Opened My First Coin Rolls Today!

I presume you paid extra to get rolls that were supposed to contain Indian cents? What (may I ask) did you pay for the 7 rolls?

FYI, circulated common Indian cents typically sell for $1 or less. If you browse Indian cent bins at coin shows or shops you can often find examples that grade as high as Fine or even Very Fine. So, if the 7 rolls cost more than about $15 you may have overpaid. If however any of the IHCs were high grade you may have done OK.

Steel cents are common and cheap. You can buy AU to uncirculated examples with original surfaces for a couple bucks. The one you got does appear to have been reprocessed which basically destroys any numismatic value.

I'd like to see photos of your Indians; please post if you have a chance!

And,

Also, what does AU mean? Sorry for the newbie questions.

21Maverick21,

I have a book that is perfect for a new collector that would like to learn how to grade coins. If you would like the book at no cost, please send me a PM with your address. See photo of book below. The quarter is not included as I needed it to weigh the cover down, so I could take the photo.

Awesome info, thanks! And slider, I'll take a look and see if I can find the book, I wouldn't want to put you out, but thanks so much for the offer. When I get off work tonight I'll look for it!

Welcome! I'm glad you are having fun with your first roll. Here's some advice I'd give as an experienced collector (though nowhere near the level of expert as some people here).

Buy the latest RedBook. That is practically a requirement for the library of any coin collector. It is a widely respected guide that will give you the current retail value of pretty much every US coin. In fact, I'd suggest getting the "Mega RedBook". It is huge, but it has a wealth of information beyond the normal version of the book. I hadn't bought a RedBook in years and it was time for a new one. When I saw that one I bought it right away. It is huge though! Don't blindly trust that the value you see in the RedBook is what you will get. It is an approximation. The way I like to use it is to quickly see what the valuable dates in a series are. For example, if I see a series averages $20 for a particular grade, but a certain date and mint mark
is $100, I know that is a key date worth remembering as the relative value is accurate even if the exact value can vary a bit.

The coin grading guide is also very important. There are several out there but if I were you I'd take up Slider23 on his offer.

I'm guessing you bought that roll on ebay. Most of those rolls were put together by the seller and made to look like they are old. He'll put in just a enough interesting (but not especially valuable) coins to make new collectors happy, but don't expect any big finds. True roll hunting is going to the bank, getting rolls, going through literally thousands of coins to find a few interesting ones. It is a lot of work for what you get but it is essentially free so long as you have money to buy the first rolls as you just keep exchanging them when you are through. One of the best things you can do is join your local coin club (if one is in your area). That's how I started when I was a kid. Got a lot of great coins for good prices and the people in those kind of clubs usually like helping out new collectors.

You can find interesting coin bargains on ebay, but it takes effort and experience. I can often get low to mid grade coins for 1/3-1/2 their actual value, but it takes some skill and the willingness to lose money on a bad pick from time to time. Get good at grading before you do that. In fact, I'd be careful about buying any coins on ebay that aren't graded by one of the big 3 grading companies until you start feeling comfortable with grading.

Finally, in terms of grading don't get caught up in all the numbers just yet. Someone explained the various AU grades above, which is good. But to start just worry about being able to tell a coin belongs in the AU category vs. the EF (also called XF) category. Basically learn to grade a coin to a basic AG, G, F, VF, EF, AU, or MS grade. Once you can do that fairly easily then worry about the sub-grade within those categories.

By the way, I got fooled by a coated steel Lincoln once. Later I bought a high quality untampered one. If I remember later I'll post a picture of the two side by side. Maybe it will help you tell the difference.

Replated* sorry. Autocorrect.

I'm not sure about the weight. My good steel cent is in my type set album and I don't want to take it out and risk damaging it to weigh it in comparison to the replated one. But once you get used to seeing them it is fairly easy to tell them apart. I'd highly suggest saving your coin so as a reference piece.

Here is the picture I promised. The top coin is a steel cent in circulated condition. Most look like that nowadays. The one on the bottom left is an nice quality cent that has not been replated. In other words, it is what you are looking for. The one on the right is the plated coin. It is hard to put into words exactly what is different, but it seems more glossy and has a yellowish tinge, whereas the real one has a solid gray/silver cast. I hope this helps!

I do see the yellow tinge and I'm assuming my coin was recently done as I don't see the yellow yet. It was hard to get a good picture of it due to no camera other than my phone. But I'll for sure keep it just to compare. Most of the ones I got were like the top one.and one in between the top and left one.

So far, Jaobler, I'm going to keep most, if not all, the coins until I get good at recognizing certain grades/types.

Thanks again for all the feedback!