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If you knew THEN what you know NOW what would you have collected when you first started??
keets
Posts: 25,351 ✭✭✭✭✭
I started collecting in the mid-1960's. I would have collected choice Barbers of all denominations, IHC's and Liberty Nickel Proofs, Cameo/Deep Cameo coins from the 1950's and I would have been all over SC$'s and US Mint medals like white on rice!!!
What about you??
Al H.
4
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Whatever US coins Bill Jones collected after he retired from being a coin dealer
Early large cents.
Bank deposit slips!
MY COINS FOR SALE AT https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/other/bajjerfans-coins-sale/3876
I agree with one of your choices, I would've started with Barbers.
Although I wouldn't have changed a thing about my Walker collecting; I would've collected more Morgans and Saint Gaudens, when they were much cheaper.
“I may not believe in myself but I believe in what I’m doing” ~Jimmy Page~
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947)
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Proof IHC's, Proof Buffs, Proof early and mid Lincoln Wheat, FH SLQ's, and 1940's mint sets.
I wouldn't have collected stamps also. Although they were fun. Would have collected large cents and colonials.
K
Same stuff. I do this for fun. Im lucky enough to have a great job that earns me a living and extra to play with.
If I knew THEN what I know NOW, I would still collect the same series (United States half dimes), but I would no doubt make fewer mistakes, and spend less money, and I would likely have a larger collection today.
I guess my OP pre-supposes that as a collector matures, so does his direction and interests. perhaps I was wrong.
If I knew then what I knew now I would have been ALL over collecting early flown space memorabilia. I didn't find out until 2007 that you COULD collect it. I'll set my collecting start at 1988, as that is when I first started collecting coins. Given that time frame, early flown space memorabilia would have cost approximately 5 - 10% of where it is now.
If we are talking strictly coins, I would still have spent money on them, as I do enjoy coin collecting. I would have focused on Draped Bust material... some Small Eagle, but predominantly Heraldic Eagle, as DBHE is my favorite coin design.
U.S. Type Set
I would have skipped coins entirely and focused on Hard Times Tokens exclusively.
Stupidly I used to sell my exonumia back then to fund coin purchases...
All today would be worth far more then any coin they funded.
Took me 20 years to finally think of early type, C+D mint gold
Money was tight for the first 10 but when I was able to pay the bills and had something left , 18th century type in problem free original VG are beautiful and historic coins. 35 yrs ago a chain cent in vg was $1500-2000
Wow... I started in the late 1960's. By the early 70s, I should have been mowing lawns and buying silver dollars. I could have made so much money when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market. I had an interest in early copper, but didn't have the eye for it. I'd have been more diligent in collecting Draped and Capped large cents. I can't recall how much Capped Bust Halves were back in the day, but I do have an interest in them today...
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
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only pre-civil war us coins, colonials, cwt, htt, scd, etc.
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I would not change too much. My biggest mistake was collecting a set of Indian Cents while I was in high school. I had about $ 1,200 in the set when I finished it, sold it for a little over $300. I learned a lot from that experience including the futility of trying get your money out of common date, circulated coinage, and the fact that markets are cyclical. I bought high and sold low. My purchases of older type coins, including gold were spot on.
I would have picked CLEAN the entire case of little prooflike tiny golden quarter and half eagles from the case FULL of them at the 2nd Jack Tar show I attended.
Good grief!
He had dozens and dozens of the small capped busties from 1808-1834 and all the fives were really really THICK thingies.
BUT
I didn't have the money because they all ran from 700 to about 1500 dollars.
APIECE!
PLUS...... I woulda had the brains to not be ONLY looking for the empty holes in my Dansco.
Ahhhhh yesssss......
Nothing but gold bullion.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
I guess I am going to answer a little differently. When I first started collecting in the 70's I thought the more I had, the better. I was into quantity, not quality. If I had to do it all over again, I would buy bust and seated coins with original surfaces. I would be picky and not buy coins with problems. No rim dings, no distracting marks, no ugly spots. I didn't find a true mentor until about 10 years ago. At that point, my opinion changed on what a nice coin was. If I had that knowledge when I was young, I really could have assembled a nice set at extremely reasonable prices. I also would have been searching for varieties on bust and seated coins. I can't imagine what I would be able to cherry pick if I went back to the 70's.
