This May Sound Stupid. Justcompare Two Good And Go?

Tip:put together a roll set of year and mint mark.
John1

Hi Schwanke. Yes, that's the way I find the majority of my varieties and error coins. I just compare, compare, compare. I find that I can't memorize every single detail of each penny and nickel I look through, especially since the difference between 2 coins may only be a "far" or "near" variety, or a size variation in some small detail of the coins. I also use a 10x loupe to aid my search, although I have a 5x as well which works pretty good too, and I'll spend an evening or some early morning before work going through only a certain year of a certain denomination (say all my 1979 pennies, or my 1984 nickels, etc). This helps varieties stand out, because you're searching through coins which all should be exactly the same, and all the ones that aren't are your varieties and errors. Also looking through the various error websites and of course, our own dear CCF, will help you identify which errors are still out there to be found and will often have great pictures for you to see the differences.

Hope this helps!

I love saving and looking through pennies (as you probably guessed by my handle) for a couple of different reasons. One is the great number of varieties there are to be found, while another reason is that they're so inexpensive. I can't bring myself to spend a penny or give one away -- dimes, quarters, dollars, sure, but pennies I hoard. I have over 40,000 of them -- over $400.00 face value worth -- and save every one because there might be a new variety I haven't found yet. I'm not saying that you should save up so many, but whatever you do have, if you can afford it and you have the room, just keep them handy and keep your eye on these boards - new varieties pop up all the time and you can then revisit your rolls again. I'm not in your shoes, so I don't know for sure of course, but you may find, your OCD permitting, that you only need to save one or two denominations this way and it'll cut down on your space requirements in the long run. If not, well, maybe you can get rid of your bed and sleep on your big pile of coins like Scrooge McDuck! (lol). Happy hunting Schwanke, and I hope you find your happy medium!

Would I go through $400 worth to find a new variety? Actually, yes I would, as I enjoy the hunt. While I don't have OCD and wouldn't pretend to know exactly how it affects a collector, (and believe me, I don't mean to make light of anyone with it -- my apologies if I have offended someone for that wasn't my intent), I do get a great enjoyment out of occassionally re-going through my stash and finding a new variety. And that's the beauty of our hobby -- there are so many ways of enjoying and approaching it. Some collect known varieties and types only, others enjoy the repeated looking to find something previously missed or discovering new types -- it doesn't really matter as long as it's fun. I'm more of a detail-oriented person, so that getting "bogged down" in those minor details doesn't bother me, in fact I kind of enjoy it. Some people can get overwhelmed if they don't have a workable discipline in their approach to the collection, while others keep it simple to maintain a viable approach to their liking. And when it comes to certain things, like pennies, I'm a hoarder, but I've come to live with that and make that urge work for me.

You also mentioned a coin being "reviewed for value" -- I hope you mean value in the sense of it's belonging in the collection, not in it's actual monetary or collector's resale/buying value. I myself don't care about the retail value of a coin if I get it for face value. It's nice to find a coin worth $20, but to me it has the same collectable value as one worth $1 -- it fills a hole in my set and that's what I like and care about.

I respect your opinions Owassokie, I've read some of your other posts and enjoy them and I'm glad you took the time to respond to my post, and that's part of what this hobby is all about -- an exchange of ideas and opinions. I wish you continued success in your own efforts to putting your set of coins together, and in the ways you find most enjoyable.

Cheers!

Owassokie and pennysaver. Thank you both for your input. Its nice to see differing views and how they can interract. I myself am only begining to 'explore' the parts that I like about this collecting and for all I know I may totally change my tastes 6 months to a year from now and 'spend' half my collection and start collecting something new.

Its funny but I originally got into world coins and in fact have some 12 pounds of them with a good 1 to 2 pounds of 'reasonable' ones that I could have fun adding to a collection. But I fell into this CRH stuff and now I am caught in this. Maybe after I CRH for a while I'll switch back to world and get that off the ground. No face value there. Its all personal choice since I cant spend any of it short of the cannadian .

