Newbie Question

Good question for newbies... while you "can" buy the sets, many find the thrill in the search. The State Quarters can be found fairly easy in pocket change, and getting the last elusive one is half the fun.

I'd suggest also expanding to the ATB Quarters - those appear to be harder to find in the wild for most of us.

I started my Lincoln set by buying a "GEM" set of 1959 to 2012 (more like a MS63/64 set) for $25 on ebay. I really wanted to focus on wheats but still have the satisfaction of having something in the album already. At the time, it was an okay move for me. I may start another set by roll searching just for fun, we'll see.

For wheats, I've been taking my time - hand picking, searching the bay, coin shows. I'm almost done with 1935 to 1958 in BU and my early years are coming together nicely as well but it's taken me two years to get there. I've made mistakes but I've also learned SO MUCH MORE by taking my time, posting questions here, and just looking at countless wheats to get a feel for what I want my set to look like. It's been my passion.

State Quarters? Go buy a $500 box at the bank and spend an afternoon roll hunting! My 9 year old and I did this and put together a mostly BU set sans 10 or so below BU and 10 or so missing all together. After that, we've just been searching pocket change. Good fun!

Never heard it put better than that.

Yes I definitely agree with the above, it's always best to buy one coin at a time and enjoy the thrill of the hunt! I got started when my grandfather gave parts of his collection to me, including a folder of LWC's that he had been working on. Since that time I've grown into a mature collector if you will and have greatly expanded upon his collection. It is more rewarding and you learn a lot more from getting out and experiencing the thrill of the hunt! While I've never used ebay you can start there, but if you have a local coin shop around you or if a coin show comes to town those would be great places to start and form relationships with other collectors and dealers while providing a great opportunity to expand your collection. Good luck!

I've never heard of that company before, but some important things to check for is if its owners are members of the American Numismatic Association and especially the Professional Numismatists Guild. If they are they must abide by certain rules and principals. Honestly I would just pull some nice BU State Quarters from circulation before I considered spending money on them. I find nice examples all the time in my change. Consider maybe purchasing some quarter rolls and looking through those as well.

Yeah... Don't buy those quarters. You can find all of those quarters in very nice shape in circulation with a little time and a little patience.

Try this... buy a coin book to hold your quarters (many here love the Dansco 7070 -- I like the Whitman Albums). Next, go to a bank and ask for at however many rolls of quarters you want to lay-out. Go through those quarters and see what you find. As soon as you find one in better condition, replace it. When you've gone through all of those rolls, roll them and take them back to the bank (you can also take quarters to a smaller 'dump' bank, so you don't get the same ones back). Repeat as many times as it takes you to finish your book. If you like doing this, you're going to catch the collecting bug! If you don't like it, you can spend your quarters and you only lose the investment of the coin book.

I disagree with the dont buy the quarters statement. If you want to get the quarters in good condition in a timely manner, the prices you mentioned are not bad. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with doing it that way.

As for the whole its the journey thing. Yes, for some. But that does not invalidate those who want to purchase entire sets, or large chunks of sets at one time. Saying to someone buying those coins will not satisfy you is a bit snobbish. That may be the case for you, but it sure is NOT the case for every collector. I put a ton of work into getting high grade quarters for my State Quarters Danscos. I purchased lots of mint sets and proof sets. I pulled sets from my fathers old collection. Not a single coin was pulled from circulation. So you are telling me that set has no emotional value to me?

My circulated Washington quarter Dansco is complete. The clad coins I grabbed all from circulation. 1965-1998. I did it in about an hour with two boxes of quarters. The only one that I did not get out of that was a 71 believe it or not. LOL The 1932-1964 however, took me much longer and a whole lot more effort and money to get completed. Some few of those I did get from circulation, but the majority were purchased. Want to take a guess which half of that album I care more about? Which half I have a greater sense of accomplishment about? Certainly not the half that simply required opening a bunch of quarter rolls for an hour.

Me, I am a journey/destination kind of guy. If I found an entire set of Morgans that I liked, and I had the umpteen gazzillion dollars to buy it, I darn sure would and not bat an eye. And I would take anyone to task who tried to tell me I had no emotional satisfaction in that set. But if I end up with an entire Morgan set before I die that I have cobbled together over the years, then that would be just as good for me. Either way I would be able to say I have a set of Morgans.

clayton. My advice to you is this. You do what YOU want to do. Whatever approach YOU choose is the right one for you. And that approach may change over time. There are NO rules to this. If you find a collection as a whole that you like, and is reasonably priced, go for it. Nothing wrong with that. The main thing I would say to do is shop around. Like anything else, dont buy the first sparkly you see. Look for the deals. Hunting around ebay and Googling for nice sets or portions of sets or date runs etc is challenging and rewarding as searching through boxes of coins. Choose your path based on YOUR likes and have fun.

Claytondoge9,

The above two posts are absolutely correct that it is up to you whether or not you want to buy the quarters. If time is important to you or roll searching bores you, it's hard to beat a complete collection for $50. The issue is that there is a reason *why* it is so gosh-darned easy to find AU/BU State Quarters in bank rolls... people buy them, sit on them for a few years, and then get hit with buyers remorse and take the whole lot to the bank. It's not a bad deal to spend $50-100 on a set of coins that you will enjoy, but it's not a good idea to spend that money and then spend the coins for $25.

As for your other question, wheat pennies are easy enough to find in circulation (maybe 1 per 100-250 coins, depending on your sources), but wheaties prior to 1940 are significantly more difficult to find than the 1940-1958 flavor. To put into perspective, I worked as a cashier from 2008-2011 handling about 150 pennies per day (not to mention roll searching on the side) and I can count on both hands the number of 1909-1939 pennies I found in circulation. If you don't want an even remotely complete collection of wheat pennies, I'd recommend that you just buy them. If you are comfortable with a few holes for the $50-500 key dates, you can easily get a whole set for $50-150, depending on condition.

For Memorial cents, it's a harder call. Barring rare varieties, all 104 basic circulating date/mintmark combinations can be found easily. AU cents can be found with a little dilligence, but getting the whole 1959-2008 set in BU would be a monumental task without making any purchases. You should be able to get an uncirculated set for $25 max, barring the 1960 and 70-S small dates.