Not sure on what perspective? I have changed my focus a few times over the years, but it is not like I regret any of it. The stuff I call my "collection" is based on things I like to own and has changed over time but I do not feel like I missed some boat. If you mean strictly from a monetary perspective I still have no regrets. Could it all be worth more if I had the hindsight I had today? Of course. But that is not what collecting is about. That is wealth accumulation and coins are only one part of that strategy. I think the premise of this thread is "what would you have bought if you knew what you know today" and so it seems it is meant to be about the money. And if that is the case, coins, even though they can and do appreciate, is not really where I would use that power if I had it.
$300 saints and liberty's in the $20 size. $100 mint 52 Mantles in high school.
Lesher Dollars and GOLD
Steve
GOLD instead of Lincolns.
Dan Carr stuff if they were around. Even though collecting has always meant to be a "fun" thing sometimes life changes that for you and DCarr stuff is the only thing I have ever sold where I didn't get absolutely fleeced on.
Well no.
Because then is when I was a kid and started collecting Lincoln cents, Jeffs and silver dimes and Washington quarters when I could find them in circulation. I still have my blue Whitman albums.
In my twenties I went away from coins since I was busy with life.
Decades later I got back into coins. As a kid I always wanted a $2.50 Indian Gold coin because they were my favorite with the inclusive design, but it was way out of my price range. So that was my first coin I bought.
In 2002 I build the #1 Modern Silver and Gold Commemorative Proof sets - and got some Excellence in Set Building certificates from PCGS. LOL.
What I like about the commemorative's is that they are all different. Once I saw how much money I had spent I decided to sell them and go back to classic coins since I was able to afford them now. I added some other gold coins to build the 8-piece registry set.
Then I went to work on completing a type set, which is still a work in progress.
Looking back there were a lot of coins I would pass on today but bought then (mostly problem coins)
But that's part of the journey.
In the late 90s when I got into the hobby I focused on low risk semi-numismatics like low MS to 64 $20 gold pieces and bullion coins ASEs and AGEs. Low risk, not exciting but very safe. There are numismatic coins that jumped up quite a bit but that require a lot of research. So I'm not sure I would have done that differently.
If I had known then ( late 70's and early 80's ) AND had the $'s I would have bought $20 gold for $200-300 and had a huge stack now. I remember now that gold really took off in 79 and 80
What I started collecting in the mid-1970's was the exact right stuff (better date circ seated). My only mistake was not sticking to it. It was a perfect market to get into at the very bottom. Has generally moved up 30X to 50X on the better and more underrated dates which were not hard to identify back in 1974.
I would never buy NCLT. Ever. I'd also take a closer look at coins that started with 17.
I started collecting as a kid. I would not have wanted to know everything I know now, because that would deprive me of the opportunity to learn it all the fun way. But I do wish that I had picked something early on that would have held my attention for life, that I would just barely have been able to afford to collect seriously all my life, and that would leave me now in a position where I had a top level collection with plenty of remaining opportunities for improvement. So from that perspective, I would like to have started and stayed with either NJ coppers or Massachusetts silver.
Then again, I suppose it would have been OK if had simply started buying gem proof gold in 1965.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
First song my dad recorded on vinyl. Around 1941. " if I knew then what I know now". RIP pops. I would probably not have collected since the coins I like are always out of reach. Then again, the coins I cannot afford are the only ones worth collecting. Grrrrr.
$60 L and & $63 St G. gold pieces
Lafayette Grading Set
Draped Bust quarters and Halves. Of course if I could have afforded them back then, (which I couldn't) F.H. Dollars and Halves.
- Jim
In the early 1970s at Denver area coin shows, Lesher Dollars could have been bought for as little as $25.
Dealers generally scoffed at them: "you don't want that, that's not a real US coin", some would say.
Definitely capped bust halves!
I would have acquired many more back then (especially AU 55-58) and been way ahead of the game.
I bought my first coin in 1964. an Indian Head common date for 50 cents.
