Your first coin or cornerstone that started you toward Series Collecting?

Catbert

I was a type collector before becoming a series collector. My thinking was "why not do just type since this will have endless variety?" Makes sense. However, this eventually led me to being faced with collecting certain type coins I had no interest in owning.

So, as opportunity presented itself with various buying decisions, I considered which coins could be cornerstones that fit my interests and could be a series I'd like to pursue. This is not to say that I've abandoned type collecting all together, just that series collecting was now more attractive (for example, I still love my early type copper collection).

I'm so glad I made the switch. I decided on a classic series (AU seated halves - oh gawd what a challenge and expensive), a gold series (indian quarter eagles in OGH w/CAC - much shorter series even if few are available with my restrictions), and a modern series (colorful proof washington quarters through 1998- plenty available, but must be super colorful).

With that introduction describe your first coin or the cornerstone of the series you are collecting and provide a picture if you have one. I'll start with my crazy 1963 quarter that sent me down a (dubious?) path that I thought I'd never take:

Link to registry set:

https://pcgs.com/setregistry/alltimeset/326152

Copperindian

Interesting thread!
This one started me in the IHC series umpteen years ago:

I eventually branched out into varieties. This was the first one; still own it.

It’s the S-4 graded PCGS MS64

lermish

Nice post. My story is essentially identical to yours. I still collect some US and World type gold and will leisurely pick up a chopmarked world coin when one appeals to me. I've started a set of Japanese Kobans also recently. But far and away my primary collection is chopmarked trade dollars.

I have many nicer (and less nice) examples. But this super common date was my first and occupies a fond place for me.

Jacques_Loungecoque

I no longer have it, but it was a VERY heavily whizzed Columbian half early commem ~ 1997. It was my first tuition payment for coin college. Around maybe $30 and I thought I had soooo found a deal. 🙄

This lead to learning and a love for the early commemoratives. Then to Franklin and Kennedy halves. Then Walking Libs. Oddly enough I simultaneously got into 19th century “Irish” coinage too. (God, I wish I hadn’t liquidated my holdings from the early 2000’s, as prices have gone up, up, up!)

Then about a decade break to raise some kiddos. Now back the last few years focusing on a type set, starting mostly with moderns. And I will say, high grade moderns can be as tough, if not tougher, than most anything I’ve dabbled in.

FlyingAl

This was the first CAM 1936-1942 Proof I bought, and it hooked me for sure.

Slade01

This was one of the first Lincolns that I found searching change about 60 years ago, which got me started on a Lincoln collection.

I only recently got it graded and sold it. F15 details, but authentic no D.

SanctionII

I started collecting in 1963 as a 7 year old YN. My father purchased yellow flat pack proof sets from the Mint and I liked those coins.

When I returned to the hobby as a adult in 1998 I rekindled my interest in 1950-1964 proof coins. I bought Mr. Tomaska's book and learned a few things.

In 1999 I stopped by a local B&M and paid $10.00 for an OGP proof set that contained this half dollar:

PF67CAM (though IMO I think it could easily DCAM if graded a second time).

This frosty Franklin sent my down the path of collecting proof and SMS coinage from 1936-1970.

Fast forward a couple of decades from 1998 and at a local show I bought another 1963 OGP proof set for about $25.00 that contained this half dollar:

PF67DCAM

Still looking for a raw 1956 Type 1 half and a raw 1959 half that warrant a Cameo designation.

OAKSTAR

If I'm understanding the question correctly. This was my very first coin for this series. I've had it for over 40 years. Couldn't even tell you where I got it. Completing the set was a non-started and out of the questing for all those years.

It wasn't until recently (5 or 6 years ago), it actual crossed my mind that a set might be doable. So I guess you can call this one the cornerstone of the album set and started me on that path. If that makes sense.

spyglassdesign

Mine was a st gauden I overpaid for at the local pawn shop before I knew what greysheet or pcgs coinfacts were... Or grading for that matter.

Smudge

Bought this as a kid. A California gold quarter with the little coin pouch that will hold up to a gold dollar. It has a hole in it, but got me interested. Also note my avatar.

Walkerguy21D

No one particular walker ever stood out, I’ve just always loved them going back to starting my first set around 1974.

Like the OP, I was working on my type set in the late 1980’s. I always thought large cents were junk coins, as all I’d ever seen were low grade, corroded examples.
Deciding I needed to try to find a nice one, I came across this at Larry Briggs table at a smallish show in Ohio. It was a little over $200, but I found it mesmerizing, and just had to buy it. I didn’t crack it for the Dansco, and still have it in this holder. This was the coin that launched my Middle Date collection, and then eventually the whole series!

