Hi everyone!
I'm a new collector, living in the Chicago area.
My Uncle recently gave me a small coin collection of his. Apparently he remembered me having some sort of collection as a child, though I can't recall that. Maybe it was a Boy Scout project or something passing.. A couple weeks ago I finally got around to looking through it.
There's an album of
State Quarters, and a 1972 dated Whitman
Kennedy half folder. I realized the quarters were all in the wrong holes (with the obverse facing out too, must be a story there), and went to work sorting them as well as the loose coins. I ended up enjoying the process of finding out how many unique years and mint marks I had. Even my wife commented how great it felt to find one we didn't have or a better example of an existing coin. After sorting everything, I'm only about 20 away for a complete P&D circulation 50 States collection and I've got spreadsheets to track it!
The Kennedy's are more interesting to me. I'm of an age where I've encountered them in the wild, but not very often. They've always been a little intriguing as a result but I knew enough to know these were common circulation coins, and not very valuable. Still, it's a pretty decent start to a collection, close to a complete 1971-1999 P&D circulation set. This got me looking at resources on line, reading up on the history of the Kennedy series, etc. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to leave this set in the state it was given to me, but I've become really interested in collecting Kennedy's!
Among the
State Quarters were mixed a few
ATB Quarters from the first couple years which were much nicer, more like AU. I honestly wasn't aware of this program (the
State Quarters probably made me immune to differing reverses on circulation coins) but I thought I'd continue collecting these from circulation and went searching for a folder. This led me to the US Mint's site where after a few weeks I bought a few years uncirculated
ATB sets, and 2016 proof and silver sets since I figure it's near year end and that window will be closing.... They haven't arrived yet, so slow with their shipping!
I've been watching auction sites trying to get a feel for prices, rarity, etc. and haven't been able to resist a couple. Today's mail brought me a 2008-S PR Silver Kennedy with a really nice cameo. Not a uncommon coin, but at $14 including shipping it seemed like a reasonable price. The one I was more surprised to find was a slabbed 2002 PCGS PR69DCAM for $11 with shipping! I also picked up a used copy of the 2012 Franklin & Kennedy
Red Book, and have been enjoying reading it, my next purchase will likely be a Dansco 8166 to house my own Kennedy Collection alongside my Uncle's.
My reading led me to a bit of the history of the half. When I found that the 1893 World's Fair was the occasion for the first commemorative half, and that they're fairly inexpensive as well, I became determined to locate one of them which should be arriving soon. Remember, I'm from Chicago. I'm also fairly interested in local history of that time which of course includes the fair.
It's been hard to keep from jumping in the deep end, but I know it's best to be cautious and educate myself before getting too far ahead of myself but I've been comfortable with my purchases so far. This weekend I plan to visit my local coin shop and see what they've got that interests me. I've also been eyeing and watching pricing on some of the larger BU mint roll Kennedy sets. I figure those sorts of lots can help me fill holes with reasonable uncirculated easily. It's the proofs and silvers that I'm more interested in investing time and energy in to selectively choosing, and I can always swap to better business strikes as I go...
Anyhow, I'm rambling. I look forward to learning from you all! Hopefully I can keep my enthusiasm in check and enjoy searching for quarters until the right deals come along. No need to rush it!
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Posted 01/12/2017 8:16 pm
