Key date finds?

I never have found a key date when searching through bulk/yard sale. I always get my hopes up, and then find a non key date. I have found some pretty nice stuff at yard sales and such, but never a mega score.

Tell about a time you found a key date for cheap!

 

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I lucked out one time when I bought a 1979 proof set as a kid. I didn't know anything about them at the time really...just thought proofs were cool so I bought a couple sets. A number of years later...when examining them I noticed that it contained a Type 2 SBA Dollar.

I have yet to have such luck with non-US coins.

 

Picked up an 1885 1 Pfennig for 50 cents in my old LCS bucket. I just liked the condition and age. And then I found out years later it's a $30+ coin.

 

I got a VG 1916d dime for $3 on eBay!


Barber dime lol!!!!! You really thought I was talking about the Mercury Dime!

 

A few months ago I found a small gold Turkish coin in my coin shop's junk bin. I paid 15 cents for it and it has about 1/20th oz. of gold. I've found several coins in the $5-$15 range in the same bulk lots. You just have to keep coming back, and you have to look at everything. You can't just grab some coins at the top and look - you need to check everything. A lot of times the key date is a really small coin that slips to the bottom.

 

Last year I picked up a bag of 5,000 Lincoln Wheat Cents for $100 from a dealer who paid the same and simply wanted to free up some space. I'm about half way through so far and have found a 1931S in fine and 1924D in very good, both tougher dates. So, thus far these two have nearly paid for the bag. Plenty of lamination errors in early dates also, so I'm ahead of the game.

 

I've found some in my LCS's 20 cent bin or in lots I've bought that have catalog values in the $20-50 range.

 

That's actually even more interesting, considering that no 1916-D Barber dimes were minted...

 

Hmmmm....

 

No, but he did not say Barber dime. More like some tounge in cheek humor at the bottom.

 

Are we reading the same post?

 

I saw the note after the fact on the bottom, my woops.

 

I have found a Danish coin, I think an 1890s 5 ore coin in a dealers junk bin for a quarter and turned around and sold it to a collector in Denmark for around $45-50 or so.

My favourite cherry pick was a 1684 Irish halfpenny that I picked up for $3 when I was a kid. It is worth about $250-300 as it was a rare date that was actually struck posthumously after the reign of Charles II.

 

I picked up an 1895 British Honduras 50 cent for silver, around $10. It's AU and worth about $300.

 

Nice. British Honduras is one of those secret, really valuable nations that people who aren't serious foreign collectors aren't aware of. I always look out for these.

 

I've lucked out three times over the past year or two . I bought a bunch of 90 percent silver US coins from a local buy gold type business that I sometimes buy from. The lot contained several different types of coins and was around melt value. One of the coins ended up being a 1938 D walking liberty half! On eBay I bought a silver quarters lot for less then melt value and ended up with a semi key date 1937 S quarter. Another eBay buy for slightly more than melt value was a group of world coins with terrible pictures. I took a risk on it bc of the pics but ended up with a 1934 1/10 Panama balboa!

 

Early this year I found the 1916 Cuba 10 centavos in this group at the local flea market for $0.50:

 

I found this 1909S VDB in a bag of cents I purchased in Oct of this year.

 

I found an 1821 Venezuela 2 Reales in the junk bin for $12 and sold for $400+

 

I purchased a batch of Spain 50 Peseta coins where the fixed date reads 1957 on all the coins. The issued date is shown at the center of the reverse star. There are a few dates that were only issued in mint sets and they list in Krause for between $250 & $1,000. I paid $0.25 each for the key dates.

Anyone that collects the 50 Peseta by date could use these keys. I hope that my heirs properly identify these key dates as being valuable.