Liberty quarters and try to complete that collection," Ryzak said.

Collection themes run the gamut from country of origin to mint marks, years of coins or types of metal used. Some choose variety collections which can include a wide range of different types of coins, like cocoa bean money from Mexico or glass money of Egypt.

Generally the value of a coin is determined by its age, rarity and its grade with uncirculated coin usually fetching the highest grade and the highest dollar.

"If a coin is old, even if it isn't rare, and in good condi-tion, it will get a higher price," Ryzak said.

But an old, rare coin, Ryzak said, will always be worth a lot of dough.

Ryzak said it is definitely worth a collector's time to learn to grade coins because dealers are not always completely honest and will often bump their own coins a grade or two and drop the grade of their customer's coins.

"I've been snookered a few times," Ryzak said.

Club President John Sayko said the best advice for novice collectors is to stay with the lower-priced coins.

"You can't lose much on those," Sayko said.

Sayko said the U.S. Coin Digest is pretty much the Bible for novice collectors and is commonly referred to as "The Red Book" by collectors.

A good collection bet for beginners is pennies because you can get a lot of coins without spending a lot of money, Sayko said.

Ryzak said most of the club's members started collecting when they could still pull silver coins out of circulation.

"Every once in a while a rare coin will turn up in circulation," Ryzak said. "Someone robs a house for drug money and uses the rare coins as currency. They don't care what the real value of it is or you have a kid who robs Mom and Dad's piggy bank to go buy candy."

Although Ryzak has never found any rare coins in his own pockets, the potential always makes him look anyway.

"Coin collectors always check their change," Ryzak said.

Laurie Welch may be reached at 208-677-8767 or lwelch@magicvalley.com.