Collecting US Coins For 5 Years ... How Am I Doing?

I am sure you already know that I think you are doing an excellent job!

I would say this even without knowing that you are a considerable distance away from the US!

Thanks and Yes I hope I do one day, but it is not that easy for me as I live 11000 Kilometers from the nearest coin shop in U.S.

Thanks Ken..... I have a short list for these coins except the Wheat Lincolns because the only dates I have in high grades are 1936D, 1951D, 1954, 1955, 1955D, 1956, 1956D, 1958D. Other dates are either missing or present in a very bad condition.... thats why I said it will be a very long list.

EgCollector, I looked through my coin can and found quite a bit you need in there and also fresh from bank rolls. I have all the dimes you need but two and most of your missing nickels.

I'll send you a detailed list what I have for you when I'm done looking. This will be a gift from everyone at CCF.

Ken

LOL ... I don't know how could this be. I see my U.S. coin collection very small compared to what I could have been able to collect if I was living in America. I do have some American friends who always talk about coin shows and post pics of their latest buy from this shows... you do have flee markets and garage sales where you can buy coins from. I dont have any of these in Egypt and its one of my dreams to attend one of these coin shows ... I cant imagine being in a place with all this amount of coins and all this number of dealers and collectors ..... its like heaven for any collector




It all started in 2006. I was looking through my Egyptian coin collection that I collected during my childhood. I decided to give it a try and start collecting again, but I needed some information about my coins and thought I might find a website about my coins.

I searched google and found coin community forum. I started posting some pics of my coins and got a lot of information. I started spending more time reading about world coins, especially U.S. coins. Then I replied to a contest and I won.The prize was a 2007 Presidential dollar. I received the coin with a cardboard holder for the 4 2007 dollars and I like it and thought that I would try to fill the remaining 3 holes.

I posted in the trade section a list with what I have for trade and mentioned that I need the other 3 dollars. The problem was many members wanted to trade with me and all will be able to send me the 3 dollars

As a result, I started picking different coin denomination and types just to try to have a small type set of American coins. But as what happened with the Presidential dollars, one member sent me a Jefferson nickel folder, and a Kennedy half dollar folder. And here I started again trying to fill many holes through trading

Every time I had a trade, the other member needed more coins from my list than I did from his so to complete the trade I select new denominations that I am not collecting and this is a start of a new set to be completed

I cant neglect nor forget that some generous members, and most of them became friends, have sent me some coins for free as a gift just trying to help me with my collection as I dont have any other source to add to my collection other than trading.

Through the past years I became more fond of some designs than other so I shifted from one set to another until I finally have this small collection of U.S. coins

To summarize it is simply because I love U.S. coins and I am dedicated to collecting and being a member of CCF

Eg

If you have the resources, you might pursue collecting the State Quarters in silver.

You might also go after the America the Beautiful series quarters in all metals (CuNi as well as Ag). They will be relatively easy for you to obtain in higher grades at relatively low cost because they are realatively new. You may want to consider collecting these in depth so you can offload them later and still have your collected ones. Understand this: offloading them will be to people who want them. This will most likely be North Americans so you need to consider this fact. It is unlikely that a North American will buy from you when they can get them locally unless you happen to stumble upon an oddity which is unlikely. The precious metals ones will be easy to resell globally in my opinion.

If your interest is to acquire value, stay with silver issues. In the end, precious metals always win globally.

My advice is to stay away from slabs but I am not a slab guy. There is only one slab I think is worthwhile and I will not tell you what it is so please don't ask. I'm not saying I would not buy a slabbed coin, I just would not pay a premium just because it is slabbed. Let your eyes be the judge on those and don't take the grader's word.

Wooden nickels are neat but there is a reason why there is an expression here that something is "not worth a wooden (or plugged) nickel". You should only collect them as gifts and cherish them based on that.

There are those who collect Redbooks. Nice to have but not as nice as most coins (with the possible exception of modern US Presidential dollar coins )

In the end, you need to collect what appeals to you, your budget, and your goals.

You have an impressive collection and I would love to see some pictures of it.

Thanks PlumCrazy814 for the advice. I think I am not going to expand my State Quarter collection. I will try to complete both the Roosevelt and Jefferson then focus on expanding the Roosevelt to include Proofs and will try to start Franklin.This is ofcourse beside the Lincols, but these still have a long way to talk about now.

I didnt like the Presidential dollar series much so I dont think I will try to collect anymore.

I had the wooden nickels as a gift from a friend in Michigan, I like them very much, but this desnt mean that I am intending to collect, but it is something that I didnt see before and I doubt that many Egyptian collectors have seen either and after all they are a gift from a friend and this is their value to me

Thanks for your advice and if you like to see some pics of my collection, there is a link in my signature called "My collection" that takes you to My Coin Community Gallery" ..... hope you like what I got

Amr,

Your collection is impressive considering you are 6875 miles from the US.

Many good things has been said but I just want to add a couple things:
1) If you are on a low budget but want to get into silver coins then Dimes (Roosevelt & Mercury), Quarters, Half Dollar (Franklin and Walking Liberty) are all good choices. They are not too hard to complete and are not too pricey in MS60 to MS63 grade - you should try to make careful comparison of prices btw MS63 and MS64, sometime the differences is big.

2) If you stay in circulated coins then Roosevelt silver, Washington silver, and Franklin set can be easily have at about face value or just a tad higher. Many of us have these coins and sell them at spot - I personally have at least 2 sets of circulated Roosevelt silver, one set of circulated Washington silver and many loose Franklin.

3) Like PlumCrazy814 mentioned, coins with precious metal value will probably hold better value FOR YOU if you ever considering re-selling them. The cost of shipping and risk of lost is high for international mails and that will prevent many buyers from you. UNLESS you consider selling your US coins locally - imagine one day you have a small coin shop selling US coins in the middle of Cairo or Alexandria or Giza hehehe.

4) If you plan and want to get into silver coin, considering the PM market (dollar cost average would be good, or buy on the dip). ebay can be your great friend to help complete those sets mentioned above IF you do your homework. Whichever or however way you want to do it, if you keep on delay, PM will rise and it will be a lot harder for you in the long run to work on any silver coin set.

5) Try to get the highest grade possible for your coin sometime doesn't apply, in your case. WHY? Unless you have a lot of money or focus on key date coins, what you are paying (a high premium) may not hold value when you selling them back (your geographical disadvantage). I guess I am thinking about your list of modern collection when I wrote #5 since many modern coin in high grade will have high premium but hard to resell.

6) If you are truly wanting to assemble a Type Set of US coin then I suggest you venturing into getting a 7070 Dansco Album and slowly working on that. This will help you focus your time, effort, and money. With this option, you will have a lot of challenges AND if you have some money, you can get all the important key date for the album.