Hello everyone! Thanks for taking a moment to read my post. I caught the "US Large Cent" bug about 4 years ago. I've been purchasing by date to this point. I've got plenty of 1816+ coins by now. I've only got a few Draped Bust coins, but I do have a few of them. What I don't have is a Liberty Cap or a Flowing Hair. I've been saving my change for nearly two years now. Just throwing in pocket change here and there, and extra dollar here and there. I figure I've got about $200 to spend, and I've got the itch bad. I haven't purchased a coin in over a year.... I've been waiting to get a Liberty Cap. I've been scouring Flea-Bay a lot, looking at Liberty Caps (I realize $200 isn't even close to get a Flowing Hair). However, I can't seem to find one that jumps out at me. I've seen a few in my range, but they were in such bad condition, that I knew i'd regret the purchase. I know many of you here scour parts of the web for coins that I'm not aware of. Anyone have a lead you could give me on a coin you might suggest? Thanks in advance for your help!
I think the best advice I can offer is to look at auctions, rather than Ebay. I find most interesting pre-1816 LCs tend to be offered at Ebay at BIN prices. Very few true auctions. And the BINs are invariably quite high. In my experience, people tend to buy at auction and re-sell over Ebay, so why not look at auctions yourself. Stacks-Bowers and Goldbergs (also Heritage of course) occasionally have extensive runs of interesting large cent. You may want to take a look there.
I managed to score a nice VG 1795 Liberty Cap for about $120 on ebay by sniping. It takes a lot of patience, but eventually you will see one you like, and by putting in your max bid at the last second you avoid a potential bidding war.
IMHO it always makes sense to save for the coin that POPs out at you. Settling for a coin just to have one usually ends up with resentment. I speak from personal experience in the Morgan dept.
Thanks for all of your input and ideas! I definitely agree about 'waiting' and using 'patience'. I'm not very good at either normally, but am trying with much difficulty to wait for that one that just pops out at me and screams "BUY ME"...... I've seen a few possibilities on E-Bay.... and I got very excited... then when you look close at the images, or the reverse, it brings tears to my eyes.... the abuse some of those early coins have suffered. And people on e-bay... good lord.... They are asking premium prices for damaged coins! It's crazy! If anyone should come across something... please.. please... keep me in mind!
Thanks for that link Geekpryde! They don't have much early stuff really, but I bookmarked that. Just curious... the listings (when you open them) really do look like ebay. I think I even saw a coin on that page that I saw on ebay (same listing.. same damage... same grader). Does this site just pull listings from ebay, or is this their own listing and it just so happens to look a lot like ebay?
I am with Eduard. Go to local shows, check out auction sites like Heritage and others, find a good dealer and let him know what you are looking for. All of these are USUALLY better than Ebay. I say that, but collect such esoteric items that I do buy from Ebay at times, but ALWAYS sniping. I never allow myself to bid on Ebay at all, they always must be snipes.
For early HCs pay, and pay you will, they were almost all low mintage. Sniping is the way to go on ePay for sure, consider getting into metal detecting also, I've pulled 4 Drapeds and 2 Liberty cap HCs (inc a '96 no pole) in under 4 years They ain't exactly pretty, but hold more value to me cause I found them, would likely be the same for you, I assume you are from the NE area same as me, there's lots of oldies to be found here. Best wishes!
Heritage Auctions 2014 January 10 The Adam Mervis Large Cent Collection FUN Signature Auction Liberty Cap specimens, http://coins.ha.com/c/search-result...&chkNotSold=0&Ntk=SI_Titles&Nty=1&Ntt=liberty
No, Great Collections is not an eBay feed, or anything like that. They are an auction house like Heritage or Stacks, etc. I bought my first coin from them last month, and it was a great coin at a very nice price, very fast shipping, great photos. You very well could have seen the same coin before on eBay or other sites as people buy and sell, upgrade, etc. But any coins being auctions on GC are NOT simultaneously being sold elsewhere, its just that some coins don't stay off the market for long. For instance, I lost out on some HA.com bids for CAC Newman coins about a month ago, and then this week the very same coins showed up on eBay for LESS money!
Honestly I'd try heritage I see liberty caps there for less than $200 fairly often granted their usually low grade or have some issues but you can pick up a nice coin for not huge money there I'm a huge large cent fan too
