Common Coins with Uncommon Appearance

Catbert

I am a type collector and thus appreciate many of our coin designs. My collecting approach is not influenced by mintage rarity, but rather by the coin's condition and natural toned appearance. As such, I collect coins that are readily available (usually in uncirculated state), but have some other attribute that makes them distinctive (or uncommon) to my eye.

Here are a few coins from my collection that meet that personal standard. Please post yours that you feel are common, but may really be uncommon!

Mintage 79.6M

Mintage 7M (readily available and, yes golden toned versions of this date may be very common - an exception to my strategy? )

Mintage 12M

Mintage 10 M

cameonut2011

I like them all, but the Barber Dime really sticks out to me. I love the ice blue toning and bet the luster is strong in hand.

Aspie_Rocco

Gorgeous group of coins! The dime is the eye appeal winner for me, with that cameo appearance. The cent is a close second with those colors. 👍🖖

Tibor

I'm partial to the Peace dollar.

Colonialcoin

Great color on your dime!!

coinbuf

Well I'm a Lincoln collector so all mine are common lol. But I have one or two that stand out as unusual at least to me. While not a fan of toning for the most part this common as dirt 1916 is a looker in my book.

And outside my primary collecting area this Morgan is nice and bright just the way I like them.

Walkerguy21D

Beautiful coins and outstanding photos!

SanctionII

Catbert

Deep deep sanction - nice!

Desert Moon

Relatively common, mintage 1.2 million, and AU to boot. There are 100-200 of this year graded in AU at the TPG's combined. But uncommon in having such a thick crust combined with such colorful toning. Came out of an N58 holder.

coinsarefun

Great looking coins @Catbert Years back I decided to do a toned type set and I'm doing
pretty much as you have. Coins are chosen by nice clean looking and excellent eye appeal.
My toned type set is in my sig line but I'm always adding to it.

airplanenut

I have quite a few that I think would qualify (it's why I like them), but of the ones I have, with enough looking (or more money), you can probably find others like it. While this certainly isn't the best or only toned shield nickel, from what I've seen, finding a coin like this is far more difficult that a colorful example from the majority of other series.

JGRC

One of my keepers. 1964 NGC MS65RB*

Catbert

@airplanenut said:
I have quite a few that I think would qualify (it's why I like them), but of the ones I have, with enough looking (or more money), you can probably find others like it. While this certainly isn't the best or only toned shield nickel, from what I've seen, finding a coin like this is far more difficult that a colorful example from the majority of other series.

So very true with that type! Really nice!

koynekwest

CommemKing

Redglobe

Nice looking,you have a good eye...

cladking

Beautiful coins here.

I've never seen a peace dollar like the '25.

Rich49

1966 SMS

asheland

I'm doing similar with my type set. I don't care how common. just give me original and eye appeal!

Zoins

Mintage: 185K - 1842 Seated Dollar

Mintage: 801M - 1858-D Lincoln Cent

Mintage: 15M - 1879 Morgan Dollar

BryceM

1925 Peace dollars are the opposite of rare, but it’s rare for them to look like that beauty!

Zoins

Here's one more. At 8.1 Billion, this has the highest mintage of my favorites. Not too many dates up in that range.

david3142

Like the OP, I try to attain very high quality examples of a type, so those are very often extremely common. I also have a Morgan registry and many of those are exceedingly available. That said, these have a special look.

clarkbar04

You just described my entire collection!

SanctionII

Here are 105 common coins that have an uncommon appearance.

mannie gray

Great post @Catbert .
And gorgeous coins..not only yours but all the coins on the thread.
This is the bread and butter stuff that keeps us interested.
Hooray for (un)common common stuff.

Aspie_Rocco

@SanctionII said:
Here are 105 common coins that have an uncommon appearance.

I love the look of the coins in this thread!
For this photo
All of these old coins seem to have some sort of white haze all over the design and letters, with clear mirror like fields.
I have a dremel tool, maybe we can polish them to a uniform chrome surface appearance...

ricko

This thread is a clear demonstration of the pride with which collectors share their treasured coins. Cheers, RickO

Hemispherical

@Zoins said:

All nice coins, but this had me reflecting upon my youth and a motorcycle, a road, and my leg.

Experience is a great thing and one learns not to do things that hurt more than once, maybe twice, okay maybe three times...

BryceM

This seems to fit.

littlebear

Awesome coins, everyone! Thanks for sharing!

ranshdow

A 'common' date, but pretty. The things you can find on Great Collections!

calgolddiver

A recent acquisition from BST.

Boosibri

1630Boston