Hello all, As some of you may know by know iam on a 10$ per week allowance...which isant that bad compared to my last allowance...ehem...5$.....ehem.. Anyways iam spending my 10$ on some other items currently and am holding of on any coin-like purchases at least until it get too cold to play paintball...what a great game.....anyways...iam looking for the next purchases that i will be looking at for my coins....here are some of my ideas... 1. A 16x? microscope for looking at my coins....only reason why iam looking at 16x's is because i heard that you could change the lens or something?....what do they run for? 2. Some whitman folders for my jeffersons....at least the second part of the series...because my grandmother thought that it would be great to skip 1st and 2nd and head straight for the third folder..... 3. Some rolls of jeffersons..... And thats all i can think of so far...anything else i need? What should i be most concerned about getting first? Pete-
Unless you are looking for errors or high grade coins I would see no reason to purchase a 16X microscope. I use a 5x loop\lens for regular looking and a 16x loop\lens for close up looking (scraches and such on higher grade coins). You can purchase a good 5x loop\lens for about $10. As for the folder it would be a good way to display your coins so you don't have to handle them all the time.
You could save your money for a month and join the ANA or subscribe to Coin World. You collect Jeffersons. Do you have Do you have The Best of the Jefferson Nickel Doubled Die Varieties, 2nd Edition. By: John A. Wexler and Brian A. Ribar. ($35). Do you know about this club you can join: http://www.fullstepnickel.com/ As for lenses, you want to investigate this a bit. There are many options and "higher power" does not mean a better view. For one thing, a cheap, powerful lens is worse that a high quality low power lens. Again, read online about lenses. You can get a "Triplet" for about $40 to $60. That will give you the higher power and wider viewing angle you want. With that, you can investigate those nickels for varieties. As for a folder, you have a lot of options there, too. Whitman, Dansco, and others will allow you to display your coins with pride. Larger bookstores have these in the "collectibles" aisle. Coin stores have them of course.
This is not meant as a joke, but have you thought of finding a job where you can make more than the $10 per week allowance, It would give you a little more wiggle room to collect without waiting a life time to purchase. The purchase of good books on the subject of your choice would be the first objective. Forget for the time being the fancy error and type coins and joining clubs. They all cost money and you don't even know what you are getting. Above all have fun and enjoy the hobby, or go do something else that pleases you.
