During the more than 45 years that I have worked on the staff of Coin World, the ways our readers communicate with us have changed immensely.

Early on, traditional postal mail dominated, of course. Receiving dozens of letters daily was not unusual, some arriving as submissions to the Letters to the Editor column, and others, most containing coins or other numismatic items, submitted to the Collectors’ Clearinghouse department with the expectation that we would be able to tell the correspondents what they had. Phone calls were not as common, in an age when “long distant” calls cost callers extra and when we did not yet offer a toll-free number. Some years later, fax machines became another portal through which readers could contact us.

Today, we receive very few physical Letters to the Editor via postal mail, and faxes are virtually nonexistent. We get a lot of phone calls from readers with questions about coins they own or to offer their views on a recent news article or Editorial.

Most of the communications, however, arrive via email to individual staff members or the editor’s account; and via comments on our Facebook page or via Disqus. Readers can comment at any time on Facebook but Disqus holds comments until I approve (or reject) them.

Virtually all of the Letters to the Editor arrive in digital form; I cannot remember the last time we published a Letter to the Editor or Guest Commentary that was sent via the USPS.

We welcome Letters to the Editor and Guest Commentaries from you. Here are some guidelines:

First, we are going to publish your name. We do not publish anonymous submissions or those with nicknames like BigTimeCoinCollector (I made this up). To give you some privacy, we do not publish locations; we instead attribute the portal through which the submission was received, whether it be email, Disqus or Facebook.

Second, we mine Disqus and Facebook comments for submissions.

Third, consider length. A good Guest Commentary word total about is about 450 to 500 words. Letters to the Editor need to be shorter.

Fourth, try to be civil, and watch your language. Some readers get really riled up and use words you will not ever find within these pages.

Fifth, tell us why you are taking a position on something. Why is it important to you?

We want to hear from you and welcome your comments, always.

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