Sba's For $1.50 Each From My LCS, I Think I Did Well Enough.

Can't really go wrong at 50c over face

Have you seen the new nickels, or Pres dollars, or Sac dollars, some of the ATBs, and that's just for moderns without even getting into the commemoratives

SBAs are really an underrated series. They have the Ike reverse and are a nice size with a good feel. Is the obverse the prettiest no, but there are much worse obverses including classic ones.

Well done!


I agree.

It was my first "coin purchase" not from the mint in my life. I'm a roll hunter collector. I went for some coin tubes and normally I stick to the plan but it was busy yesterday morning so I had to wait for people and started looking around a bit at the cheap stuff to pass the time. I have most of the SBA's from circulation but the 81s and the proofs have been elusive.
Still needing the 81P,81S proof, 99P proof, and possibly the varieties wide rim 79P, and the clear S's.
Kind of a happy surprise to find a couple of the ones I need so cheaply.

I haven't met a coin I didn't like... well maybe the clad Ikes. I have a couple of those but never really worked on them to put a set together. Probably because they are so hard to come by from the banks. For the most part all coin series have their negatives but I can find a redeeming quality to want to collect them except the Ikes. They are just big no silver and blah. I'd rather start on Morgan's or Peace dollars than work on Ikes first if I have to do coin shops or ebay to get even the commonest dates done.

Order a $1000 box from your bank and they usually have (in my experience) around 15% Susan B's. One box I ordered had 256 and 2 were the 1979 Wide Rim variety. The Federal Reserve Banks have millions and millions bagged up in storage for the day the dollar bill ceases (not anytime soon). IMO the coin is so ugly its bizzare and freakish but in a weird way cool to study in high grades under a loop. Good luck in your collecting pick a series you like and can afford then cram as much knowledge of that particular series. I jumped around my first year but by year 2 was pulled toward the classic series, it was just a natural progression for me as my collecting tastes developed. I'm high on Walker Half's Buffaloes, Lincoln's and Indians Cents. Watch out for those Mercury dime bugs, if you get bitten by the 1916 D bug your ruined!

The classic designs have nostalgia and history going for them as well as some peoples preference for liberty over real people, but several would be heavily criticized if they were released for the first time today. The 1792 Half Disme is an amazing coin but if released for the first time today would be criticized for the art. The obverse of Morgans is very bland and it often takes new collectors a while to figure out it's supposed to be a female liberty and not a man, and several of the early eagles didn't exactly resemble an eagle.

There's some great coins as an example from what they were and their history, but if they all came out the first time when the SBA did and we just said the SBA was liberty not a person, we would be having different conversations about the ugliest coin

Does the SBA portrait remind anyone else of professor mcgonagall from Harry Potter?