Seeking Advice On Wheaties

ceaton, I made the mistake of starting my Wheat collection with BU reds. I had a Carlos Mencia moment "duh dee-dee" moment when I started getting into it.

First you need to realistically look at your budget.

Pick up a Grey Sheet and look at the Ask prices in the Lincoln section. RedBook is very much outdated. Go down the column for each grade and start doing the math. Even in GOOD it's not cheap to complete. Especially when you factor in the keys.

For mine I decided to go with all slabbed Keys of various grades, and all semi-keys, better dates and commons are EF+ and brown if they're MS.

I'm also finding the difference in cost and availability between EF and VF is pretty significant. I'm pretty picky about my coins, but if I could start over I might even consider going with VF. It would make completion much easier and cheaper, and VF coins can still have nice detail and eye appeal.

Going with Fine you're going to lose some detail but you can still find very nice, problem free examples and it will make the project even more cost and time efficient.

If you're really into the high grades, I would definitely stay away from the Reds and I would say allow yourself the latitude of at least EF or better. The tricky part will be the 1950s, which tend to be Red in high grades. But they're still fairly easy (and very cheap) to find in EF+ brown.

As was stated before, you probably don't want to mix Reds with Browns. 09-58 brown, and 59-Present Red BU is the way to go IMO.

Thx for the great input USArmy! I'm definetely going to get slabbed keys, that way I know they are legit and well preserved. Although, i'll hate the holes in my book. VF coins do have some nice eye appeal, and to have a set even in that grade would be nice. I do not want to mix reds with browns, i'd rather have certain years brown, then red on up. Like I said before, since my Dansco book first 2 pages are 1909 - 1934D, I think that would be 2 pages of vf/xf browns, reds from 35 up, since they seem to still be somewhat cheap. I dunno.

I'm just after a plan of attack for my wheat set. I dont want to put in bunch of money into this until then. Right now I'm leaning toward what I said above. Now the only problem would be my grading skills lol. Gotta make sure I master that range of grades I'm after.

I am not familiar with Grey Sheets. Is this something I can do online, buy or where would I get one of these? I currently use CoinValues for a reference in prices, but they seem on the higher end. Hopefully more people pipe in with there thoughts and opinions, every little bit helps! Thanks

I thought about that too Carl, slowly lowering the grades the older they get. I'm almost debating working backwards from 58 down, buying the highest grades possible until it becomes crazy expensive. I would like to check out the grey sheets, that would probably open my eyes to the money this will cost anyways. I'm still not sure where to get those.

I just found that you can purchase and view the greysheet online for $4. Not too bad. I just purchased one, only has 1909 - 1949 listed, but thats all I really need anyways. Pretty convenient. I should be good to go hopefully! Plenty of info at my disposal now. Thanks to all!

The PDF I downloaded has my name on it and is supposed to only be used by me. So, I personally would not want to share it since I feel I might get in trouble etc... I mean, I would if I could, but yeah.

I made the mistake of buying the weekly issue, which does not have lincoln's. Had to buy another one, the monthly issue to get lincolns. So dont make the same mistake I did, FYI :)

My collection is mid-chocolate brown, matching coins in EF45-AU55 from 1909 through 1933, then red mint state 65 or better from 1934 to date. All matte proofs are medium brown matching the color of the early set, and all other proofs are 65 or better to 1951, and 67 or better from 1952.

I've been on the set for 25 years and am still not finished only because I haven't found perfectly matching brown coins for every issue.

Die state also comes into play. I make sure all the coins I buy are rather sharp early die state coins when possible.

I'd love to see your brown set. I'm trying to build something similar.

Sorry to hear about your friend :(

I will look for your sale. Thanks for the heads up!