Initiating Potential New Collectors Question

Great idea. I think the 2009 pennies would be interesting to a potential collector. Remember, the kids you introduce to collecting today will be the ones buying coins when (if) you decide to sell in the future.

Last Halloween I went to the bank and got several rolls of the US Virgin Islands and American Samoa territories quarters and gave out one of each to every kid that rang my doorbell (even the parents, too). I must have given out about $15.00 worth, which would been the same cost in the amount of candy I would have bought for that night. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone, the quarter maps are a great idea, I'll start looking for them @ flea markets and garage sales, and a youth organization is a great place to start if they don't have a coin club already. We need the young 'uns because someday they will be buying your MS Morgans and Walkers!

Lol good idea maybe i'll buy a few whitman folders and some candy and every kid who comes through will get whitman folder and a few pieces of candy :) it would defiantly encourage them. When my sister and I were younger, she is 9 years younger than me so I was about 15 and she was about 6 I encouraged her to collect with me, we'd sit there and go through pennies after pennies just looking to collect one of every date (i didn't know anything really then) so I would tell her what dates we needed and she'd go through them with me. She was just learning her numbers but she would try her hardest to tell the years accurately, but she finally got it, and it helped her learn her numbers faster and now she collects more than I do!

I just give what I can, and explain the item/hobby in the most exciting way possible.

Usually I give a few common coins in used folders or just obsolete coins.

I don't like giving something they can find in their change, because that is hard to
capture their imagination with. They are numb to circulating coins. I'd rather give out
wheats or buffalos found in circulation, to give them something to look at they may
never have seen, and to give them a clue as to what to look for when they get change.
Even if a kid doesn't think too hard about it, from now on, when he looks at his
pocket change, a wheat will stick out like a sore thumb... for example.

i guess I need to go knocking on parkquarter's door on Halloween.

When I had my antique mall I would give away indian head and wheat pennies to kids who showed passive interest in coins. Those who showed more of an interest got an out of date Red Book IF they promised me they would read it. Additionally I tell them some of the secrets I learned over the years and I hope they remember them.

What are those secrets you ask?

1. Buy quality, not quantity.
2. Common coins will always be common, rare coins only get rarer.
3. Buy the coin, not the container.
4. Knowledge is power.
5. Learn how to properly grade.
6. Quantity minted DOES NOT MEAN quantity still available. Coins with mintages of less than 15 million are hard to get. Coins with mintages of less than 5 million are rare.

I wish someone had taught me these things when I was a child. I learned them only because of experience in handling a lot of sets of coins these last couple of years. Sincerely, John Leckrone

You've mentioned this before and I have to tell ya John, you've sure convinced me!

Relating how people would bring in folders with the same key holes in them time after time, it's easy to see the sagacity of your advice. I particularly like your observation: "1 million or less, you should be grabbing these as fast as you can."

Your advice has not fallen on deaf ears here.

It's because of this forum that taught me about the arts and skills of Coin Collecting. I guess it's just the initial kick you give a potential collector by giving them an unknown coin that gets them to start researching for themselves.
That's what I did :)

TheKid!