Thinking About Getting Into Colonials

Like all things, it depend on how far down the rabbit hole you go. You can go broke fast if you shoot for AU and better. Do a few searches on Great collections, Heritage, and ebay before you dive in headfirst.

In colonials there is hardly any such thing as complete, but you could go a long ways. If you went for a Higley copper I doubt you would find one for under $50,000 and some of the Massachusetts silver and Continental dollars would set you back more than that. You can still pick up Connecticut coppers and Hibernia coppers for $25 or so, so it is a wide field. It is in my opinion the most fascinating are of numismatics and well worth the time you would spend in researching.

Thanks guys! And Meadowview thank you for the helpful link. Much more homework is needed before I tackle this.

I figured the rabbit hole was deeper. I watch a lot of auctions. It seems like colonial coins command a fraction of the premium that early US mint coins enjoy. Perhaps making it a more attractive.

I am what you might call a serious dabbler in colonial coins. Not burst you balloon, but $10 grand is not going to get you too far if you like nice coins. A nice piece of Massachusetts silver (e.g. "Pine Tree Shilling") can put a big hole in your budget, even for a small planchet shilling.

The large planchet Massachusetts silver is harder, because most of them were struck bent. They were made on a device called a rocker press that sort rolled them out instead of squeezing the planchet flat between two dies. That means that when you get below Choice VF, the coins get pretty ratty. The small planchet coins were struck on a screw press and are therefore nicer and more common.

The biggest trouble with copper colonials is that many of them are pitted and corroded. In the colonial area of collecting it's lot more tolerated that it is for regular U.S. coins. I'm fussy and won't buy that stuff, but many people do.

Some colonials, like the Vermont coppers, which were made in Vermont (landscapes, "baby head" and the like) were made very crudely. The quality of the copper was low, and the dies were mostly "amateur hour" stuff. If you think that the early U.S. coins are crude, wait until you see some these colonial pieces.

Some collectors laugh at the "colonial coin type set" concept because so many of them concentrate on one series. Still there are guys like me who dabble in them all to a point. If you look at the Red Book listings you will see that some items are very expensive and virtually impossible - like Bermuda.

You may want to pick a certain series of colonial coins. Maybe Connecticut or New Jersey cents. They are popular are popular, and rather inexpensive as colonial coins go.

Buy the Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins by Q. David Bowers. There is more in there in one place than you will find in any other source. The classic work by Sylvester Crosby is an amazing source despite the fact that it is over 100 years old.

Just to wet you appetite ... The Massachusetts copper coins were the best made among all of the "Confederation period" pieces. This lovely Half Cent was in the Eric P. Newman collection.

Yes, it's mine. It's part of my "colonial coion type set." NGC has a registry set for that which endless and virtually impossilbe to complete because they have spots for stuff like the Bermuda coins in it.

There are something over 300 Connecticut copper or if you prefer cent varieties. You could spend a collector's lifetime collecting just those.

I've been down the die variety collector road with Half Cents. After a while it got frustrating. The thing about colonials is that new ones are still out there to be found, but the condition of some of the finds might shock you. Think of the worst coin you have even seen (almost no detail visible, half a coin left), and some coins like that are treasures to those who collect the series