Need Input On How To Collect Lincoln Cents

Thank you for all the feedback. About a week ago, I bought a "300 starter" Wheat Cents off of an e-bayer. In his auction, he was truthful(searched the coins, kept the important ones, but was a good starter set). Also, he was local to me. He warned me about the "unsearched" rolls and such. Half of them were from the 50's, 3 dozen form the 40's, 2 dozen from the 30's, 5 from the 20's and 2 10's. At least now I have some coins taht I can practice my grading on.

I purchased The Official ANA Grading Standards for US coins book. So I will be bugging you guys about my grading skills.

Chris

There are a few sellers on ebay that have some rolls that do have semi keys and such. I have pulled a couple 09,09 VDB, 10-S, 12-S, 13-S, 14-S etc from rolls on ebay. You will pay a premium for these rolls as other buyers like myself know a couple sellers that have these rolls and they get bid up. I have 4 sets of rolls coming from 4 different sellers right now and will post my findings once I receive them. I started a thread last year (http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...ched,wheats) where I listed some of the sellers and will do it again soon.

Searching the "unsearched rolls" to me is fun, I have accumulated an nice roll collection doing it and could put together a few sets with semi keys and a lot of sets without them. You just have to remember that you will not always find a treasure in every roll, if you did they would not be keys and semi keys. Try to keep it fun, I have a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old girl, we all sit down at the table and go through the cents, now they have no ideal what they are looking at but they get to spend time with Dad and like stacking the cents like I do when I sort them.

My wife just rolls her eyes when the mail lady comes struggling to the door, sometimes carrying 5000 count bags, I look at the wife and say it's a "treasure hunt!". She even sits down sometimes with us and helps sort, to me it is better than sitting in front of the TV, we get to interact with each other and spend some quality time! I work some crazy hours and am not home much, with roll searching I get to do 2 things I like most at the same time, coins and my family!

Dont' hesitate to visit some of your local coin dealers. I've visited all of them in my area and settled on the best one. He always has Lincoln's for me and at fair prices (CDN). One of the big advantages they have over ebay and such is that they take in a lot of coins from people "off the street". Everyday people flow in to sell him their stash of coins and I see a good number of wheats come in. I check often and he usual has stuff just sitting on top of the counters that he hasn't even put into inventory yet...that stuff is fresh off the street and sometimes has some good coins in it.

You have a big job in front of you! Try to go for the key and semi-key dates first because they just keep going up. Once you have enough posts, keep an eye out on the for sale forum section here. Quite a few of us have Lincoln's for sale pretty much all the time. As an avid collector of the series, I always have extras I'm selling to help out other collectors.

Good luck and most importantly....HAVE FUN!

I would say that your strategy is logical, I did the same thing.

I am not a cent collector so you can take my advice with a grain of salt if you want but how I would probably do if I were to collect cents is when I wanted to get the key dates I would buy the highest grade coin I could at the time, that way you will not have to upgrade later down the line (because they can be few and far between). Like I said I am no cent collector and am just giving you the path that I would probably take if I were to collect them, it just seems like it would be allot easier to upgrade the other coins than it would be to upgrade the keys and semi keys

BadThad and Bryan1315 - Thanks for the good advice. I think I am going to use a 2 prong approach. I am going to fill the album with rolls and lots and hunt for the key dates.

Bherring1954 - Thank you for the link, I copied down the key/semi key dates. I am going to bring this list with me when I go to my local dealers.

BadThad - I bought Coin Worlds Coin Values and looked up the 1931s cent. MS-60B starts at $225. Am I looking at the right coin?

Where can I find out which coins are the key dates and semi key dates? The book taht I am reading does not mention them.

Try to find a coin store, dealer, book store that carries a book called the Red Book published by Whitman for info on coins.

WELCOME TO THE FORUM.
As a new cent (penny) collector here is some suggestions. First don't waste to much time with rolled coins. For cents try a bank for a $50 bag and go through that. The coins in rolls are usually there because someone already checked out all the coins and then rolled them.
Also, if there are any flea markets in your area try them. There is one by me where a guy has been selling coins for years and very badly underpriced. Don't know where he gets them but he just dumps everything in a bin and lets people dig for whatever may be there.
Mention to friends, neibors and relatives you are starting that collection and ask if they have any of them.
If you have any coin shows in your area, try to attend them.
If there are any yard/garage/estate sales in your area go to them and ask if they have any old coins. You have to ask, they will not usually put coins out.
What you doing is exactly what I started out doing. First just fill the slots. Nice feeling when an album begins to fill. If you stick to just expensive coins you may well be hundreds of years old before it's complete. As you find higher grades just switch with the ones in your album. Then start another album with the rejects. I presently have 10 completed sets and set one is almost all MS now. Set 10 is really still poor but still a lot of fun.