Instead, I would have bought all the "junk" coins that show up now on the Home Shopping Network, put in junky "fake" coin sets, worn out crud that litters every coin shop and show, etc. and melted it all and sold the ingots January 1980, and then I would have done it again to catch junk that had escaped and sold the ingots March 2011.
I would NOT have bought that 1909-S Lincoln in BU from the Bronx Coin Shop in 1967 for $90, blowing all my paper route money that has turned a terrible orange (who knows what evil was done to that coin, waiting for an uninformed person to buy it).
I would have bought all the common date gold I could have gotten my hands on (and would have succumbed and sold it all on Jan 2 1980)
Most of all, I would have bought some land in California, where there were some unknown coffee type cans hidden in the ground, and a couple dogs.
Amen to the idea of collecting quality large cents.
However, as I reflect on the experience tuition I've paid, the journey has been worth it. If it were easy, I don't know that I'd fully appreciate what I own now.
Now from a fantasy learning perspective, I wish I could have been an apprentice working for Wnuck & Agre at CRO or sitting at the knee of Mr. Feldini.
Buy only the key dates
Well, I started about 1980, 1985. And I think I would do what I still do - 1950, 1960 proof sets. Fairly cheap to pick up, but can hold some doozies ... 1970 no S dime, 1971 no S nickel, 1964 Accent Hair, 1956 Type 1 half ... and then there are the cameos ... oh the cameos!
EDIT - The thing is - there was no internet back in the 80's, and I was just a kid, and had the finances of a kid, and lacked the ability to go to coin shows ... we had three coin shops in Missoula - still do now btw ... but my buying would have been hindered by locale and finances for sure.
Insert witicism here. [ xxx ]
The same thing that I did collect back in the 1960s...large cents. I loved the size and look of them throughout their reign.
I would collect Walking Liberty Halves.... they were common... even as pocket change then.... and, of course, gold - though there was no way I could have afforded it at that time....Cheers, RickO
**I think the premise of this thread is "what would you have bought if you knew what you know today" and so it seems it is meant to be about the money
**you think totally wrong. I tried to explain further down when I stated that "as a collector matures, so does his direction and interests." that is why I would collect NOW the things that I listed in the OP, they never interested me back when I started but they do now.
so far, I think Broadstruck nailed it and MrEureka is a close second. for me personally, the money aspect is unavoidable but it is not what drives me.
Well, the money is an obstacle to what I'd like to collect now (early large cents in AU condition). I have learned to appreciate that coin series now as opposed to large silver coins that I first was attracted to way back when. So, in my mind, the money factor (cost) is relevant since I can't collect them in the condition I'd like due to the expense.
When I run across something inexpensive but interesting, I should buy first and ask questions later!
If you knew THEN what you know NOW what would you have collected when you first started??
1921Peace dollars and Clark & Gruber gold pieces.
I would have held on to the stuff I did buy, I did things right, I just didn't know it. I had a seated half set I could never afford to replace and sold it.
If it was just about money I'd go back and not pass on two GALLONS of BU CWTs at $5 ea. Arrrggghhh!
I guess I'd add Trade Dollars to my list of stuff..." if I new then that I know now". Back in the late 60s I think they had just been added to the red book.
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
When I remember all the fantastic early type I turned down in the 1990s when type was still dead, I wish I had put together a box of 20 very high-grade original pieces
Commems and Early Type
I'm content with my decision to have collected Buffalo Nickels. Yes, I could have made a boat load of money collecting some other series. But I'm a collector, not a speculator.
I'll add that I would have collected Coin Boards if I had known about them before I started collecting them 15 years ago. I can still find common boards for the price of lunch money (or less), but the rare varieties are that much more difficult to find and some of them sell for crazy money.
I was able to start collecting bullion in 97 when I first started earning decent money as an artist. Would have liked to have bought more, but I bought everything I could with the money I had, so I'm content with that.
I did make buys that where bad either over priced nice coins or cleaned coins I didn't have the eye for at the time. Bough several recolored Lincoln's on eBay I took a total loss on but seemed to move on from.
If I could go back I'd like to not have bought those hairline coins recolored or processed coins. Maybe bought more slabbed coins from Teletrade when it was around. I got some good deals on pretty neat stuff from them.