Best Coin Series For A Newbie

Don't confuse undervalued coin series with inexpensive coin series.
Inexpensive means it won't cost much to complete.
Undervalued means that for some reason the set is selling for much cheaper than people believe it is worth. I think this is a false notion as SuperDave says. If you track a coin on ebay for a year and it consistently sells for around $40 you can't say it is undervalued and should be $50. It is worth $40 because that is all that people will pay for it. The fact that it was selling for $60 two years before is not relevant.

I agree with starting a set of franklin halfs. With your budget an MS set could be assembled in 3-4 months and maybe a few more months if you wanted to include the proofs. I believe this set is undervalued.

If you are just going to your LCS (Local Coin Shop) then it just comes down to what they have same with auctions online. Hours of searching sites and coin shops and you blow your entire budget in one purchase... OR you could try CRH (Coin Roll Hunting)

I'm not a huge fan of cents but I will take a look at them from time to time. I'm a huge fan of nickels

check out my first posts on them here:

https://goccf.com/t/166164
https://goccf.com/t/166172

Dimes are nice too for silver finds anything above that is harder and harder to find silver in, but there are the state and ATB Quarters, full date is easy but getting both mints can be a pain. (I'm full P&D till 2009 territories).

This is kind of a scatter gun question (maybe what you wanted) but can you be more specific as to your wants?

With $200 per month you could grab a couple of boxes of nickels sort and return then get a box of dimes... ok they are 250 but as I said they will be returned for the most part. Then you get a few silvers maybe and take the 199.85 back and buy the fancy ones from the shops, then start over the next month.

OK yeah this may sound like a lot of work but if you get a few Whitman books and fill as you go it can be quite interesting, plus if you have kids they may have better eyes than you and it's not really slave labor if you give it to them for their kids.

another note on state and ATB Quarters and westward journey nickels... because of the collecting frenzy they have produced and high mint numbers it is a basic rule in my LCS's that they MAY be worth something in 200 years, If content changes in nickels, which it seems like it's going to happen anytime now, the melt value may go up in the next 40-50 years... only took 20-30 for silver to boom out of all proportion.

as ChesterB said... sorry no clue how to imbed ... There is no real answer to this as people are going to steer you towards what they like and a lot of things can be collected on that size of budget.

for me it's the thrill of the hunt...

The first forum link I posted is about a 1941 Mint error I found in a roll, I paid 5 cents for it. Once it is graded and slabed who knows how much a dealer might charge you for it.

Now I hear some of you saying I'm not going to search through thousands of dollars of nickels for a single error coin... and the time to get one silver out of $100-200 is not worth it. Ok how about a compromise, do $10 each in nickels, dimes and quarters each month and see if you catch the roll hunting bug. $30 (or $40 with cents) and most of it goes back.

Here's my pennyworth:
If you live near a museum that has coins, go and look at theirs to get inspiration.
If you're young even though you have a reasonable budget, collect coins you get in your change, collect a date set and work on improving the quality.
After collecting change, I started on Anglo-Saxon stycas (about 737-867 AD in northern England and southern Scotland), mainly because they're easy to read, not many types and at the time they were cheap; nobody else was interested.
Don't be afraid to collect what interests you, don't worry what others think.
Befriend one or more coin dealers, shopkeepers, bank tellers and ask them to look out for coins for you.

I've become enthused recently by Australian and New Zealand penny tokens, Hard Times tokens, Canadian tokens and 19th century medallions. If I lived in the US, I would collect Hard Times tokens but in the UK, they're almost as rare as hen's teeth.

Put me down on the side of the Type collecting crowd. After you have acquired most types of coins, usually a bug will bite you and you will naturally begin to gravitate toward the series that interests you most. This is what I did, and that's what my son is doing. He really enjoys it. At $200 per month you should be able to get several holes filled per month in the beginning. The tougher holes may require 2-3 months to fill. For me, the 7070 is one of my favorite sets to pull out and look at.

As far as collecting as an investment, I would slightly disagree with SsuperDdave. If coin collecting is a life long hobby and you make good decisions on price and quality, the value of your collection will grow. I have plenty of coins I have picked up long ago for a fraction of their current worth. For me, time is my friend. I don't flip coins for a quick buck. I truly love quality coins and enjoy accumulating them. Part of that enjoyment includes watching their value grow. If you are into coin collecting just to make money to live on, I agree, it would be difficult, but, I will say certain coin series have outperformed some of my mutual funds in my IRA, but that's probably more of a function of not having the greatest financial advisor. I digress. I just don't want new collectors to be discouraged when so many people say coins are a bad investment. You should collect coins for the passion of the coin. You need the passion to stay long term, and the patience to not over pay, and the determination to learn what makes a quality coin. 30 years later you might find yourself with a collection of coins worth $100K you invested say $55k in.

To be a little more specific than my earlier post, if you want an easy to fill folder/album 20th Century Type coins should be a great start, then move on to the 7070 Type album if you are so inclined.

Here is a good starter album;

20th Century US Type Set WHITMAN CLASSIC ALBUM No 9139

Here is a good description of the 20th Century Collection at various levels;

http://typesets.wikidot.com/20th-century