Should I remove the coins from the white squares?

My favorite way of removing a coin from the cardboard is to use a wood toothpick and it will pierce the the window and open it up easily to slip the coin out. No knives or scissors are needed.

 

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Thanks a ton, DEA.

Here's an example of the white squares with the Y#

 

Another.

 

1 more.

 

skully, I agree with several others that recommend just leaving them in the white holders. They have all the info that a collector needs and you won't increase the value by changing the holders. I keep my commons and most world coins in white 2x2's and use the 2 pocket flips for my nicer , more valuable coins. The really nice or expensive ones go into hard plastic holders designed for that particular coin.

 

Thanks, beaver96. Most of them have a price on them when my Uncle bought them way back when. The vast majority of them were purchased by him over 30years ago.

 

One thing most people forget is that the staple can corrode over time by moisture the cardboard can absorb and causes rust. Here are 3 SD I bought years ago that
developed unsightly toning only next to a staple. You can get around this using stainless steel staples ( slightly more expensive). Jim

 

I have seen some discoloring on some coins on closest to the staples. As you can see in my pics, even some staples show rust.

 

A couple of years ago I went all over the Internet looking for stainless steel staples and the only ones I could find were industrial construction staples, none sized for the common household/office staplers. If someone knows where to find them, I would be grateful to know.

 

400 series stainless will corrode and oxidize, just not as quickly as steel. 300 series stainless, not so much. I would think that stainless staples are made from 400 series, like stainless knives are. It is magnetic and easily hardened unlike 300 series. But, 400 series is corrosive resistant and steel is not.

 

Staples of any kind are not welcome near my coins. I remove all the coins I get from those cardboard flips. Staples can cause corrosion and scratches.

 

To continue with what DEA said, R.S. Yeoman wrote two books cataloging world coins by type Coins of the World (the brown book) covered coins from 1860 to 1960, and Modern Coins of the World (the white book) that covered 1960 - about 1974 or so. In both of these each coin type was cataloged with a Y# with each country starting in the brown book with Y# 1 and proceeding onward.

When Krause came out with the Standard Catalog of World Coins in 1972 it also used the Y# cataloging system at first. (For coins before 1860 they used the C#'s from William Craig's book Coins of the World 1750 to 1850) But over the years slowly started switching countries from the Y#'s to their own KM #'s. I'm not sure but I believe the only place the Standard Catalog still used Y#'s is for some of the Chinese coins.

Now to throw a couple more wrenches into the works, the old Yeoman books went through several editions and with each of them one or more countries would get renumbered. I remember once Columbia went through two renumberings in a three year period. Then after most of the coins had been switched over to KM #'s in the Standard Catalog, they came out with their 17th and 18th century books and then went back and renumbered EVERYTHING starting with KM #1 for each country in the 17th century book and proceeding forward.

So if this is an old collection,if they didn't keep up withthe catalog numbering changes, the Y # may not really mean anything. This is a problem I'm going to have when my father passes and I take full possession of the collection. The first thing I'm going to have to do is recatalog the whole thing because I know there are coins in there still labeled with Y#'s from almost 50 years ago that have been changed several times. (And that is going to take some time as there are over 24,000 different types in the collection.)

 

^^Thanks!!^^

 

Do you mean “waste”? Or can this handling procedure actually make my waist change? If so, I’m never touching another coin again!!!

 

I cut the mylar with my finger nail around about half the coin then fold back half the cardboard to where the coin is sticking out. Then grab the coin by the exposed edge. No worry about damage to the coin that way.

 

I would agree with several others....leave them in the "white squares", what we call 2x2s (based on the dimensions in inches). The plastic that the coins are exposed to is not vinyl, the type that can corrode over time. And if the stapling has been done well, there should be minimum exposure to air. I have bright copper coins in 2x2s that have shown no sign of deterioration in over 40 years.