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 Replies: 25 / Views: 6,352 |
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Valued Member
Canada
187 Posts |
I am posting for two reasons: 1. to show off my collection of Elizabeth II cents, and 2. to share a few thoughts from my pursuit of the set. I hope you'll ignore the self-indulgent elements of the post, and share my excitement for the series. My target was a full date set of business strikes (1953-1965 minimum grade of MS-65, 1966 to 1999 in MS 66 or better, and 2000-2012 in MS-67. In addition to the date set, I've targeted a few of the more well known varieties (pointed/blunt, magnetic/non-magnetic, NSF/SF). A few nuggets of wisdom I learned in my pursuit of the series. 1. Having collected both, the Elizabeth II series is much harder to complete than the red George VI cents. 2. Mid to late 1980s cents are deceptively tough to find in MS-66 grades. I couldn't locate an 1985, 1986 or 1988 in my desired grade. In fact, I still haven't found a 1985 Blunt in MS-65. 3. The 2007 Non-Magnetic cent may be the most underappreciated coin in the entire series. It was nearly impossible to find in MS-67. It has been discussed elsewhere in this forum, but I am a believer that the mintage figure greatly overstates the number of 2007 dated zinc cents. 4. For coins that are considered rare, the 1965 LgBds Ptd 5, the 1983 Near beads, and the 2006 No P, No Logo magnetic are all very easy to find. 5. The 1990 red cent is another underappreciated key date. I had a long search to find one in top condition. 6. A lot of dealers have little to no inventory for Elizabeth cents beyond 1967. The bulk of my collection came from two or three dealers (special thanks to 2coolcoins, who provided the majority of the coins in my collection). 7. I'll never be able to truly complete the set. I can't be bothered to pursue harp/guitar cents, or the many hanging varieties, and there are a few extreme rarities (eg. 2002P non-magnetic) that are prohibitively expensive. Anyway, enough of my rambling, here are my pictures. (A full list of coins and grades is included below).        For those interested, here is a full list of my coins and their respective grades: 1953 - NSF 65 1953 SF -63 1954 - 65 1955 SF - 65 1955 NSF - 40 1956 - 65 1957 - 65 1958 - 66 1959 - 66 1960 - 65 1961 - 65 1962 - 66 1963 - 66 1964 - 66 1965 T1 SM PTD - 65 1965 T2 SM BLT - 66 1965 T3 LG BLT - 66 1965 T4 LG PTD - 65 1966 - 66 1967 - 67 1968 - 66 1969 - 66 1970 - 66 1971 - 66 1972 - 66 1973 - 66 1974 - 66 1975 - 66 1976 - 66 1977 - 66 1978 - 66 1979 - 66 1980 - 66 1981 - 66 1982 - 67 1983 Near - 66 1983 Far - 66 1984 - 66 1985 P5 - 65 1986 - 65 1987 - 66 1988 - 65 1989 - 66 1990 - 66 1991 - 66 1992 - 67 1993 - 66 1994 - 66 1995 - 66 1996 - 66 1997 - 67 1998 - 66 1999 - 67 2000 - 67 2001 - 67 2002P - 67 2002 - 67 2003 NEW - 67 2003P NEW - 67 2003 OLD - 67 2003P OLD - 67 2004P - 67 2004 - 67 2005 - 67 2005P - 67 2006P - 67 2006 Mag - 66 2006 Non-Mag - 67 2006 Logo Mag - 67 2006 Logo Non-Mag - 67 2007 Mag - 67 2007 Non-Mag - 67 2008 - 67 2009 Mag - 67 2009 Non-Mag - 67 2010 Non-Mag - 67 2011 Non-Mag - 67 2011 Mag - 67 2012 Mag - 67 2012 Non-Mag - 67 Thanks for reading and indulging me on this. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3471 Posts |
What a beautiful collection, skelly423, thank you for sharing. I've always been a big fan of the Elizabeth "young head" series and keep everyone I get.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4869 Posts |
Very nice! Looks like a lot of time, effort, and money right there! Well done! The pre-65 portraits are my favourite as you can see from my avatar!
