Coin buying continues and there is no en masse panic selling, although there are individual quick sellers. Long want lists are still in collectors' and dealers' hands – still going unfulfilled for months and sometimes years.

Pent up demand continues for certain scarce coins and is found for some very common coins. Although many circulated coins retail for $5 or $10, dealers don't have large inventories of such coins. In particular, problem-free examples of many of these coins are difficult to find.

Dealers can't just place an order for the coins many collectors want on the electronic trading networks, although those networks may be a good source to help find such coins over time. Nor can dealers spend valuable time at coin shows scouring the bourse floors for nice but inexpensive coins. Dealers must use their time expeditiously at these expensive shows.

Many want lists for collectible coins are for "lifetime" collections. For many people, their coin collections make up a significant portion of their retirement funds. That's the kind of investment they understand.

This trend of using coin collections as investments means many collectors have not been seriously hurt by the calamitous stock market and credit market events of the past few months. In addition, lots of coin buyers are still earning money from their jobs or businesses, or have a steady retirement income.

In the marketplace, some rarities are still setting price records.

Prices for off-quality U.S. coins – those perceived as overgraded or just barely making a grade, or that have a problem like light cleaning – are being discounted (rather than falling).

Market prices for problem-free coins are holding up pretty well, and their prices that are being used as benchmarks for discounting for the off-quality examples.

Discounts ranged from about 10 to 20 percent for off-quality coins just weeks ago. But in this area, economic problems have caught up with the coin market. Now it's not atypical to see discounts of 25 to 35 percent or more.

Here it pays to know how to identify cleaned coins and to understand coin grading, so you can be confident the coins you're buying are strong for the grade.