UBB.threads Forums General Interest Other Hobbies and Collections, like sports cars, movies, music,etc US Coin Collectors?

I started collecting back in the 1950s when you could still find some neat old coins in your change After going through the blue Whitman penny, nickle, and dime folders, I switched to type set collecting. Here's one set of mine. Anyone have a neat type set to share?

I never had your luck, Vern

I started collecting gold coins in about 1955 and stopped in 1973 when gold went to $50 an ounce

Still got them, too

Dave

PS I took a St. Gaudens $20 into Carolina Gold Buyers and the guy told it was worth all of $500 because it was not all 100% gold . Yuk Yuk

They're running $2-3K depending on date/condition on Ebay

Since we're talking perceived value or at least value of the market today, the more pertinent question is will these values remain, rise or DROPPPP?

Of course anything bought in 1950 -1973 and anyone that old, would have little concern for the down side.

True on the value of collectibles purchased around 50 years ago. Inflation alone means you should turn a profit

When the item is a coin or made of precious metal, intrinsic value versus collectible value come into play. A good example was the Hunt brothers push on silver years ago. One of my favorite local coin shops converted into a metal recycling center and I saw many collectible coins and nice flatware sets sold and melted down because their value as a collectible didn't keep up with the silver bullion value. Hard to tell if the current increase is a temporary thing due to increased demand for silver by the Chinese electronics industry or a true adjustment to changing worldwide economic conditions.

Silver has always risen or dropped along with gold and other precious metals.
Many feel that it is badly undervalued, I tend to agree.
I think it has a huge psychological & practical edge vs gold when it comes to hoarding some for a worse case scenario situation.
If society fell apart, what would you rather have, 100 silver eagles, or 2 gold ? I think you could do a whole lot more bartering with silver than gold. If you were hard up, you'd have no problem trading a couple silver eagles for a loaf of bread ,,, But gold ? Very unworkable in barter situations, unless you are talking about very high value items.
From a pure investment standpoint, sure you can make more with gold, but you also have to invest, and hence risk, a whole lot more.
I bought a couple cases [green monsters] of silver eagles a few years back, when silver was about $14 an ounce, think they were around $7,500 for 500 1 ounce coins. Wish I would have bought more, to say the least. I could have sold one, and basically got 2 for free, since the spot price is nearly triple of what I paid.

I did something similar. When I was at a coin show and didn't find anything good, I would go back around looking for dealers selling silver coins for close to spot prices. I just picked up half dollars and packed them away. A hundred half dollars are close to 50 ounces of silver, and very easy to store. Got a few boxes worth put away in case things really go bad

Wise move, I wish I had bought more raw silver coins, they were dirt cheap a few short years back.
I have a decent variety of raw I have been holding onto through the years, including a few rolls of silver dimes.
I figure hell, if I ever need just a few slices of bread and not a whole loaf, dimes and quarters will work better than silver eagles !
I'm glad I never got on a gold kick, you get so little for so much.
Precious metals seems like about as much as a racket as oil is.

I agree, the precious metal market can be brutal. I bought most of my silver coins when spot was 2-3 times face value. I was at a small local show and picked up 75 half dollars at $1.50 each. On the way to the car, a guy stopped me and asked if I would pay 3 times face for his silver coins. I said sure, and he handed me 25 silver dollars. Almost ripped my pocket off trying to get my wallet out

Dang, never know what might happen at a coin show.
There is a huge MSNS convention show coming up here in a couple weeks, can't wait.
I'm into metal detecting and have found quite a bit of silver in the ground. Oldest silver I found to date is an 1830 capped bust quarter, I got quite a rush finding that.
I found this one non descript looking grass lot, it was obvious to me there used to be a house on it, you could see where the old sidewalk led up to the porch, you can see the depressions where trees once were ect.
Anyways, I hit the jackpot at that little lot, I've found dozens of US coins, all under 1940. Oldest I found there is an indian head penny, 1861. Found about 10 barber/mercury dimes, buffalo nickels ect.
Still hitting that lot, lots like this are never really milked dry. You just gotta go slower, and deeper - And I'm convinced that there is a gold piece waiting to be found.

Sounds neat. What do they look like coming out of the ground?