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Valued Member
Belgium
186 Posts |
Wow!  Great coins! Nice you were able to find a dealer who stocked uncirculated late-date Canadian cents. I hope you find those coins (1985, 1986, 1988) in the grades you want, but even those coins you have here in lower grades are truly great! Good luck finding these coins |
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
Magnificent collection.
I especially liked your comments about the series. It was well presented with specifics.
Congratulations and may those you search for be found.
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Valued Member
Canada
324 Posts |
wow! incredible! thank you for sharing the photos and comments. I love the MS-67 1967.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
617 Posts |
A really great set, thanks for sharing.
And thanks for the insight on the difficulty in finding what I thought were pretty common dates.
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New Member
Canada
15 Posts |
Nice collection, thanks for sharing I really enjoy looking at these sets. Congrats on the effort.
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Valued Member
Canada
170 Posts |
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Bedrock of the Community
Canada
24885 Posts |
Nice collection  Congratulations |
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Valued Member
Canada
372 Posts |
 Very nice collection Shelly, I use to collect all of the canadian 1 cent from 1858 to 2012. Kind of lost interest when we stop minting the coin and none of my family members showed interest. I had the same goals as you and ended up with the same grades as you except for the 1953SF which I had a MS-63 and the 1955NSF in AU-53. All the coins were also certified by ICCS for the majority but included PCGS and CCCS for varieties. It just took me about 25 years and too much money. When you reach these high grades in your collection, it becomes expensive to improve and I found that you are competing with deep pockets collectors for the few coins offered on the market place. I started selling when Chuck Moore had the Torex show and only have a few coins left. I just hope that you are not in it for the money and that you can pass it on to the next generation. These beauties are a thing of the past |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5244 Posts |
Well, this is impressive. I guess it is an underappreciated series. At least for me, I cannot get it out of my mind that these are just one cent coins, and I saw and spent so many of them I cannot attache much value to them. Too familiar and commonplace, I guess. However, in high grades as you point out, they are anything but common.
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Valued Member
 Canada
187 Posts |
Thanks for the nice comments everyone,
cdcoinman, I can share your experience with improving the coins; there's big money trying to fill the same holes I have, and I don't have the appetite to spend what's needed to outbid them. I expect at some point I'll upgrade the '85, '86 and '88, and consider it complete. If the right coin comes along in the laureate series, I'll consider it, but the coins I have are already bright red, so the actual improvement would be minimal. As for my motives, I do it because I enjoy the chase. I know I'll never get my money back out of the collection, but I'm hoping to pass it on to a younger generation at some point.
oriole, I started this collection with much the same opinion as you. I thought I would easily fill the slots from 1965 onward with no difficulty, and that the hard work would be completing the laureate portion of the set. Due to the sheer number of cents from 1965 to 2012, the opposite was true. My theory is that if enough people view coins as plentiful and worthless, they don't get saved. Ironically, this point of view creates scarcity, and value.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1051 Posts |
It's a very nice set. I can't say why, but the 1965-1978 cents have always been a favorite of mine. The really "PQ" ones just burn in the light, I love the look of them!
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Moderator
 Canada
10458 Posts |
The 1955 NSF is a tough coin - but you can probably upgrade that one to a nice AU - they pop up from time to time. The 1953 SF is extremely hard to find in red, I got lucky about 8 years ago and bought mine from Hugh Powell (it was not cheap). I think you can improve the set, but the search goes back to raw coins and using your own eyes from what you have learned in collecting this series. I built my set, very similar to yours about a decade ago. Only Roman Tam and Colonial Acres were selling modern coins on ebay, at inflated prices. So, instead, it took me several years of cracking BU rolls before I completed my 1980s all in MS-66 Red - but I did so, at a fraction of the cost. I also cracked rolls to build a business strike date set from the 1960s of MS-65 coins with Heavy Cameo... (I cracked a LOT of rolls to do this...). Part of the thrill, was the hunt... "Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert OppenheimerContent of this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses...0/deed.en_USMy eBay store
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Valued Member
Canada
287 Posts |
Very nice set thanks for sharing
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Replies: 25 / Views: 6,352 |
Posted 11/02/2017 3:03 pm
