Littleton Coin Company Approval Service

I sent the approval coins back with a signed note telling them I want to discontinue the approval program. I'm anxious to see if it's the end of it or the beginnings of a headache.

I've never bought any supplies from them but I noticed their albums and supplies are not priced bad. I wonder how the album quality is.

Just a couple points to ponder. There are solid criticisms, and Littleton isn't on my favorites list, either. That said, there also is a role they played in making the hobby what it is today, and the history isn't all bad.

When Littleton got its start, coin collecting was just expanding to a mass market. Not many people had local dealers or knew much about coins. Coin shows were rare, and so was long-distance travel. Littleton's business model brought coins to places where coin shops were difficult to find. They also greatly expanded public awareness of collecting. In that day, the alternative was to prepay for sight-unseen coins from dealer advertising in magazines, not be able to inspect them before purchase, and hoping you could return them if they weren't as described. Littleton flipped that, by allowing prepurchase inspection of the coins. Even today, they have that same advantage over ebay, along with an another advantage, some assurance that what they sell is at least going to be genuine.