Options
Little Collectors (kids)
TheRaven
Posts: 4,172 ✭✭✭✭
Thoughts on getting my son 5.5 years old involved with some collecting.
He goes to shows with me, wants to go and asks about it ahead of time.
This past weekend he was at the show with me looking around a bit. He asked me about the silver penny he saw in a case. (steel war penny), impressed me he knew something was different with it.
I let him pick 5 coins out of the 5 for $1 bin. He couldn't wait to get home and show mommy.
Collection under construction: VG Barber Quarters & Halves
8
Comments
Perhaps the classic wheat cent album. Gives you a goal to complete and maintains interest. And can be completed (with the exception of the 09-S VDB and 31-S) for very cheap.
When young I took my son to a coin show. After talking and looking around, he gravitated to tokens and medals with Pirates and swords on them. He's now 27 years old. We'll see if he comes back to coin collecting or collecting.... My advice would be to let him buy coins, tokens, and / or medals that he shows an interest in.
Good luck / have fun!
I still have his pirate and sword coins.....
W. David Perkins Numismatics - http://www.davidperkinsrarecoins.com/ - 25+ Years ANA, ANS, NLG, NBS, LM JRCS, LSCC, EAC, TAMS, LM CWTS, CSNS, FUN
Trying to get this little one started early
Silver Roosevelt dimes are always a good starter easy to find no expensive dates and there silver so why not
HAPPY COLLECTING
World coins can be cheap, collected by theme and cheap. Books are fun too at that age. This was my son at about that age...sadly he could care less about coins/collecting in general at the moment (teenager). Someday he may return to the fold...
My dad got me started the same way (with world coins). Their diversity and artistry attracted me. I, too, was not active as a teen. I eventually gravitated towards U.S. coins, b/c of their popularity & rarity.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I am trying not to push him at all.
Plan on taking him to shows and letting him get this or that for a $1 or two.
He enjoys looking at all my coin books. Catch him with those alot.
Was thinking getting some penny books and rolls from the bank one of these days. Wheat penny book would be a fun challenge.
Oh, and the state quarter folders too. Those are fun and he can find those in change easily. My boys both enjoyed those for awhile.
Yep, that was my Krause I found him flipping through on his bed. He also liked the trinkets I'd bring back from shows. Once he insisted he had to have a groat (a book he was reading), so naturally I bought him one. I saw a few kiddos at the show in Baltimore over the weekend and it was nice to see the young ones being treated well by the dealers they were interacting with (especially well done at the Kagin table). A couple younger teens with serious looking notebooks too.
My krause books are on CD so harder for him to look at. if find a bigger show to go to, might be good to look for a paper copy of those which are a little older, would be fine for him.
I would highly recommend getting him one of the out of date/large paper ones. The paper tears easily but it would give him a tactile/fun way to look at the coins. You might even find an older one on Amazon or somewhere you can take advantage of free shipping. My son really did love to flip through these. To this day he prefers to read (even at age 14!!) a 'real' book and, well, reads.
Have fun with it! I took my kid to the Fun show for 5 years straight 6-10 years old. The kid is 12 now and all he wants to do is sell his stuff to buy game systems, games or hover boards. It will be his choice when he turns 18. 2012 he just needed the gilded dragon and baby dragon (And, he was happy when he got them for his birthday) My son actually liked bills instead old silver certificates , stuff like that! Show him some cool bills and you will see his face light up!!!!
My father got me going by letting me look thru his pocket change - this was back in the early 60's when silver still circulated freely. I would pull out cents, nickels and dimes to fill the Whitman folder. If I found a quarter or half, I had to pay him back.
Although he never admitted it, I believe he salted in a nice coin or two for me to find. But that is how I snagged a 1917-S Walker with the mintmark on the obverse - probably VG.
These days there are some other options, I like the state quarters and the national parks quarters.
Have fun with it - I hope your son remembers your coin stories.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
I like the idea of salting pocket change.
Good idea to look on amazon for an old book as well.
Please keep ideas coming.
Wheat cents and Roosies, like mentioned above. Jefferson's are fun because of war nickel history. Copper and silver are both antimicrobial, so that helps.
Sorry double post. And yes, seeding your change jar with some is a great way to start.
I like the world coin idea. Much more variety, he gets to learn about geography along with history, and it will be waaaay cheaper.
As he gets a little older, Id buy a copy of The Cherrypickers Guide to Rare Die Varieties. Looking through pocket change and finding something "special" is exactly how the bug bites people.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Agree there.
This brought back a memory--at around age 10 or so we were visiting the parents of one of my mother's friends. I had a small interest in coins (still finding occasional wheaties in change sort of thing) and the father invited me to take a dollar and pick 100 cents from his collection of duplicates. I carefully made sure to get one of every year/type he had. Still remember the little envelopes...anyway, for my birthday or Christmas that year I was given a coin folder and filled all the holes carefully. I was also given some version of a price guide and 'discovered' one of my coins was quite a rarity (like worth $20 or so!!). In retrospect that was clearly not an accident. It worked...the coin bug never really left though it was neglected for decades.
Yes world coins are way cheaper, that was the 5 for $1 bin.
He likes looking at the Atlas we have, so might be a good route.
Lots of people have a jar of cents that they'd probably just give to you. Sorting through those and finding the best penny for each year/mintmark would be a great way to start. Someone gave me a jar like that and I replaced about a third of my 1940-today pennies with ones from that jar that were in better condition. This will teach him to inspect every coin and realize what normal wear, and uncommon lack of wear, look like. Put them in flips, write on them, (on the back "from dad's change jar", "from Aunt Judith's coin jar", "purchased on eBay".... etc)... get him used to sorting, organizing, and categorizing the coins.
Collecting state/ATB quarters would be good if he were a bit older and was spending his own cash.
you can fill a lot of holes in the more recent cent album as opposed to the older Lincoln cent album.
as far as filling an older, but modern, coin album, a nickel album will have many, not all, of the older coin holes filled with rolls from the bank over many other modern series.
you could also do a Kennedy Half album, but doing a decent job that will take work on two fronts: 1) finding a bank to order $500 or $1000 boxes for you to search and then --take to a -different- bank-- and 2) many, many, many, many will be beat to heck... maybe 3) newer releases 2002 and on are not made for circulation and are hard, but not impossible, to find in bank rolls.
A couple Lincoln cent folder might be in order. If you could find it, you could buy him a roll of wheat cents to go though (this can be found for two to four dollars). I think that the sorting and picking is important for a young collector. Let him or her pull out the date and mint marks and push them into the album.
Good ideas guys