Collecting Large Cents Advice?

It all depends on what you want to do. I got my first (and only) US Large Cent about 10 years ago for $15 in VF...it's worth about $30 now. Prices have gone up on them. Some heavily circulated large cents do look nice, but I just seem to stare enviously at the high grade red cents when I see pictures of them online. Such beautiful coins.

For $100 a month budget, I'd think you could get 4-6 good higher grade cents a year (later years), or around 1-2 (2 if you're lucky) of the earlier ones in higher grades. However, there's nothing wrong with having a nice amount of "whatever" grade coppers. You should see my little hoard of LWC's and IHC's. Copper is nice.

Buy the books first! (Sheldon,Newcomb, Grellman, Noyes etc..). Learn The series before you buy. I would go for quality over quantity....this is not a race, take as long as you need to get the examples YOU like. This, imo, is a LONG HAUL kind of collection. If you want to collect by variety this is a very frustrating set without patience. If you just want a date set then just buy the best example you can find without problems. The middle and especially late dates can be had for reasonable prices......with patience.

I agree with what Amida17 said. Study the series..know the series. This is key to your collection.
Quality over quantity big time. Many Large Cents have corrosion and/or have been recolored.
Sometimes it's hard to tell an original surface but over time, you will.
Join EAC..well worth it.

While I'm an EAC member, myself, I humbly disagree with this suggestion. For a newbie copper collector, the EAC material. articles, nomenclature, etc. can be overwhelming and potentially discouraging in the process.

Simply buy some recommended books and acquire eye-appealing coins with problem-free planchets for starters. By focusing on the more common, later dates first, one can aquire a few decent specimens a month and still have some money to apply for books; this, on a $100 monthly budget.

Attend area shows, join a local coin club or two and network with fellow enthusiasts in the process. Peruse and study the auction archives for companies like Stack's, Heritage and Goldberg.

Exoguy's advice is right on the money! And, don't waste money on junk LC's.

as far as your personal collection go for at least vf-xf coins as they are not that pricey and you can see the details well. It is helpful I think to dabble with buying and reselling some of the lower priced coins. If you do it right you can add to that $100 monthly budget and get a good feel for what you should pay for the nicer ones.

I too agree with ExoGuy. I started with the later braided hair series of large cents, they can be had in better shape for lower prices than the earlier ones. This was just to get my feet wet and to learn a little without dropping large amounts of money. I collected for over a year before joining EAC, this gave me enough time to learn the ropes so that I could understand what I was reading in the EAC publications. As far as books, I would hold off on buying them until you know for sure you want to collect large cents beyond a date set (the books aren't exactly budget friendly), the number of varieties is overwhelming and some of the books cover each and every minute detail (not helpful to beginners imo). I suggest you start with a late date set, explore the series, figure out what you want to collect within the series then make your book purchase before jumping into nicer, harder to find varieties/dates. I went this route with US Half Cents and it has worked well for me.

My advice about collecting Large Cents is as follows: DON'T DO IT. To make it easy I started collecting Large Cents but only a year only set. It's in a Whitman Classic Album. AFter many years now it still needs about 7 coins. their prices can go up to more than the car I use to get to a coin show. If you try for a complete set, be prepared to spend a few million dollars and still not have them all. A bit of an exageration but they do get expensive.
At one coin show there is a dealer that had about 4 tables of mostly all Large Cents. Other dealers told me he is rather famous for that. Supposedly has millions of dollars tied up in them. One dealer I've purchased some from told me he has been trying to get a complete set of those for himself for over 30 years now. If you look up all the varieties people claim there is, you could end up spending the rest of your life looking for them all.
Might be easier to just make your own.