Newby With First Purchase

yes buy all the ihp for 80cents that are problem free.

Now having just started collecting I decided to stick to the cheap ones

Good thinking. I dove in head first, but stayed with inexpensive circulated Morgans. I ended with a great collection of polished Morgans.

Experience is a good teacher, but not over night.

Congrats on finding the coins so cheap.

I'm still a newbie myself, but I think you did ok for the price. The 1887 is probably a G4 and worth about $3. The 1906 is probably a borderline VG8 and worth about $2 (I think you need to be able to read at least a few letters from the word liberty on the crown for it to be graded VG). Other people can answer that better than me, since I'm still pretty new at this too.

I think you did ok, but you didn't get a killer deal.

The first one would probably be worth about $8 based on the details, but since it's been severely cleans it's probably only worth about half that...I'd say $3.50 - $4.00 is what you could get for it. Personally, I would have bought this one at the price you paid because I'm still fairly new to this and it's nicer than my current 1880. Most established collectors wouldn't have touched it at that price though (due to the cleaning).

The second one is similar to a lot of coins I've found. It has great details, but it's severely corroded and cleaned. There's nothing you could really do to lighten up the colors. It would be worth close to $15 based on details, but with all the other problems you'd most likely not get more than about $3.00 to $3.50 for it. The first coin is more marketable. Some collectors will overlook cleaning if the coin is otherwise nice. On the other hand, only a beginner would be interested in the second coin, since corrosion is ugly, can't be fixed, and will only get worse.

Well at least I am getting an education about IHC's. I am going back down to this antique store on Tuesday and now I have a little more knowledge of what to look for. When I get home I will take a closer look at the 1880 and post a better pic for all to see.

Never sure about some antique type stores but you may ant to try to find out if someone there has access to some type of coin price guide. Also, appears the first purchases were really on the cheap side but the prices are beginning to climb. Maybe they think they have you hooked. Why not attempt to evaluate the entire coins they have and make an offer. If not a lot of business, they may be willing to unload all for a really cheap price.
As to getting the green off the coins, not a great idea. You could attempt to just soak with distilled water. If the green is due to contact with a Sulfur based acid, some of the resulting CuSO4 will just dissolve off. If the green is from normal Oxydation and reations with Carbon Dioxide and Moisture, to late. Leave well enough alone.

The prices did not change at this store, I just picked out the IHC with better detail. There are still quite a few $1 coins there including other IHC that around a G4 condition. Now that I am learning what to look for and can hopefully spot cleaning and not pick up the corroded ones.

This has to be the friendliest board I have ever been part of. Thanks for all the info as I am learning a lot.