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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;JeffsRealm, post: 2502143, member: 81515&quot;]Hi, </p><p><br /></p><p>I am new to coins and collecting. I have been lurking in the forums and reading here for the past couple months. I have been following links and trying to educate myself, I have purchased the latest Red Book and been going through coin facts. So I think I have some of that covered, however I am sure I am going to be learning a lot and getting extreme crash courses in coins very shortly.</p><p><br /></p><p>So my mother passed away back in May this year. As with any death you focus on the big things first, cars, house, furniture, as well as other accounts. You have to file taxes and everything. One thing that was specifically willed to me along with the containers was her coin collection. To call it a collection I guess is well not really a collection as one would think. </p><p><br /></p><p>My mom was sentimental in various ways and one thing she always told us growing up is to save various pennies you just find laying about. They are pennies from heaven, that someone was thinking of you. She learned this from her mother. Which she also inherited her pennies she found. As us kids grew up we also added pennies to moms collection, and we would add them to her stash. We also did this with Wheat Pennies we got as change as they were &quot;special&quot;. </p><p><br /></p><p>Ok, that&#039;s the story behind it. Now let me get to the sheer volume. My grandmother born in the late 1800&#039;s lived to be 96, now add all her pennies from heaven to my mothers who lived to be 87. However they were stored, in antique German beer steins. 10 large ceramic beer steins completely full of pennies. From the 1800&#039;s to modern day. Huge collection of wheat pennies. Several Indian head ones as well. I used to play with them as a kid and wonder at the sheer amount of money. Wonder at the Indian heads. Hey when your 5 -6 years old and you dump out a stein full of pennies. It seems like a lot, all the money in the world. She had other coins she kept, silver dollars and half dollars from 40&#039;s 50&#039;s and 60&#039;s though only about 50 of each of those. Those were all just loose in her nightstand drawers. There are even some steel pennies. Which I am kind of confused about, from what I have been reading those aren&#039;t supposed to be in circulation, or if they are they are rare. I remember asking about them as a kid, one of the many questions you asked as a kid and she told me because copper was needed during the world war that we used steel pennies. From what I have read though that isn&#039;t true. I can&#039;t tell you dates or anything. I just know they exist as I have seen them when moving them, and I know they existed when I was a kid back in the 70&#039;s.</p><p><br /></p><p>Had I been younger, I very well might have taken them all to the bank for face value. However now I am older, I appreciate things like old scotches, fine wines. Well, I guess to kind of honor her I want to actually put those in an actual collection format. Explore a little of coin collecting world. I do have other coin collection items she bought me, but I never thought to really appreciate them until after she passed. I have like 5 complete collections of the state quarters uncirculated she built for me. She bought me proof sets at various times in my life. Like my birth year, 1976, 80, graduation. Which have all for some reason taken on new meaning in recent months. </p><p><br /></p><p>So as I begin to slowly sort through all these coins. What would you do, or how would you go about it? I have seen thinks like collection folders? should I look at getting some of those? Eventually if I do not have complete collections I would like to complete them. I really think I would be missing very few if any wheat pennies. I kind of thought just sorting them by year, then going through each year and sorting them by the mint. But then what? I know not to clean them. However do I properly store them and organize them. This is where I get overwhelmed just thinking about it? Any thoughts or advice on this. I am not really worried about the value of these coins right now as much as I am at sorting and organizing them. I can worry about value later.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thanks for any advice.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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