Replacing Coins With Better Grades Question.

Whenever I upgrade a Lincoln Wheat cent I move the coin that was updated to a 2nd or 3rd Whitman album .

I actually have a few coins that are just 'placeholders' until something better shows up. What I do with the 'old' coin? Depends. Some coins are so bad that only lowball enthusiasts will have any interest. Most will probably end up in either the silver treasure chest or in a folder with similar coins. I do have some 'rare' coins for countries which I visited: I always try to take home a set of local circulation coins as souvenir. It'd be cheating to buy a new one for a better quality. Also, for most of those coins I actually don't care enough to invest large sums of money: I bet most people around here wouldn't pay $100 at home to buy a slightly larger sample of their souvenir Eiffel Tower either.

I wish I could afford to only buy MS coins. Unfortunately, a lot of what I collect doesn't exist in MS state anymore or goes for prices of one month salary (or more). For example: I'd be happy to set for a circulated Dutch 10 Gulden coin from 1810, as MS would cost me well over $40.000. A 10 Gulden coin from 1892 in mint state would 'just' be $25.000 or so, as just 62 were made and not all of these are in mint state anymore.

Please also do notice that it's not common in Europe to have 'set albums' like you have in the US. An equivalent of a Dansco 7070 simply doesn't exist here, for what I know. I therefore use my own brain and define my own sets of coins to collect. As such, I don't have a 'second or third' set of anything: I simply have one coin (or the nicest coin if I have more) in my collection for display, the rest is nicely packed in ziplock bags.

I'd love to be able to buy my early date large cents in MS, but I haven't won the lottery yet. So I buy them in grades I can afford Pr-1 to VG-7.

For me, the few times I've sold from the collection, it was to create cash for a new coin I'd rather have in the collection. I've sold a handful of coins that were outside my current passions to fund ones I cared more about, and don't have many regrets.

I can recall the circumstances of almost all my collection additions, so the sentimentalities of some of those keep some duplicates around.

My collection has very few MS coins, but this is the US modern coins forum, so I understand the question :) for me, MS coins from the 15-17th centuries are usually well out of a justifiable budget in my world.

jbuck graciously gives all the money he earns here to charity, so he doesn't have the extra cash to throw down on an MS coin.

I'm the same here Lincoln - many mid-grade coins in my albums, especially when I started, until I could upgrade incrementally. My LCS has a posting board for customers so folks there will post an upgrade and I bid for it. Else I mainly roll search for the improvement coin. I have 3 to 4 sets going so I just keep bumping up as I replace them.

I keep many of my better coins, upgrade rolls I have for date/mm (cents/nickels)and return the rest after checking them for varieties. Mostly the rolls I have are VF to AU coins, but harder dates/mms can be any mix.

Lincoln - I'm doing pretty well...summertime is my favorite time!

I'm glad a little of what I said had some value for you. I'd keep all WAMs I might find as they do have some value and the ones less 'flip worthy' are still something folks would trade for while they wait for something better to come along. I traded an AU 2000 WAM for a BU 1968S DDO a couple years back. A great swap for both sides as neither of us had what the other had duplicates of. You never know!!

I think it's a good idea to put most trade worthy coins into flips for protection and better organization/access. So when the opportunity to upgrade a coin in your collection (or to acquire one you don't have) presents itself, you can act quickly.

Thinking more about this in relationship to coin collecting as a whole, what someone does with extra coins and duplicates is really part of how they might define collecting. Having one in any grade might fit one person's definition while another might feel they need to upgrade as they go along (but only keep one; reduce the clutter and lighten the load as one member has sort of put it). Others have collections...but larger hoards. That might be their definition. So it depends on how you see it; what do you need to make you feel fulfilled? A sparkling set of MS coins? A mix of grades? Set or two with a side 'hoard' or two?

No right or wrong answer. It is whatever each of us makes it out to be.

My list of needed or wanted coins is usually and mostly a replacement list. I look for a coin in better shape than what is in my Albums. When I find one, it goes into my Album and the one there now goes into a 2x2 flip and then into a Whitman 2 row cardboard box. If and when there are enough in that box for a set, I get a new Album and start a new set. I many instances this grows to numerous sets since I never sell coins. The best coin goes into what would be set #1. From there they get progressively in lower grades from set to set. For example I'm now on set #12 for Mercury dimes and set #1 is almost all FSB. Only the 26S left in that set to acquire in FSB. Worst part of this is when I get a nice coin for set #2 or #3, I have to move all those other coins from set to set. Same with all my sets and now well over 100 Albums and several boxes of coins in 2x2's.
I sure hate to think of someone in the future trying to figure out what to do with all this stuff.