Barberian

When I got back into collecting after discovering eBay, I wanted to collect raw, original half dollars to fill Dansco albums. I became frustrated with finding raw, original Barbers on eBay (too many cleaned, wiped) so I took a chance on a few seated Liberty halves that looked original and, well...

They had me at 'Hello.'

This VF35 1851 and a nice-looking, raw, XF40 46-O TD were significant 'stones' in place such that I began to consider actually completing the set. I was thrilled to land this coin - a record outlay for a coin at the time for me and for the grade (still is) -
and IMO, it was a steal!

yspsales

Circa 2018, found this coin after popping open the CPG, located one in a blurry pic within the first dozen coins. Set me on a obsessive chase for the next year finding these rare VAM's. Only found six in total looking at close to 100K ebay listings.

Still look on a regular basis, and keep holding out for MS65.

Up there on the rarity scale with about 20 in MS.

Added a Spiked Eye 8TF last year, and hope to add other select VAM's in coming months.

ldhair

My story is a bit different. Thirty something years ago, I found this coin in a junk bin. I needed an example in my type set and it was only a few dollars. The dealer had called it damaged. One day I bought my first CHERRYPICKERS' GUIDE. Finding the coin listed was a special day for me.
This one coin put me on a path of only collecting FE cents for 10 years or so. At that time it was easy to cherry pick the 1857 clashed die cents. I had a lot of fun with this collection.
I sold the coin on GC a few months.

olympicsos

To be honest box of 20 is the most liberating. You choose your own set.

Shurke

When I was a kid (in the 80s) I collected every denomination out of pocket change. I didn’t have any real knowledge of the hobby—I didn’t even have a Redbook—it was what just what my grandma and I did together. We’d sit around her dining room table with coffee cans of mostly cents and plug holes in Whitman folders.

The summer I turned 12 or so, we had been sorting Lincolns for a little while when she pulled out a new folder emblazoned with a coin design I’d never seen before—a goddess wearing a winged cap. She then produced two mason jars of worn dimes that bore that selfsame goddess on their obverse and told me about the bygone days of silver coinage. Silver coins? As circulating currency?! In my young mind, precious metal coins had gone the way of Long John Silver and pirate chests filled with treasure. That they had been minted in my own country in recent memory was an astounding revelation. We dumped the jars on a towel spread across the table and proceeded to fill 28 of slots in the folder with dimes ranging in condition from G to very low end VF.

No doubt that experience figured prominently in making the Mercury dime one of my very favorite coins.

When I finally set out to complete the series about 4 years ago, my intention was to to fill the rest of folder with similar low grade dimes. But … a different, more personal kind of gradeflation took place, and now I’m working on a slabbed set.

Here are the dimes I got from my grandma, now in a Dansco album.

TheGoonies1985

No longer own it collected Canadian coins when I was young till my late 20's. Since I am Canadian that made sens back then pre-internet. Now I only collect Latin American coins. I had saved I think 2-3 years working Summer jobs and purchased what is called the prince of Canadian coins the 1921 5 cent with only 400 known to exist. It was about G-06 cost 1900$ Canadian that was a massive amount of money for a young kid my age (I never had a lot of money but worked hard to save up) back then...crazy really. Sold it for 4000$ Canadian about 10 years after buying it.

Even now as an adult 1900$ Canadian is a lot of money for me I would be hard pressed to be able to afford such a coin of that value and it would take a huge chunk out of my annual coin savings.

NeophyteNumismatist

I started collecting coins from change in 2020. The "coin shortage" forced me to go to a coin shop. I had no idea there were so many coins and design types. I didn't know what to buy, so the dealer recommended a Type Set, and sold me an 1804 Half Cent in AU55 to get me started.

The coin amazed me. How could something so big be worth so little? How can something so old be so nice? The half cent was different than anything I had seen before. I still collect type coins, but half cents stole my heart immediately.

LanLord

I first began collecting coins in the late 60s, sometime around summer of 1968, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to ride my bike to the coin store with him.

I thought he was a nut for paying money for coins, so I decided to join.

This should tell you just about all you need to know about me!

My first coin was a 1885 IHC in vg. Cost me $0.25 in a bubblegum style machine! HOOKED!

In the coming years, I spent every available dollar I could on coins, my collection was worth tens if not twenties of dollars!
I was big time! My dad thought I was a nut for paying money for coins, so he started collecting too! I guess that problem is genetic!

After my father passed away, he left me a nice collection including two bust half dollars that were harshly cleaned but otherwise in high circulated grade. I decided I could collect a set of those. And that's when the trouble started!

Well, that's the way I remember it anyway!

crazyhounddog

This half eagle I found so beautiful I completed a date run of the series.

Barberian

Back in my childhood collecting days, my brother and I were "assigned" a series before ever collecting a coin. We were gifted Whitman folders and went to work immediately filling them from change jars.