Most silver looks like it was dropped last week. You can usually just dust them off, and they look as good as when they last saw the light of day.
Copper tends to be not too bad. Depending on soil conditions, they can be very gunked up or not. It is rare to find one so bad that you can't read the date. Todays zinc pennies [post 1982], they corrode into complete junk within months underground ,,, But the old coppers hold up pretty well.
Nickels are typically worse of all, they are most often trashed, some you can barely even tell what type nickel it is, much less date.
Not much you can do about it, any aggressive cleaning will ruin it, and might not do any good anyhow.
Most I do is a soft toothbrushing with warm, soapy water. This usually removes enough gunk to at least get a date. Another method is to soak them in olive oil, I have a dozen or so of the worse that have been soaking literally for years, haven't looked at them probably in about a year. But this can eventually loosen up the crud, and you have a presentable coin.

Some guy on a coin forum said "give them the tater treatment", when I posted a pic of a couple crusty coins.
I asked him to elaborate, he said simply stick a crusty coin in a potato, let it sit in there a few days, it will come out crud free.
So I tried a crusty penny and a nickel.
Really did a great job at removing gunk, I was impressed ,,, But like most things that seem too good to be true, there was a catch.
It left both of them a nasty, dull pumpkin orange. Guess it must be a chemical reaction of sorts between the tater and the coins, but this orange is now stuck on them like stink on crap, so the tater method is out for me.
Basically, anything ground dug is what it is, and any attempts to make it look spiffy are bound to fail.

Very interesting. I also collect ancient and hammered English coins and would assume that most of them are ground dug. I think that's the right attitude, "it is what it is". I did a little metal detecting for civil war relics years ago. I think I still have the detector and a box of junk around somewhere

Depending on how old your detector is, they made quite a few advances in technology since the early detectors, which basically beeped for metal and that was about it.
Now, they can tell you depth, and what the target is. You can even go cherry picking, and hunt for, say, just dimes & quarters, while ignoring everything else.
You do run the risk of passing over something good using discrimination, but it comes in handy sometimes.
Detecting is alot of fun to me, like anything else, you get what you put into it.
Alot of folks expect treasure to come flying out of the ground at them, that isn't going to happen without a lot of effort.

Mine was built back in the 1970's. As I recall, you could set it for ferrous or non-ferrous metals and estimate the depth based on the signal strength. It was a good one back then. I found bullets, buckles, and buttons. Even found a few gun parts

That was the kind my gramps had, remember using it when I was a kid.
I use a Garret Ace 250, great little detector. I tired upgrading to a $1,000 Minelab, I didn't like it at all, so took a $300 loss and sold it, and went right back to my trusty 250.
I would like to get a dedicated water hunting machine, I'm quite the beach bum, and theres alot of goodies to be found at the beach.
Heres the silver & gold I found just last summer, not including the silver coins. I got quite a nice stash of stuff from the 6 years I've been at it.

Very nice and I'll ignore the "gramps" comment, you young whippersnapper Here's a few things I picked up in Arizona and New Mexico back in the 1970's while traveling on business.

I have collected coins longer than German militaria. When I was 9 years old, my parents would bring home $50.00 bag of pennies every Friday and I would spend the weekend going thru and picking out the Indians and Lincolns. Found two sets of Lincolns complete except for the 1931S (yes, 2 1909 S VDBs and 1914 Ds). I kept up-grading over the years before college and now have a very nice set that is Ex. Fine to AU. In Indians, I found most of the set (except for the late 1860s and early 1870s, which I completed from local dealers in the late 1970s that runs from Vg to Near mint. My Aunt helped me complete a Gold Type Set and a Walking Libery Half Set in average condition. Still have them to this day. I still am interested, just don't have the passion like I do for the Daggers and HJ items, but will add a piece from time to time.

I was inline at the supermarket awhile back and the customer in front of my was paying in cash which included an indian head penny. The clerk refused to take it and the customer didn't know what it was anyway. I resolved the problem by giving the customer a shiny new penny in exchange for it.
Jim

IHP's are cool coins, no question about it.
Flying Eagles are even better, I have yet to luck upon one of those.

Early small cent type set, Flying Eagle and Indian Head cents.

I was watching Pawn Stars and that really got me into coin collection. Though I am yet to acquire my first coin to my arsenal, I am in search of really interesting ones from the internet.

What attracted me the most is that you could pretty much eye this as an investment and see how it would reward you in the mere future. But that could be some sort of gamble as you practically have to shell out money and now know how much they will cost the next time.