Ideas For Starting A Collection...

I am completely biased. Start with a set of Ikes.

I would say that at this stage in your collecting life, you should not be buying coins graded by grading companies or sending them in to be graded/ slabbed.

You should first learn how to grade, from books or by taking a grading course.

Read the many threads about grading, here in the CCF, and you might well be totally confused at first, but eventually you will see patterns.

Thanks guys. Appreciate the pointers and advice!

to the hobby!

A lot of good advice posted on here so far. If you like halves, then I'd definitely start with those! They make for a truly beautiful set.

There are as many ways to collect coins as there are coin collectors. That's one of the great things about this hobby, you can make your coin collection whatever you want it to be. As long as you enjoy it, that's the main thing.

That being said, I'd start off simply - purchase an album or two, fill it with coins that you can find from banks or in circulation, and you are off and running! As you learn more about the hobby your collection will grow.

And don't be afraid to ask questions - this forum is a great resource for advice and help!

Most of all, have fun!

If you like half dollars, you can certainly begin with them and see where that takes you. I would personally store them in Coin World coin holders, it's identical in size to the slabs graded coins come in, and you won't have two or three storage media that way, such as flips, albums, slabs, etc.

Don't buy any graded coins until you learn what you have to learn about the rest.

Whatever your budget is, do buy the highest grade of coin you can afford for that purchase. If it's raw coins, that means UNC in one grade or the other.

I would personally start out with building a type collection, from early Bust Halves to a 1964 Silver Kennedy, there's a lot to look at there and it's a great deal of fun. That way, you're not concerned with year of issue and mint marks, just the best quality type coin you can find that day.

An alternative choice is to limit your grades to XF at best, and keep them in 'raw' state, where you can actually handle the coins, if that's what you enjoy doing. Some folks run two collections, the nice UNCs that are never handled, and the XF set they can toss on the table and pick up and ponder.

Lots of folks also collect silver 'halves' from foreign countries, too.

Whatever you do, DON'T start collecting anything you are not interested in, and keep your interests limited to begin with.

With saying you like half dollars begin with a type set of halves. Kennedy, Franklyn, Walking Liberty, Barbor, Seated, and Bust. Then you can expand with variations of your types such as mint marks, proofs, and series differences like on Seated halves with arrows and mottos.

Thanks again for the additional responses, folks. Seems like a knowledgeable group here!

I'll start doing some research and get started soon. Thanks again!

Got hooked on Numi's when I was searching boxes of coins. Started putting sets together, but I really like type sets. I made it simple, I followed the RedBook. I still have some of the dollars and cents to get, but there are a lot of coin varieties to make it very challenging. I did not do the gold coins.