A 1944 Lincoln was likely the first coin. Common yet old enough to have some wear to attract a novice collector's attention.

Copperindian

@crazyhounddog: love the coin & your label…..

Walkerfan

A raw 1940-S Walker in XF-AU. Paid about $4 or $5 bucks.

First slabbed Walker was a completely original (yet flatly struck) 1916-D in NGC 62 #7 slab.

They BOTH got upgraded years ago.

bennybravo

The "Continental coin store", small shop in Montgomery, Alabama. My dad was looking for greater fare, but as an 8 or 9 year old kid weeding through the 30 cent to a dollar bin for indian head pennies, I was in heaven.

DDR

I just started collecting Trade Dollars and I decided I wanted just one that was chopmarked. I purchased this one raw for about $75 and never looked back...

DDR

WingedLiberty1957

My first really beautiful Lincoln Cent that I bought back in 2011 ... MS67BN

Eventually led to this collection ....

BillJones

I had been collecting type coins for over ten years, while I was in Junior and senior high school, but this piece turned me on to higher grade early U.S. coins. It got me started toward to goal of collecting pieces like this when I could afford them.

Catbert

@WingedLiberty1957 said:
My first really beautiful Lincoln Cent that I bought back in 2011 ... MS67BN

Eventually led to this collection ....

What a story and accomplishment!!!!

RiveraFamilyCollect

When wallstreetbets were taking down hedge funds, I was pretty sure the every man was going to crash the stock market with their wild investment strategies (Gamestop/ pump-dumps). So I went full send and bought a Krugerrand to get that hedge against recession. Got a silver Krug to match my gold one and silver was cheap so I got a silver eagle and some pretty cool looking Korean coins. Turns out those Korean coins were just released and in my mind worth collecting.

Now I'm PCGS's #1 collector of Komsco's Zi:Sin zodiak series.

Life's fun when you bumble uninformed from one situation to another

DisneyFan

I restarted coin collecting in 2002 by working on the classic silver commemoratives. At the same time I would buy a type coin here and there. Of the Barbers, I was most attracted to the unassuming "thin" dimes. One time my dealer had three PF66 barber dimes with attractive prices so I picked out the nicest one, a 1912. A few years later I thought it would be nice to have the MS version and I found a 1912 MS66, And that got me going on putting together a MS date set. The 1912 proof earned a sticker and appeared to be a cameo so I took a chance and sent it to CACG. Sadly it did not cameo.

Eldorado9

I bought this around 1992 or 1993 from Joe O'connor when he was at Whitlow. It was the first Barber proof I ever owned, and I used to marvel at it. It started my interest in both Barber coinage and proof type coins. Great coin.

WCC

1756 Peru 1/2R in an old ANACS AU-58 holder in 2003. Became my primary series in 2010 and still is now.

coinbuf

I have always been a series collector at heart, I am now more of a type collector for various reasons. And while I had already been filling Lincoln albums this was the one, my first slabbed coin, that set me on the course to complete a slabbed set.

seatedlib3991

I own 2 coins I consider cornerstone coins.
I was a child in the sixty's when my Oma gave me a large number of copper coins Lincoln/Indian cent but only one silver coin. A Standing liberty Quarter that is worn bare but can be identified as a type 3. My first serious collection where I didn't just add coins from commerce but paid for actual coins was a Standing set. Ironically the only coin i still own is the coin from my Oma.
The second coin I consider a cornerstone is an 1840-O Seated Half dollar with Med O mintmark. I got the Breen Encyclopedia as a Christmas gift in the mid 1990-s. I spent at least two years looking through it and studying various coins before I decided to build a date set of Seated Halves.
I still own this coin. It is in a dark blue ANAC holder graded EF 40 and labeled as BREEN 4751.
This is of course not the rare no mintmark coin but it is the first coin I ever cherry picked by something like mintmark size. I ended up slabbing several dozen Seated Half dollar varieties by Breen numbers because the Wiley Bugert book was unavailable at that time. Some of the best fun I have ever had as a coin collector. James

CommemDude

As a kid I wanted a toned Lincoln-Illinois commem but they were $18 in choice unc and out of my reach. In the 1980s I came back to collecting with the advent of slabs and bought this raw and had it slabbed, my first choice Lincoln commemorative.

Nic

Great coin! Larry Whitlow is deserving of his Legend status.

@Eldorado9

EastonCollection

drddm

Beautiful CBD @EastonCollection

Here’s my first CBH I ever bought, back in 2007, bought it raw from someone off the message boards. Still have it.

Dave

oih82w8

Like a lot of youngsters, I started off with Whitman Blue folders of Lincon Cents and Jefferson Nickels. Both remain incomplete.
Then I moved on to Liberty Head Nickels...again incomplete. I still have these three folders/albums. I grew tired of the same design and moved on to Type collecting.