Bargain Bin Adventures

I meant to ask...

What are everyone's bargain bin adventures lately? Somebody has found something amazing lately, and I want to hear about it!

Not a U.S. coin but I got a Irish 1928 shilling XF today for 20 cents.

Coin 1: 1923S quarter for $2 in VF20, about 15 years ago.

The Australian dealer in Sydney was not (and still isn't) a specialist in U.S. coins.
At the time, I didn't know much about U.S. coins either!
About 5 years were to elapse before I discovered the true rarity of this piece.
These days I have about 250 U.S. coins including $20, and a gold dollar.

Coin 2: The 1853 gold dollar was bought for GBP one pound ten shillings, (equivalent $3 at the time), way back in 1970, at a coin show in England. That purchase was also a mistake by the dealer, AND myself and at the time, I didn't realise the true value of that coin, either! It wasn't until about 2 years later, when I returned to Australia, that I had a chance to find out more about it.

Coin 3: A silver tetradrachm of Ptolemy X11, in nice VF condition, bought for $7.50. This coin looked like an unidentifiable heavy bronze coin when I bought it.

The dealer who sold it to me, now has over 40 years experience in ancient coins, and has been a friend of mine for all of that time. I certainly had no real idea if what I was buying. He suggested that it be placed in a weak hydrochloric acid solution, with the the very real risk of total loss of the coin, if it was bronze.

The luck turned out to be all mine. This coin now has a value of around $300.

In a round about way, I paid 15 Cents for my MS63 1911 S and XF 1914 D Lincoln cents.

Picked up some Indian Head cents from the 15 cent bin. Bought ten or fifteen.

Yes, an AG3 1877 was pulled out of the lot. Just barely make out the date if you hold it in the right light. Took it back to the dealer and they said to keep it.

Traded the 1877 IHC to a dealer in Fargo, North Dakota for $125 worth of silver. About 3 months later, silver was going to the moon. Sold the silver for $400 and bought the 11 S and 14 D for $385. The 11 S and 14 D are the cornerstones of my collection. I doubt I will ever upgrade either and know that I could never get that kind of deal again.

Some really cool finds and deals posted. I'm only just begining to find out what can be had from the bargain bin. This thread gives me hope;)

Awesome, dude!

Ed
ANA LM-3175

For bargain bin hunting to be optimally successful, you have to open your collecting vistas to the whole of numismatics.

Just use your intuition, just buy anything that may be interesting to you,and seems to be a good bargain.
Quite often, a dealer will just put anything that he knows little about into a bargain bin.
Like a dealer, I don't know everything about the whole of numismatics either, but by intuitively buying what you may think may be a good bargain, is an excellent way to learn about numismatics in general.

I even buy fake coins in this way, provided they are sold as fakes, just so I can learn more on how to identify them.

I have seen bargain bins at $20 per item, and bargain bins at price levels per item all the way down to 10 cents each. I tend to go for the higher priced items, because there are fewer coins to look through those bins.
Such searching can lead to better knowledge in World coins, ancients, medieval coins, and coins of different cultures. There is a real adventure in finally identifying such purchases, which, when identified, will almost certainly lead to an increase in value, simply because they ARE identified.

Over the years I have found this approach to numismatics to be consistently financially rewarding.
This type of journey can be a real learning adventure into the whole of numismatics.

Those are great stories and some awesome finds. I don't have to be at work till 1 today... and since reading this thread, I may go "find a deal." Thats probably why I started this, to keep me jazzed up about looking!