Hello everyone! My name's Michelle, and as the post says, I'm a newbie to both this forum & to coin collecting in general. :)
I've always been interested in old coins, but I've never done much with them. That changed about a year ago, when I accepted a job at a large tech company which required me to relocate from the midwest to the San Francisco Bay Area. Trading a 3,000 sq. ft. home for a 750 sq. ft. apartment meant I had to *significantly* downsize my possessions! It also meant going through boxes I hadn't touched since college. In one of those boxes, I came across a small pile of coins I had collected in various part-time jobs. Most of these were just coins that seemed "unusual" to me, which mostly meant wheat pennies, Franklins, and Susan B. Anthony's. This sparked a renewed interest, but I was way too busy with moving to pursue it at the time.
A few months ago, my father gave me a jar of coins he'd been collecting since he was a boy. He's not really into numismatics; like me, he was just holding on to anything that struck him as interesting or unusual. He had a few silver quarters and dimes, a couple of rolls of wheat pennies, and foreign coins from his time in the Navy. He also had a
Barber quarter from 1896 and a silver Morgan from 1889. After I saw those 2 coins, I was hooked!
Since then, I've been on a whirlwind of accumulation. I've signed up for the US Mint enrollments and I've visited every local coin shop I can find. I've definitely been going "wide and shallow" to get a feel for what's out there and what I enjoy collecting. So far, I'm discovering a preference for old circulated U.S. coins. I'm also finding it more enjoyable to "find" a coin than to purchase one. I've done some coin roll hunting, which was fun but yielded few "old" coins. I then discovered a local shop that sells junk silver and I bought a few bags of quarters and dimes to go through. Although mostly low grades, I had a LOT of fun going through those, and it helped me fill out a lot of common dates for things like
Mercury dimes and
Barber quarters. I've also been purchasing some of the harder-to-find dates from
ebay, but alas I'm still missing a few key dates -- aren't we all? :)
At the moment, my goal is to complete my first coin set: 20th Century Type Set, Major Types No Gold, Circulation Strikes (1900-1999). I'm pretty close... I'm only missing the nickels,
Indian cent, and
Peace dollar!
Any suggestions for what I should work on after that? I'd also really appreciate any advice you have for a newbie just getting started. :)
Best,
Michelle
Posted 05/17/2017 10:01 pm
to the CCF!
