If you had $25 to spend each week, what would you buy?

The takeaway you should be getting here is that the best thing to do with your $25 is to hold it until you've better-defined what floats your boat in numismatics. It's quite likely that you could have a ball spending $25 each (-ish) on your coins.

To my mind, forums like this are better than any book as learning resources. I don't subscribe to "buy the book first" any longer.

 

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IMO, world coins have much more to offer in designs and collecting themes. And grading world coins is no where near as maniacal as it is for U.S coins.

BTW, if you like beer topics there are brewery, saloon, tavern and beer tokens. It's a topical speciality all on it's own-breweriana. There are even German Gut Fur (good for) One Liter tokens.

You can also go to the Bullion Investing forum and look at images in the thread Post Your Silver Bullion. There are many ways to collect silver.

 

Notgeld coins, then German States minors. Not for me, but from what you've written, for you. Might not be the big bucks payoff, but damn interesting. Are we looking for collecting fun or future financial gain? Yeah, I know - both!

 

I would buy.... the world.

 

Sounds as if grandmother may have already started it. Half dollars are fun to collect. I do save up for some coins but if you have to do that every time, you will sometimes get bored with it. At $25 a week you can easily add to your half collection almost every week. But do read up on what is most desirable in a coin, you can get alot of that info on here.

 

Hi Lisa,

My proposal would be to go to your local bank and ask for rolls of pennies, nickel, dimes, quarters or halfs, whatever you desire most. Do a roll check for your best coins to keep and replace the missing coins to return the rolls back to the bank. You might even start a conversation with the teller, talking about your interest in coins and see if she can help you. Anyway, this method will allow you to hunt for coins at no cost and you might like a series that fascinates you enough to start a
collectors book.

Dave

 

What would Brain do?

 

I'm kind of on the fence here lately about this kind of suggestion. How do you know what kind of coin you want if you don't have one? The book longnine009 suggested is more about how to select coins, emphasizing a U.S. collection, and that's why I wish I would have bought that one first. I bought junk silver first because I was interested in that and later I became interested in collecting.

 

I agree fora are a great way to get started, like I did. But, I got a book pretty soon for more details. Not knowing all the coins, I also, did a US Type Set first just to see them all and learn about them. Later, I moved on to the coins I liked the most. For $25 you can get all kinds of silver dollars, halves, quarters, dimes, and even American Silver Eagles, Maple Leaves, Pandas, Kangaroos, Elephants, Kookaburras, Philharmonics, Sovereigns and all those goodies!

 

I'd buy smokes.

 

Buy what you like. If you are looking to buy for investment than do some research to weed out coins that would most likely be duds, but whatever you end up with from the remaining pool I believe should be something you like.

 

I have heard that everyone has one and they all stench.
But seriously there is a wealth of info here as well as other places on the internet. Knowledge is power so the best thing I can offer is buy a book like "A Guide Book of United States Type Coins by Q. David Bowers". Amazon has them for $16.43 and if you have a Prime Account you get free two day shipping.

Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-United-...f+United+States+Type+Coins+by+Q.+David+Bowers


This is one of many good reference books available.

 

The absolute best choice for the first couple of weeks is to buy a few books. While you are reading them and learning, save your money. When you have finished reading them, you should have a pretty good idea of what you like and what you may be interested in - and behold, now you have the money to be able to afford them!

 

Start with a Red Book...

 

For $25 a month you could actually start building a circulated Morgan Silver Dollar set. Even buying on Ebay, there are lots of quality coins available in the common dates. And as you start to fill the common dates, you'll be able to save and trade up for some of the rare dates.

Good luck! The key is to do something you like - to keep the passion and follow through on the complete collection.

 

When I started buying I bought stuff from the US Mint. You can get stuff and get your feet wet with some interesting coins or sets. Eventually you will figure out what you want to get into and just do that. My 2 cents. John

 

World coins? Have you considered ancient world coins? Late Roman bronzes can be purchased for under $25. You can even buy several at a time and still have change. First few months, buy some Constantinian era bronzes. In the second half of the year, skip a month or two and go for higher quality or earlier bronzes, or add some Roman silver. You can find some smaller Greek silver in that price range too. Plus, you don't have to worry about fingerprints, nitpicky grading, TPG opinions...

Holding a coin that is 1,600-2,600 years old... priceless!

You can spend each month reading the history associated with the coin(s) you purchase. Great fun

 

@TIF advocating for the Dark Side



Following TIF's suggestion, here are $25 worth of ancient coins from the Constantine era...they were my first ancients and each one was less than $6.

 

Fantastic! What an incredible deal

Isn't it amazing that these can be purchased for such a tiny amount of modern cash?

 

Thanks...and big THANKS to the seller! Far more interesting than another Morgan. Really...they all look the same!

Sorry Morgan collectors