Starting My First Album

good luck and have you considered what grade you are looking for

the set I am working on is mostly cirulated and I pick them up from the shops junk silver piles normally 5-6 dollars each depending on what shop

enjoy your collection!

A great choice, what type of album did you get?
If you got the sliding plastic window type, be careful.
If you bought an album that only shows one side, I would not put higher grade Franklin half dollars in it.

What I do is usually use a clean cotton cloth to put them in the album.
With the window type. ( Dansco ) I first take all the slides out and makes sure they are clean.
I put on a dust mask.
I prepare all my coins in order that will be going in the album.
Such as carefully removing them from 2x2's in a dust free environment.
I put my back slides in and leave the front slides out.
I use the clean cotton cloth to push each coin as far as I can toward the back so that when I am done a section and slide the front window over them they don't get scratched by the window.
You might upgrade, so when you slide the front out again be sure your coins are still toward the back slide because you can scratch them again openeing the window.

I store my albums in a dry and steady temperature environment. ( My safe ) There are slip covers for some albums as well.

If you are buying Franklin's, buy the best coin and the one that you like, that your budget allows.
Study the Franklin's by looking at many of the same date and mint mark.

Just yesterday, I happened to be reading this informative link. It is a very good study on the coin.
http://www.stellacoinnews.com/index...dollars-ch4/

Oh and to the best coin forum there will ever be!

Include some toned coins. I picked up a couple of great toned Franklins in MS63. They are real stunners. Beautiful rainbows.

Ok, got the age part fixed. Don't know how I missed that, LOL. I bought a Littleton Album. Its the green one that includes P and D and Proofs. It has 4 pages. I pretty much figured I would go with the coins that had the best eye appeal, although I want decent quality coins as well. As for the toned coins, I have seen a few that were awesome. Those will definitely come down to eye appeal.

Thanks to everyone for all the input.

This is one of the sets I am working on right now as well and love it. Being a short set it is easier to find them in any store and because they are not as popular as some other coins, they are easier to buy a higher grade set for as well because there are no real key coins to the set. I am personally trying to do two, one in a lower grade and one in a higher grade just because I do like the slightly worn look on coins and know that they were used and not stored away for safe keeping.