How has your collecting progressed?
rhedden
Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭✭✭
For you long-time collectors out there, I was just wondering how your collecting tastes have progressed over the years, and what you learned along the way.
Personally, I have been collecting for about 25 years (I'm 31). I started with collecting Lincolns and Jeffersons from circulation. After that, I went through a phase where I would buy just about anything as long as it was priced below book value and was within my budget. While I was in college, I started collecting BU Morgan dollars, which were really cheap in the 1990's. I then got tired of the grading game, and now collect mostly early copper, Bust, and Seated material. I have discovered that I am much happier owning a single truly rare early silver or copper piece compared to, say, a box of MS-65 1881-S Morgans.
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I have always been a Lincoln guy from day 1. I have recently thought about Liberty Nickels, but I missed out on the Pop 1 1899 in the Heritage sale so now I am cooled off on them a little bit.
Jack
I began not really having any direction, I just popped a dime in the little machine (like a gumball machine, but popped out plastic bubbles with one or two coins in it) and collected what ever I got.
One time I got an 1885 indian head cent, so I was collecting IHCs for a while.
Then I got some kind of cool buffalo nickel, so that was the direction (again, for a while).
Christmas in 1970 or 71 my mom and dad gave me a Dansco 7070 with a couple coins in it, and my brother teamed up to help fill one of the commem half holes.
From that point on I knew I was a type collector. It took me over 30 years to fill that book, mainly because I had many twists and turns in my collecting interests.
Eventually I got back into it in the mid eighties with a bit more interest. But it wasn't until my father passed away in 1995 when I got heavily interested in collecting. My father had a very nice collection of classic commemoratives and some other esoteric coins. What his coins ended up doing to me, was to get me interesed in data and mint mark collecting (I am not sure why, as he didn't collect that way. But when I received his coins, the first thing I began to do with them was to plan data and mintmark sets).
I eventually completed IHCs, Lib head nickels, Buffalo nickels, Barber dimes (minus the 94-s), Mercury dimes, Barber quarters, Washington Quarters, Barber Halves, Walkers, Frankies, Kennedys and continue to work on Lincolns, Jeffersons, Roosevelts, Bust Halves, Morgans, Peace dollars, Modern Commems and a Library of Coins Type set. Add to that currency and I have al the makings for a personality disorder.
My collecting habits have changed over time and will continue to change. These boards have made some changes in my habits, I think for the better. I have certainly become a more knowledgable collector since joining.
Then it all really started in seventh grade with finding a silver nickel in an old piggy bank. I began collecting nickels from circulation and still get rolls from the bank each week looking for pre 1960 or Buff's in rolls.
My dad had given me 2 Morgan dollars and a Peace dollar for my birthday around the age of 13 or so. I loved them even in circulated condition. During high school & college I had no interest in coins whatsoever and left my coins in storage. After getting married & buying a home, I picked up the hobby again last summer (2003) and have been on a Morgan dollar binge since then. Now I go for AU53-MS64 Morgans with album rim toning and/or PL and am 2 dates away from a date set. I also get the silver proof sets each year and one silver eagle...
"Bongo hurtles along the rain soaked highway of life on underinflated bald retread tires."
~Wayne
getting kids interested in coins. My older brother got interested right away and I just tried
to keep up with him. Since my father's pocket change was the primary source of the coins and
my brother collected the cents I just started with the buffalo nickels. This was 1957 and these
coins were already well worn and somewhat picked over but I did manage more than half the
set before I started buying them mail order in the early '60's. I was being sent grossly over-
graded coins but didn't know it at the time. I did however recieve a nice low grade VF 13-D t 2
when a F was ordered and this bailed me out for the whole set when it was sold in '68. I had
imagined financing my college education with it when I started. Everyone else I knew had lost
substantial percentages on their collections. I got back into collecting in a small way about '71
and started with indian cents and most of the regular sets that people collect. During the '70's
I collected about all US coins except the early silver and any gold. I found world coins in '76 in-
advertantly when I started poking through junk boxes looking for cheap silver. In the process of
learning which were silver I found the coins were interesting.
I collected silver dollars in the late '70's but by this time the clads I'd been putting away for a few
years started getting pretty interesting to me. The '80's were clads and world silver to me. In the
'90's it was tokens and medals, clads, and modern world. In the late '90's I switched to mainly
clads but still do some trading for tokens, medals, and world coins.
I started collecting Lincolns from change as a young 'un. I stopped collecting for many years. When I got back into it during the '90s I wanted the finest looking coins I could afford. I didn't care about date or mint mark. So I'd rather have the 1881-S Morgan in MS 67 than a box of them in MS 65
Lots of stories to tell but I told them all already!