Hi guys.......I had been in the past collected only Commonwealth Country's coins.....then I took interest in world coins and now I want to build a good US coin collection. I have about 200 circulated US coins with me...... Lincoln cents from 1956 to date Jefferson Nickels from 1962 to date Roosevelt dimes from 1984 to date and Quarters from 1978 to date I'm a newbie and have no idea how to go about categorizing them. Please tell me which years I should be looking for; whether different mint marks should be collected or not and what those mint marks means. Also I've heard that metal composition varied from old and new same looking coins. Next I'll ask you guys bout half dollars and dollars. Thanks for giving your valuable time.
The first thing you'll want to do is to get a Redbook, you can find them on Ebay. That would be the thing to do before you spent any money on US coins......
I can talk a little about the lincolns. Just prior to 56, I would look for 55-s's. I don't know about everyone else, but these are getting kinda tough to find (and so is a 54-p for that matter). Of course, the keys would be nice (but spendy): 1909-s vdb, 1914-d, 1922 plain, and the 1931-s. Also, all semi-keys in the wheat series are good long-term holds, imo. These include all s mints from 09 to 15. The 22-d and 24-d are good to collect. You should be able to get these in VF or higher for a reasonable amount now. For more modern lincolns, I would reccomend going to coppercoins.com and looking for varieties. There are also some good books, like Looking through the Lincolns, for example. And as far as metal content on the lincolns, all lincolns minted prior to 1982 were copper, and have a higher melt value. For silver coins, look for anything 1964 and before for higher silver content. Also, a great book to buy would be the red book, available at any coin store or online (around $15). Good luck!
This is the site for the US mint, in case your also interested in current products. I'm not sure about how to ship to India though, you'll have to ask them yourself.http://usmint.gov/index.cfm?flash=yes
never mind I just saw he said circulated. The mint didn't make mint sets so there weren't many uncs. to go around i think. please correct me if i am wrong.
"all lincolns minted prior to 1982 were copper" And some of the 1982 lincolns were copper. You can distinguish the 1982 copper from the 1982 zinc lincolns by the difference in weight.
Thanks for the replies guys. Please excuse my ignorance but I didn't understand what you meant by keys and semi keys. Also please explain me meaning of the mint marks like P, S,D and plain. I also noticed variation of letters in different year's coins. Thanks once again.
Keys refer to the most sought-after (read, most expensive coins) in a series. They may or may not be the lowest mintage, although often are. The semi-keys are the next level below, and command higher prices than the "common" dates. P=Philly, D=Denver, S=San Fran. Plain refers to the 1922 only. It is often called the 1922 no d. That year, the 1922 cent was only minted in Denver. However, due to some worn dies, the D actually did not get imprinted on some cents. This has become a very collectible cent. Hope this helps...
Oh I meant that I noticed the mint mark letters of some coins varied of same looking coin but belonging to different year. Does that make them unique?
Thanks for the insight. I got some confusion related to dollar coins too. I have heard and read dollar coins being referred to as Peace, Double Eagle, Bald Eagle, Walking liberty,etc.. Are these commemorative or definitive issues and what year do the belong? Also which of these are still available in circulation and will be cheap to purchase in ebay?
The commonly collected US Silver Dollars include Trade, Morgan and Peace Dollars. Modern, non-silver dollar coins include Eisenhour (Ike) Dollars (same size as previous silver dollars), SBAs (Susan B Anthony dollars), golden-colored Sac dollars (for Sacagawea - the Indian woman on the obverse) and golden-colored Presidential dollar coins. The Double Eagle is a gold $20 gold piece. Bald Eagle and modern Walking Liberty coins are bullion coins. Of all the above the only ones you are likely to find in circulation are the Sac and Presidential dollars (and that is not very likely because they do not circulate very much).
Man you were right in the first place....The 83P quarters are valuable indeed......I made a friend checkout his 2003 Red Book and he said that MS65 were valued at $15.....I got 12 of those and bout 3 of them are MS65...if not better
When you say "find," do you mean in rolls or to buy? I bought one today in ms-65 rd for only a few dollars.
