Newby Needs Help Getting Started

I agree with buying the best you can one nice coin is better than a bunch of common coins, though you won't generally get as much fun out of a single coin. Use knowledge to score the big ones, there has been more than a dozen times I've used knowledge from books to buy what appeared to be a common coin for under $20.00 and flipped that coin becuase of a rare variety or error for many times what I paid for it, the best couple being VAM Morgan dollars purchased for silver melt ($7-15) and sold for well over $1K! It can work for you too, I follow my tagline below from Mr. Feldman - Buy the book before the Coin. Scott Travers has some good books on investing as does Q. David Bowers, his is older but still plenty of good advice is contained within it. "High Profits from Rare Coins."

Jbuck, that is some good solid advise. I have made the mistake of justifying purchases in my millitaria collecting by thinking of the items as investments way before I was schooled enough in the hobby to know what a true investment peace was, or the time it would take to see that investment pay off. In coins I know I am not smart enough in the hobby yet to even think about investment pieces, but even if or when I do gain that knowledge I think I personally will stay out of the investment game.

Right now, I'd rather have 1 $200 coin. But when I just started, I went with 10 $20 coins. I started making a US type set in the dansco 7070 and tried to fill all of the cheaper holes first. I think at first, having more coins sparked my intereist in farther collecting.

I also think that new collectors should slowly step into the collecting pool instead of jumping in. a person who is new should start small while they research and learn the hobby. And gradually buy more expensive coins, if your income allows it. No need to rush collecting. This is just opinion though, as everyone may have a different view.

I guess it depends on what coin series you are collecting in the end. A 7070 typeset would actually be a great way to start and you could fill a lot of holes with some good quality cheaper coins. Another thing to look at maybe something like a Franklin half set or Ike dollar set where $200 can go a long way in BU coins. In fact I just bought five different dated BU Franklins for under $100.00 and am quite happy with having a decent start on completing that set rather soon. I also enjoy my GSA Carson city Morgan and my toned MS 63 Morgan's as well. In the end I guess their is no right or wrong answer other than do what makes you happy.

As a beginner, I would say 10 $20 coins. You do not have to buy them all at once, buy one now and show us for comments. If you made a mistake, it would be a relatively cheap $20 lesson. A $200 mistake would hurt a little more. I am not saying you will make a mistake, but that you might; most of us have at some point.


Not really. I think you were spot on with the advice on learning to save and not going into debt. I just wanted to expand it and give the "know what you are doing before you invest" advice. Investing is difficult, but it is easy to save; even the lowest interest rate savings account is better than building debt from frivolous spending.

How about five $40 circulated coins? That would allow you to have nice examples of coins from the the 1800s and 1900s, but you woudlnt have to worry about the kids touching them and ruining them (like you would with an uncirculated coin). I would think that having a mixture of say a Seated Liberty quarter, large cent, Walking Liberty half, Two Cent Piece, and a Three Cent Silver or nickel would be very cool in their eyes...

Or you could buy one $100 coin as the "family collection".. Coins that you keep control of and they can see whenever they want, and then $50 for each of them to buy what they want.

Hi !

I find this discussion very interresting to see the different point of view.

My opinion it's that it's sure that if you talk about investissement it's better to buy 1 coin at 200$ that 200 coin at 1$. But do you think that you will have a lot of fun to have only 1 coin in your collection ? I don't think so. Depending of your budget too, if you plan to buy for 200$ of coin each week it's enough to have fun with only 1 coin at 200$ each time.

Personnaly if I have to start a collection for and with children, I think that the first thing is to have they interrest for coin. Like I'm from Canada I will probably buy 1 coin of each domination to show the difference and try to learn something with different denomination. I will probably choose 1 or 2 "mid range" price coin, something aroud 50-60$ to not have only " hole filler"

After that, I will check for wich denomination the kid look like to be the more interrested to probably continue with them.

When I had starting, I had start with more cheaper coin's but I don't want any scrap in my collection, it always have better but I choose to collect very fine and better. I coin with a value of 200$ at very fine, for me have more value that I coin at 200$ for a good/very good condition and are more easy to resell at good price.

If you don't want to pay a lot for recent hole filler, you can make some roll search, you probably can find anything from 1950/60 to date in circulated roll, exept for silver of course.

For my point, at this moment buy hole filler in silver are not interresting because the melt price is too high. Wait the the melt go down and you will find the same coin at lower price.

I think that for start few semi-key and key date coin in fine or very fine condition and some roll searching for 1¢ and 5¢ can be safe and fun for all !

Happy collecting :)