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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 1260916, member: 68&quot;]I usually recommend mint sets as a starting point.&nbsp; For most date clads you&#039;ll find a nice attractive specimen after looking at eight or twelve sets.&nbsp; Some are fewer and some more.&nbsp; But collectors should watch all the coins in the series they choose and one can learn a lot by looking at the coins in circulation.&nbsp; Besides the education there are some coins in circulation that are available nowhere else or are excessively rare anywhere else.&nbsp; Dealers try to stock these coins in recent years so this is a good place to look.&nbsp; Finally are rolls and bags.&nbsp; These are more appropriate for more advanced collectors now days since the cost is so high and rolls can lose most of their value once they are opened.&nbsp; In the old days the coins were cheap but never available now they aren&#039;t so cheap and rarely available.&nbsp; Collectors need to know what to look for before putting down a premium of five or ten times face for coins that lose that value after being looked at.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>If you want a gem collection there&#039;s never been a better time to just look for clads on eBay.&nbsp; Most of the MS-65 clads are coins that were sent in hoping for a better grade and some of these are very scarce in their own right but demand is so low that scarcity isn&#039;t reflected in the price.&nbsp; Highly desirable clads can be picked up for five or ten dollars.&nbsp; This is why you need to lok at circulating coins and mint sets though; so you know which ones are tough in gem or higher grades.&nbsp; You certainly wouldn&#039;t want to spend $10 for a nice gem &#039;72-D quarter when you could buy 4 1972 mint sets each of which contains a gem Denver quarter but a gem &#039;71 quarter for $10 is a steal and might be very difficult to improve if it&#039;s nice.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Like all collectibles there aren&#039;t any short cuts to learning the ropes.&nbsp; I can tell you what a &#039;71 has to look like to be worth $10 but you have to learn to see it yourself.&nbsp; One of the many beauties of moderns is that you do get to look at about as many coins of a date as you desire.&nbsp; If you can&#039;t find them in unc then just look at the ones in change.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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