Your collection and your wish list as a link — no photos to email, no list to retype at the table. There are two conversations every collector has, over and over. The first is with a friend: “What have you got?” — and out comes the phone, and the scrolling through photos of notes mixed in with photos of the grandchildren. The second is with a dealer: “What are you looking for?” — and out comes the index card, or the memory, and the dealer writes it on the back of a business c

Pick the notes you're after straight from the catalog, and watch the empty slots fill in. Ask any collector what they're working on and you'll get a list. Not a vague one, either: “the small-size one-dollar Silver Certificates as a type set — I've got the 1928, the 1928A and the 1934, I still need a decent 1935A, a 1957 and a 1957B, and I wouldn't mind a star in there.” The list lives on an index card, or in the back of the Friedberg, or in their head. It's the most useful do

Leave the books at home. Be ready with a reference catalog whenever you see an interesting note. Every collector knows the moment. You're at a table at a regional show, a dealer slides a small-size $10 across the case, and something about it isn't quite what the flip says. The seal looks right. The series says 1934A. But is that the North Africa note, or the ordinary blue seal that someone has described generously? Your Friedberg is on a shelf three hundred miles away. This i