My collecting experience is basically a 12 year old collecting wheat cents. Now that I'm older and had my first child I have the sudden urge to collect coins again to hand down to my children. I need some advice on how I should be collecting. Here are the things I've tried lately: Ebay: I have purchased some coin lots and individual coins to fill in my wheat cent books and silver dollar collections. I have moved on to buffalo nickels. I have the feeling I'm getting ripped off on several of the auctions I have won that claim to be "unsearched". 500 "unsearched wheat pennys" and not a single key date? Rolls: I have purchased a box of pennys ($25) and gone through each roll searching for key dates and errors. I managed to find a decent 1984 double ear/chin lincoln. I find this method a lot of fun but I can see it becoming very tedious and boring in the future. Coin Shops: I find the shops around my area to be overpriced. US Mint: I have purchased a few mint sets including silver. I also purchased silver comemerative coins that will not see circulation. They are pricey but are they worth having in the long run? In a nutshell, how do you collect? Any and all suggestions are appreciated.
If you are collecting with the idea of making a profit - don't. There are many, many reasons for this and they have been discussed countless times so I'm not to go through it all again. You can do a search using the key word investing and find all you could ever want to read. I will say this much - collect coins because you like them. And for no other reason.
I agree with GD wholeheartedly. Coin collecting is a hobby we do because because we love it, not as an investment.
How should you collect? You need to decide what you like, what collection or series really interests you and concentrate on it. Read all you can on that series. Study the grading guides (ANA Official Grading guide, Photograde, PCGS Grading guide, and PCGS Photograde) so you know how to grade that coin. f you can attend some coin shows so you can see a wide range of coins, meet some other collectors, maybe get a chance to see both original and cleaned coins so you can start learning to recognize the difference. Once you have done all that, will that keep you from making bad buys? No. (This is the voice of experience speaking) But it will mean you will make fewer of them. Further advice, don't collect with the idea of future investment. Most people that try to buy for investment don't do very well and often lose money. Those who collect for enjoyment and do so with a discerning eye tend to do much better. They may not make a lot but they tend to at least pretty much hold their own. Not to mention that a collection that gives you personal enjoyment returns dividends that a collection you don't enjoy and which you are constantly worried about the value of never will. Unsearched lots. These are best avoided. You make the comment "500 unsearched wheat pennys and not a single key date?" Consider this, they made something like 150 billion wheat cents. Suppose you took the entire coinage, including ALL of the key date pieces and packaged them up at random into 500 coin lots. then you selected one of those lots at random. What is the chance that that bag would have even a fairly common semi key like a 12-S in it? 1 in 68. In other word you would have to go through 68 of those 500 coin lots to be fairly sure of finding a 12-S. For a 14-D you would have to go through 241 lots. An SVDB 620 lots. And even these figures are wild overestimates because we made the assumption that all of the key date coins struck would be available when we made up the lots. Instead we know that most of the keys have already been pulled out before the 500 coin lots were made up. So lets be generous and say that you would have to buy ten times as many lots to be sure of getting those keys, and lets say you are only paying the going rate of three cents per coin that common wheats bring. You will spend $93,000 to get that low grade SVDB. $36,000 for the 14-D. Even if all the keys were still in the original mix that 14-D out of 241 lots would still cost $3,600. Buying new coins from the mint (Mint sets, Proof sets, Commemoratives) Buy them if you like them I guess, but be aware that MOST items the Mint sells eventually drop in the aftermarket. Some time dropping significantly and usually below issue price. Usually you can come out ahead if you can wait a few years (Sometimes ten years or more) and buy them on the aftermarket. On the other hand sometimes you can make good money if you buy from the mint and then immediately turn around and resell the coins on ebay. A word or warning though, this usually only works if you are luck enough to get an early delivery of a popular item. Buy an unpopular item or get delivery after the peak frenzy and you may be left stuck holding a money loser.
Think about it as an investment for your children that you will pass it down to. Collect because you enjoy it, and give it to your kids when your done. I call myself a coin collector because my Grandpa gives me coins from the mint every year for Christmas. Normally, that's not a good investment, but it is for me because I spent 0 dollars on these coins that I can turn around and sell for at least the price of silver (for most of them). That is the boat your kids will be in if that's what you decide to do. Big, lifelong collections, can easily sell for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just make sure your children know the value of the collection before they sell it for face value.
Unsearched is a relative term IMO. I will buy "unsearched" lots if I am looking for something that is unique to my current collecting goals. Some varieties have only been recently discovered and as such would not have been searched for in an "Unsearched" lot. But, even if they have, I'll search them any way since there could possibly be something I see which someone else did not see. Count your self extremely lucky to have found a 84/84 Lincoln. Many folks go through lots of boxes and never find one. (ME!) Also, understand that this route for coin collecting is VERY tedious and time consuming and should be done at your leisure with no great expectations. Goals yes but expectations no. That way, when you do find something, it makes it all worth while. Most shops are since they've already done your "time consuming and tedious" foot work. I personally realize this and usually only purchase when I've grown tired or searching. IMO, no since the mintages are way high. The best bet for price appreciation is through a rise in silver price. Additionally, buying from the US Mint offers the opportunity of getting error coins of many different types as well as possibly getting a coin which would grade MS/PR70. But, you'd have to submit it and there are no guarantees. I currently collect with my "eyes wide open". I realize that certain coins are Key or rare for a reason. That reason is that they are very hard to find and once you find one, it may not be that high of a grade or even gradeable. Doing this puts coin searching onto perspective. I'm neither disappointed nor frustrated over the time involved and invested. However, if I do find what I'm looking for, I do get elated! One of my current goals is to obtain an example of each of the popular Lincoln Doubled Die's. This goal will culminate with the purchase of a 55/55. In the mean time, there are quite a few out there which :should" appreciate over time but if they don't, well at least I have one. Another of my collecting goals is to really KNOW about what I am collecting. By know, I mean become familiar with all the different design varieties which exist for that particular coin. There are nudreds of examples of die varieties out there to be found and they only way to know you've stumbled across one, is to go beyond the "filling a slot" phase which so many collectors are prone to do.