Libertad. Yeah I am very hands on learner. But I am going through the coins I find and trying to 'focus' myself on 'feeling' the coin and then comparing it to another one and so on. Like I have a fairly good 'feel' as to how Lincoln's ear should look so I dont need to worry too much about that. Or the pillars on the monument or the shape of the shield on the new ones. Just as I go and look I am getting a feel.

But as I said above I am getting different 'winds' as I go along. Like now I wanna collect by year and mint as was suggested and then after I have a few of the same year THEN look for varients.

I personally could actually see myself enjoying hoarding ALL american coins and just sorting them into rolls and then if I really end up with 5 or 10 rolls of something spend them or bank them or something. I manage my money very well and I have to keep under a certain limit for the government so its actually reasonable for me to invest large, by my standards, amounts of 'cash' in a 'cash collection' just so long as its actually a collection and not me just saying 'Oh yeah I collect 20 dollar bills, see, here is my stack of 100 lol. If I am actually sorting and enjoying the collection and its an actual hobby I can argue its not just me banking cash and has to be accounted to the government though I hope I never have to proove that. I spent 50 or so $US on coin roll cases for my State Quarters so clearly I have 'lost' money on those considering they are all only worth face value but then if I collected a roll of each making it 500$US it might sell for slightly over to pay for the rolls. (Especially if they are all good versions and not just slop off the bucket.)

Thanks everyone for your input and please keep it coming. I like this, even the derails. :) I dont mind if people derail my threads, I enjoy the variety and I have to resist doing it naturally to others .

Yah. I throw the OCD term around loosely too. I'm not diagnosed with it but I do have a lot of similar tendencies to people that I know that are diagnosed. Same with hoarding. I used to want to collect the bottle tabs off of soda cans once. Just because. I always have some lame excuse like "It'l come in handy some day." Or "I might use that for art." but it never does and I never do. So yeah, mixture of hoarding/OCD tendencies does lend itself to being a part of this hobby.

I practically am drooling over the idea of seeing how far I can get in a full set of a roll each of pennies/nickles/dimes/quarters in years/mints/etc. Of course space and money are the issue. Money not so much for pennies and maybe nickles but getting into dimes and quarters on top and going back 80 years plus State Quarters plus 2 to 3 mints per year sometimes on different coins. It gets into overkill range pretty fast but still fun to try. See where it goes ya know?

But thats the point. Having fun. Right now my 'having fun' is to try. In my gaming world I call it the 'fun factor'. If a game starts loosing its fun factor you move on. Same in collecting. If I loose the fun factor of collecting all this then I have to make changes to my goals until the fun factor comes back.

True for all of us I guess unless we go towards something like turning it into a business/profit where it becomes necessity or maybe obsession. :P

Schwanke, For me, this whole "coin thing" started because I was investing in precious metals. I was doing some research on silver and came across this idea crhing. I've been hooked ever since. And by hooked, I mean hooked. If you would have told me 2 years ago that I'd be looking through 'pennies' one at a time, I wouldn't have believed it. No one in my family collected coins, or anything for that matter. It came very natural to me but I guess I had just never been introduced to collecting. I don't know how much time others devote to this hobby but I typically spend at least 40 hours a week, not including pickup and dumps. I do look at it as a combination of hobby, savings, and investing.

Btw, I'm kind of in shock right now. I've never counted the number of hours I spend on this. Guess my wife really has a good reason for being irritated at me.

40 hours a week...WOW do you have a job or are you retired owassokie...i can understand if you are retired because hey what else are you suppose to do when you retire besides relax and do things you like to do...all I have to say is that must be a huge hoard you got going if you invest 40 hours a week into it...i only do about a box or maybe 2 a week and that takes me about 2 hours to look through all for errors and silver ext...and I feel like I have a hoard or that I'm taking up to much space...i cant even imagine what you have....if you do pennies do you keep all copper?...would love to see a picture of that hoard haha