I went to my coin dealers shop yesterday and asked for some 20th Century Type coins in BU condition for my new Capitol holder. While my dealer went through his cents he exclaimed, "I have been looking for this coin for a long time, I thought I lost it". It happened to be a 1955 Double Die Obverse in MS 60ish condition. It had a sticker price of over $3,000. I tried to get him to toss that one in for me at a discount since I helped him locate it, but it didn't work. I had never seen one in hand before. That was a nice looking coin.
I have a question and I'm not trying to be funny. But when you ask to look at 20th Century Type coins, isn't that any 20th century coin? After all, isn't every coin one type or another? Plus it sounds like the dealer was looking through a pile of lincoln cents to satify the request. I guess I don't understand the term
No, I dropped a greek obol (athens !!!) on my table a couple of weeks ago, picked it up after about thirty minutes searching !
Be cautious with that. The 55 Double Die is one of the most common counterfeits there is. Also, there are several varieties of even the real ones. IF that dealer had it in a pile of coins and not slabbed for authenticity, I'd be really skeptical as to if being real or just one of the lesser varieties. Note there are tons of the ones called the POOR MAN's Double Die 1955 Lincoln Cent. I have a roll of those and they are worth about $1 each if that. Long, long, long before you pay that much for such a coin, get to know what your looking at. Check out coppercoins.com or but the book advertised there.
Type coins are basically defined as common date, inexpensive examples of the series. So as an example, if you were talking Lincoln cents - the '09-S VDB and the '55 DDO would not qualify as type coins.
I have seen several Poor Man's DD 1955 cents at auctions in the past year advertised as just 1955 Doubled Die Cents. They don't bring a forture, but usually $30-50, which is way, way too much.
I remember back in the old days. ha ha.. 70's I could of picked them up anywhere for 75-100. most people at that time were saying the same thing I said. Why in the heck would somebody want a coin that the mint screwed up and pay a premium for it to boot. I wasted my coin money back then on stupid ole Gem BU Morgans. LOL.. terminology is everything.. Great thread, makes you want to dig through some boxes and see what you have lost dont it.
A 20th Type Set usually includes one coin from each series minted during the 20th century. Some folks collect a common date from each series, some collect the key date from each series. Many of the people whom I know that collect type sets, collect a coin from the first year of the series. In almost all cases, they try to find the highest grade that they can afford. One of the guys who collects the first year of each series, collects only uncirculated specimens. This can be both quite difficult and quite expensive, but it is a very impressive set.
Har-har... :goof: I prefer collecting lower-mintage keys and semi-keys in the best conditions I can afford (for some, like my 1917-S type-1 Standing Lib. quarter, that translates into G-4!) for my type set. Seems like the best way to go about it in my book!
All I am looking for are coins in that century that are NOT key dates, or rare coins. I am just filling the Capitol Plastiic holder. I was just saying that 55 Douible Die Obverse in hand was a great look in hand.
