COIN GENIUS CREATES FORTUNES IN BEVERLY HILLS

By Caroline Ryder

Silvano DiGenova possesses a remarkable talent - he can turn one man's small change into another man's fortune. Friends and business associates swear they have seen DiGenova, 42, spot counterfeit coins from across a room. "He's a prodigy, there's no question about it," says one. Coins are DiGenova's life, and aside from a brief stint as a paper boy, he's never worked outside the business.

He remembers his first deal - he was 10 years old, living in his home town of Philadelphia. "I went into this coin shop and the woman had some dimes, one bag of 1916's and one bag of 1917's," he remembers. "I'm looking at these coins and thinking ‘jeez, these are a lot nicer than they should be for the price she wants…" He bought one of each for a total $3 using money earned from his paper route. The following week he visited a different dealer just around the corner and sold them for ten times what he paid. "That's when I thought ‘boy, there's something to this coin business…'"

He started hanging out with an antique dealer, following him to auctions and absorbing as much information as he could. Even as a teenager, he was able to exploit gaps in knowledge about coins. "It was easy to make a good deal, much easier than it is today," he says. By the age of 21, Silvano DiGenova was a self-made millionaire, quitting business school (presumably there wasn't much more they could teach him) to concentrate on his thriving business.

A year later, in 1986, DiGenova was asked by a group of leading numismatists (coin experts) to help create the first standard grading body for coins. At the time, certified coins did not exist and unscrupulous dealers were setting prices according to whim. Realizing that the practice could eventually undermine the entire business, seven core dealers of the time teamed up to find a solution. They recognized the 22-year-old DiGenova's talent and asked him to physically eyeball the stack of coins that would later become the official grading set. Now when professionals try to determine the value of a coin, they refer back to the ones he graded in 1986.

DiGenova moved into Beverly Hills in 2001, when his company Tangible Asset Galleries of Newport Beach merged with Superior Galleries, based on Olympic Blvd. Superior, despite a 70-year history and a star-studded client list, was going through a dark period at the time. Former CEO Bruce McNall n owner of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team n had just been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after defrauding a number of financial institutions to the tune of $236 million. Under DiGenova's stewardship, Superior was pulled out of the doldrums, and executives now plan to cement its status as the premier coin dealership in the U.S. "Coin collecting is universal," says DiGenova. "It's one of the most popular hobbies in the world, and it has a lot of strength here in California. I think we have more clients within a 60 mile radius than any other dealer in the country. What with the congregation of key players and the wealth they possess, the sky's the limit."

SO YOU WANT TO COLLECT COINS n NOW WHAT?

"Educate yourself" is DiGenova's advice. "A lot of people get into coins not knowing anything. But our philosophy is to educate." The best way to start is to read books, attend coin shows and seminars, and register with the website of a major dealer. An invaluable resource is the Red Book, which contains information on every coin minted in the US, including how many were made.

Also, be wary of buying coins on eBay, the online marketplace, unless you know what you are doing or are using a reputable dealer. "People go on to eBay and assume that everything is fair," he says. "The reality is that eBay is really a dangerous place to buy coins because there is no regulation or control."

To be safe, you should ensure your coin has been graded by either the Professional Coin Grading Service (which DiGenova founded) or the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation. These companies use tried-and-tested guidelines respected by the whole industry to value coins. Coins that aren't graded by the professionals could be worth a lot less than the selling price.

If you buy from a dealer, make sure they are part of the Professional Numismatic Guild (PNG), an ethics body that accepts only bona fide coin dealers. "The reality is, there are tens of thousands of dealers out there using their own standards to price coins which ever way they want," says DiGenova. "If you are buying a certified coin from a PNG dealer, you're going to get a very good value."

Many beginners fall in to the trap of thinking they have struck gold when they find a coin that appears to be under-priced. Most of the time though, it's just a bad buy. "Unless you're really, really good, you're not going to be able to pull one over on someone who does this for a living," says DiGenova. "You're going to buy something that you think is good, but will probably have something wrong with it. We have countless people coming to us who have done this."

DiGenova also advises against collecting privately-issued novelty coins. "Coins by definition are money of the realm," he says. "Something that is issued by a non-government is not a coin n technically speaking, it's a metal. So it has very little chance of appreciating."

Contemporary coins, no matter how pretty, are also less likely than older coins to increase in value, thanks to the vast quantities in which they are produced. Take the new "state" quarters - a five-year project in which each state in the union mints its own version of a quarter, usually around 500 million per state mint. "A lot of people are saving these," says DiGenova. "It's fun and cute for the kids, but to think that something of which 500 million were made is going to appreciate is just a pipe dream." Older coins, of which far fewer were made, are a much better investment.

STASHES CLOSE TO HOME

While it is possible to unearth small stashes of buried treasure, you probably shouldn't invest in a metal detector just yet. Finding anything of value is "an extreme long shot", according to DiGenova, although he has handled some noteworthy finds in recent years. "We bought a collection of 300,000 pre-1930 nickels that someone had found in the wall of their house when they moved in," remembers DiGenova. "They were worth a buck a coin. It was a huge horde n they literally unloaded a truck full of these coins in to our office. We were knee deep!"

Hidden Treasures

$30,000 in hijackers' loot is thought to have been hidden at Camp Oak Grove, San Gabriel Mountains, Los Angeles County. Who knows if it is still there…

Some believe that pirates buried treasure on the site of Elysian Park in Los Angeles n but it could be hard to get to now, as Los Angeles Police Department has a training site there.

People are still looking for the cave near Avila, San Luis Obispo County where bandits are thought to have stored their loot.

Gold from a wagon train which was ambushed and burned while crossing Death Valley has never been found…

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