..and now I'm pouring through 2x2 boxes getting holes filled with the best pieces I can find. I won't put junk in it. I'm up to 40 filled, the most recent being a crack-out of an ANACS MS65RD 1909 VDB cent. (I had two in plastic.) It's great fun!
Show me what you're talking about. I collect cents, just only BU cents, until we get back before the Great Depression. And even then MOST of them are BU. And every year, more and more of them will be BU as I upgrade. But then again, I DO ABSOLUTELY feel that collecting from circulation is a fool's errand with very few exceptions. There is NO hole in ANY Dansco I own that is since 1933 that is filled by ANYTHING less than an AU/BU slider, overwhelming majority are MS64 and up. ALL denominations. As I fill my 7070 with Civil War era coins, none of THEM will be less than strong VF/XF coins, or they won't be in there. Many will be better.
You know better than that. I'd rather have an empty hole in an album than fill it with an inferior coin. Quality is, and always will be, king. I got over the "just fill the hole" impulse at age 10.
I know, just kidding, and the 70/70 is a very fun, and rewarding endeavor. Good luck completing the album. (seriously)
The higher one's standards, the more lifelong pursuit one is in for, I suppose. Looking at it made me realize how much I had been completely ignoring "Seated" coinage. I have one butt kicking dime, one half dime, and one quarter, but little else.
I imagine it got kind of long in the tooth around 1890 or so. So unchanging for so long. I like to think that early ANA'ers once referred to Barber coinage as "that modern junk".
I once posted a reply about somebody who was looking at a 1970-S small date that was not, and I mentioned that my favorite diagnostic was the weak "LIBERTY", and he said "What if it was a heavily circulated one?" My reply was if it's so heavily circulated, why even care? He's obviously still "butt hurt" over that. Whatever.
Every design was modern junk to groups of people at some point. I do love Barbers as well. I know the Mercs/Walkers steal a lot of the limelight, I just can't get into them no matter how hard I tired
Mercs and Walkers share that special "sucker bait" appeal. It's easy to get started with high quality pieces late in the series, but then you get to the pre-Depression stuff and - uh oh. I'm stuck between "ShortSetville" and "CompleteSetopolis" with a broken down budget.
The 7070 album is a great way to collect coins. I am almost to that point where all the holes left to fill are the expensive ones. I have some of the coins to fill those holes but they are slabbed and that's where they will stay. I have bought some nice coins for my album also. I am contemplating removing them before the coins tarnish/tone. When I started looking for large cents to fill the holes the album got pushed aside. The large cents really grabbed my attention. So, just beware you can become sidetracked by old coinage.
I'm groovin' on some of the pieces that now live in my 7070. My 3-cent nickel is a solid BU with a severely rotated die. My clad Roosy is a 1996-W that came out of an MS67 holder. My 1909VDB is a certified MS65 (ANACS small slab era). My 1883 No Cents nickel is an NGC MS65 refugee. And just for giggles, my clad Kennedy is an ex-NGC MS66 1987-D (not released for circulation). I'm having fun going all dopey on my 7070. Oh, and my SBA is a 1979 near date/wide rim. I like going odd on these.
My non-7070* type set is complete except for the 18th century examples and I don't see selling my house to be able to afford them so, unless I run across a bargain of the lifetime deal, those holes will remain empty (or filled with copies). * because the 7070 ignores many different designs and types.
It does! And unapologetically so, too! It's why I'm adding a blank "year set" page onto the back of mine - to add some missing ones.