As part of my album construction, I'm going to be needing uncirculated dimes and nickels. The silver dimes won't be too hard to find, as most dealers have tons of them. However it may be hard finding dimes from the mid 60s to the late 70s without circulation wear. Also, the same goes for 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s nickels. Is there a place on the internet that has uncirculated coins cheap? Little ton charges $1+ for non silver dimes that are BU. I would think 35-75 cents would be plenty for late 60s dimes.
you wont find them much cheaper. your best bet is to buy uncirculated mint sets and break them up and sell the left overs on ebay
Cheapest way is to buy short sets or the complete collection already in an album. Buying one coin at a time will get very pricey when you start adding up all of the shipping fees. I got a set of Roosevelts not to long ago. It is a MS/PR set, but to give you an idea of what they go for. Someone in the thread said that they got a 46-64 set for about $200. http://www.cointalk.com/t207860-2/
Everyone has their own way of collecting but what fun would that be? Half the fun in collecting coins for albums is assembling them a few coins at a time. Buying a complete album wouldn't even feel like they were my coins. It would feel like cheating to me to just buy complete albums. I'd ask myself, what's the point or sense of accomplishment if I cut out all of the hard work and time in starting from scratch? Detecto, here is my advice to you with collecting nickels. You don't have a job so I can only imagine you're under budgetary constraints. How does paying 5 cents for a Mint BU nickel that you need for your collection sound? Buy rolls of nickels from your local banks and you will find older Mint BU nickels. I have found quite a few Mint BU nickels from the 1950s, 60s and 70s which just cost me face value. Examples found include Mint BU nickels from 1956, 1956Dx2, 1957D, 1962 and 1974D. Those are just the ones from recent memory.
Right. I should not have much issue on the nickels 1960 on up. However the 30s,40s, and 50s, might provide a bit of a challenge. I did a whole box of nickels once and the only 50s I found were pretty worn.
This is the best way to go. Quality is far better in mint sets and cost is cheap. If you look at a few sets and pick out the nicest then you'll really have something.
Advocating or otherwise recommending the destruction of perfectly good and intact mint sets is an abomination. I refuse to buy BU rolls from sellers that state the coins have come from mint sets. Once a mint set has been cut up there is no going back. Only so many are made every year and once they're gone, they're gone. A less destructive method for acquiring the coins you want, Detecto, is to check your local coin stores. I know you said in your first post the coins you want may be hard to find at a coin store but it is worth checking them out. A local coin store near me has a huge container of Mint BU nickels and dimes from the 1960s and 70s, etc. in 2x2s that only cost around 25 cents each. These coins have been brought in through the dispersement of collections and before that most of the coins came from original rolls.
I don't disagree with you, moderns just aren't my thing. I bought that set and a few others because I have been neglecting them for so long that it was time to bring them up to date. When I compared the cost difference of buying almost twenty years of individual coins and a complete set of nearly sixty years with two decades of BU silver, it just made sense. I have fun collecting complete series of early proof coins. If you want a challenge, try one. They take years to do, but the hunt for pieces that are 120 plus years old with minuscule mintages is quite a ride. I recently completed a 2 cent piece proof set that took almost fifteen years to find now I am working on a liberty nickel proof set.
There really isn't a way to get quality coins "cheap." You get what you pay for 99% of the time. Decide what quality you want your set to have and be selective and buy the coins that fit your criteria. In all honestly, a Jefferson Nickel set should be easy and pretty inexpensive to complete in BU.
I can't say you're wrong but I can say with certainty that this attitude or belief is exactly what causes the mint sets to be destroyed. Many people share your perspective so buy the coins instead of the sets so the sets become worth less than the coins they contain. This leads directly to dealerrs cutting up the sets to wholesale the coins. The dealers tend to remove the finest coins before you ever see them so your demand for singles results in sets being cut and you getting inferior coins. Me? The more I think about it coins were intended to circulate and not reside in mint sets so I figure why not cut them up. They will get cut up anyway and it's impossible to stop it. Some will survive so I've made mmy goal to be sure the few survivors are the finest that were made. The rest are fodder for coin collections. To each his own. If you're having fun then you're doing it right.
I removed 3 posts from this thread that had nothing to do with coins and everything to do with personal attacks on another forum member. Such behavior will not be tolerated.
to the OP - your best bet is to go to coin shows or shops. Some shops have that kind of stuff and most shows will have guys with binders full of 2x2's with prices in your expected range, or at least closer to it than has been mentioned.
Depending on how you wish to look at it, this could be part of the fun. I've found that a lot of people do not wish to have instant sets, and instead enjoy the thrill of the chase, so unless you're willing to pay for the needed coins, this route may be worth considering.
