Happy New Year!As 2009 turns into 2010, we should look forward to better times for the hobby, our nation, and the world. I wish you and yours a Happy and Healthy 2010 and hope that you find the key coin of your dreams!

On the NGC Forums, there was a discussion about collecting gold dollars where someone asked about their composition. Being curious, I looked up the composition information. What I found was that there were different compositions that was tied to the evolution of US coinage.After posting the basic information, I thought it would be interesting to look up which series of gold coins were made from

Photo shows roller marks on an 1894-S Morgan Dollar.

Traildies.com is a Web site devoted to the study of die trails, wavy steps, and similar phenomena on coins. Learn about this fascinating die variety type and the Web site that catalogs it.

The Coin Community Forum is one of the friendliest coin-related forums on the Web. It’s family-friendly and they have plenty of in-house experts to help you out with your coins. Learn more about them on this page.

Coinlink.com, founded in 1995, has evolved into one of the most comprehensive coin news and reference sites on the Web. The site makes my list because of its outstanding news aggregator, which is a cross between a news feed and a hundred-author blog. Coinlink is a true labor of love by longtime collector Scott Purvis.

SMS coin is defined on this coin term glossary page.

Last week, Krause Publications announced that the voting is open for the 2009 People’s Choice Coin of the Year is now open (login required; free registration). Voting will take place on their numismater.com website and will run through January 10, 2010.Voters can choose from 20 coins from around the world issued in 2008. Coins were nominated by their respective mints and selected by a panel of

DMPL Morgan Dollar is defined on this coin terms glossary page.

This is a collection of my top 10 best Coin Dealer Ethics columns, where I present an ethical dilemma and ask readers how they think it should be resolved. Most of the scenarios relate to coin dealers and their buying and selling practices, although other topics related to coin collecting are also covered.