At the risk of being impertinent and presumptuous I am a bit hesitant in offering a bit of unasked advice to new coin collectors, but here goes. This is the same advice that I have given to my children when they started collecting. I was just out on the internet looking for a new album when I came across a new album that I didn't know existed. A couple days ago I ran across a thread posted by a new collector who was looking for some advice on a graded coin that he purchased and was worried that he may have paid to much for. At the time I suggested about pulling coins from circulation in relationship to an established coin series. I actually was looking for a album to house my infant collection of Barber dimes in when I ran across an offering for a new album for the Shield pennies that came out in 2010. I wasn't aware of this album's existance yet. In my opinion, this series and the America the Beautiful quarters are actually very good starting points for a new collector to begin their collection in that both series are still new enough to offer reasonably good enough specimens for a collection. However, the silver quarters for the ATB may be a little difficult for a new collector to come across with just a little extra effort. My kids are happy that I had started them off collecting when the State quarters began to be issued and now they have a fine collection there and they are continuing onward. This is really an opinion for what's it worth. Free advice is usually worth what you pay for it.
How do you go about getting these new coins? Is it a hunt through spare change, rolls from the bank, purchased through the mint? Do you think you'll stick with books or move to plastic cases? If you move to plastic, do you transfer your coins from the book or do you search for new ones?
What I would do for the older coins in the series is select the best coins I could find from either pocket change or from wrapped coins and then to keep current by buy annual sets from the mints. There is no shame or stigma involved with stripping coins from either the proof or uncirculated mint sets that are on sale at the US Mint. A lot of collectors do that. Then you keep the unused coins a seeds for future albums.
For the ATB quarters, I just buy direct from the mint. PDSS Uncirculated, they go right into the album. Then I buy the Mint Silver Proof set that stays in the OGP. THEN I collect the PF 70 graded silver versions. Quite expensive I know, however if my daughter ever wants to sell when she's older, she will have a perfect PF 70 ATB silver collection she can let go. Now, I've only done this way of collecting for the new series. I am slowly acquiring the state quarter Silver Mint Proof sets w/ Silver kennedy & Dime in the OGP only.
