At the moment, my coins are just in a plastic box sitting on my desk. I'm worried about them getting scratched or otherwise damaged, and I would also like a way to sort them. Any suggestions that won't cost a small fortune?
Go to any coin store and buy some 2X2 flips, some coin pages (4slots by 5slots) and a three ring binder. Just make sure the flips are PVC free. Thats about the cheapest you can get and still look nice. Put the coins in the flips, the flips in the pages, and the pages in the binder, and presto! something you can pull out and show all your friends and their grubby little fingers will stay off the coins
Most definately agree with the above method. However if you have too much to handle, put them in ziplog bags or something and that definately has no PVC in it to worry.
Not really a lot of information to make good suggestions. If the plastic box is, for instance, 2 feet square and contains about 10,000 coins or is it a 3" square box with 10 coins in it? Are these rare coins or just pocket change? Silver coins? Old? US or foreign? All cents or all gold $20 peices? As to sorting them. Again, depends on what they are. If not valuable, have a neighbor kid do it for you or if you have kids, hire them. Or take them to a bank. They are known to have things called coin counters. Then there is that horrible suggestion of just sitting down and sorting them out. Probably the best way.
I had problems with sorting my coins when I began too. I began with a handful of world coins and came up with an AWFUL way to do it, even if it looked fine when I did it. I took my coin and I wrote a brief description about it on a piece of paper, date, and how good it looked, then I put the coin under the piece of paper and took my pencil and rubbed it over the coin. Out came a perfect tracing of what the coin looked like! I get sick just thinking about it now-but they were all moderns...so not too much value. Here's a good link for everybody in your situation to look at: http://www.coinworld.com/news/062606/BW_0626.asp Carl asked some good questions-if you answer it'll help to avoid some mistakes and maybe even some nice coins like unlike me Bill
I have about 100-200 world & U.S. coins in an approx. 1.5'x1' plastic box divided into about 20 sections. The coins are all worth under $10.00 each and made of various materials, and are sorted into sections according to age, continent of origin, or both. I am not opposed to simply sitting down and sorting them out myself, but "organizing" is more like what I really meant. Thanks for the tip. I actually considered doing exactly what you did at one point... :whistle:
Based on that info.-I would probably say to put them in 2x2s. The sizes might be a little off-but nothing too noticeable. If you have a coin that you absolutely LOVE to look at and are worried about it getting damged-2x2 probably isn't the best. Especially with a brilliant copper coin surface-maybe look into something with a bit more protection. But 2x2s definately offer adequate protection for those kinds, I think. POSSIBLE PLAN: Put common coins in cardboard 2x2s and from that group choose the ones you want to be on display-maybe a lot, a few, or all of them, and put them in coin album. Then maybe get an anit-corrosion slipcase for that album. For the ones you don't want on display, they make boxes for the 2x2s that you can put them in and pack them away. For the more expensive ones, or ones that you really like to look at and want to keep in pristine condition, consider paying an extra dollar for a better holder. There are lots of ways to do it-every collector does it differently and I don't collect world-so maybe there are a few tricks that they have of their own Here's a link to where you can find most/all that stuff that's run by a fellow CoinTalk member-but JP's also has all them too. http://www.coinsupplystore.com/site/1648271/page/45029 Bill
Since your talking about a few hundred coins I too would say use the 2x2's. If you want to save room, there is also a 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 size available but I hate those. Most dealers have gone to that size at coin shows for coins that are under a half dollar size. Save a fraction of cent each. I would suggest you separate the US coins from the foreign ones first. If you use the 2x2's, save the boxes they come in and lable each one with something like US or Modern or whatever. On the 2x2's just staple 3 sides that open. No need to staple the edge that don't open. Use a pair of pliers to flaten the staples so they lay better in a box and won't catch others when putting in or out. Don't worry about long term coin problems by not putting them in some super duper air tight vault with moisture absorbers either. If they've been on your desk for a long time, a few more years in 2x2's won't make any big difference. As for the room in a 2x2, it all depends on just how much you care for the coin. You could just get one size such as the ones for large dollars and put all coins in them. Or you could buy an assortment and put the proper coin in the proper size 2x2. I use the Cent ones for Cents and Dimes, The quarter ones for nickels and quarters, dollar ones for halves and dollars. The 2x2's usually come in a box with a hundred in them. If you bought say 3 diffent sizes, that would mean you would have 300 2x2's. Of course you would then find out that 90 % of all your coins are the smaller sizes. Have fun.
Wait a minute here, people. I use 2x2's for everything from 2006 wheat cents to barber coinage and morgan dollars. They are, of course, in pages, in a binder. That is way more organzied than slabs. You can't put slabs all in order in a binder or book. (or can you??) So anyway, my question was, what do you guys use to organize things like type sets. (eg: mercury dimes) ?
actually the 9 slot baseball card pages work pretty well for slabs if you want them to be more easily displayed than they are in a box. The ANACS classic slabs are loose in those pages (that are smaller), but the other major TPG's all fit relatively snugly.
Although I'm new here thought I would put my thoughts in on this . I have a "Food Saver" I put my stamps and now I put my coins in the bags and it sucks all the air out and the bags are very durable so it's very hard to break the seal . I may not be right ...so correct me if I'm giving bad advice ,but it works well for me. No air, water or even sticky curious fingers damage it. The kids (and adults) can enjoy looking at them with no worries.
The Food Saver bags you have. Are they PVC free? Want to talk about some major damage to coins. I remember a certain Coin album manufacturer back in the 70's who had PVC in their albums and a lot of people lost value in a TON of coins because of it.
In the US plastic bags made for food storage are PVC Free, by law (IIRC), so they should be fine. Just make sure that you get all the moisture out of the bag before sealing it or else you are locking the theif in the vault!
