Starting A Lincoln Cent Collection

I bought my Memorial cent collection on ebay for $24.99 and it comes with the large and small date varieties from 1960 and the 7 1982 varieties.

It depends on the quality or grading of the collection you are
going to assemble? VG to Fine grade coins are easy to obtain
by visiting your local coin show and purchase roll's around
$5.00 each, fill your books then re-sell the unused rolls to others
starting there collection. Or start out by cherry picking About Uncirculated to uncirculated pennies and take your time and build
a collection that is allowed to be passed down to great grand children.

This is a good question and one I asked awhile back myself.

I started with a wheat collection that I built from circulation in childhood in the early 70's. I probably had 40 or so of the 89 coins that make up a standard Whitman style 1909-1940 folder.

I decided I want to build this set out recently in addition to working on my 7070. I am not much of a roll hunter (not patient enough), so I purchased or "wheeled and dealed" the parts instead.

Here's what I have done so far:

I bought a 1909-1940 set on ebay with 75 of 89 coins. This ran me around $30 I believe. I merged this with my existing collection, taking the best to build a set. I was mainly missing the 4 keys (1909-S, etc) and semi-keys (early S mints, 22-D, etc).

I bought the semi-keys via ebay, a local coin store and from CCF members to get myself to 85/89 coins in the 1909-1940 folder - only missing the 4 keys.

At this point I shifted focus to the 1941-74 and 1975-present set. I bought a really nice 1941-58 wheat set on ebay for $10 shipped and roll searched a collection of copper cents and change to complete the 1941-74 folder and the 1975-present folder.

I recently switched to a Dansco 7100 folder and have been focusing on upgrades. I now have all red BU coins starting in 1955 to present and some additional red BU coins going back to 1941. My current goal is to work my way back through the 50's, 40's and 30's, upgrading to red BU where possible.

I have been upgrading through a combination of coins I have received as trades from generous CCF'ers and purchases. I got a great deal on ebay on a roll of 50 different BU cents from the 50's - late 70's ($7 shipped) recently and a very generous forum member who I have traded with in the past sent me another beautiful batch of memorials that allowed me to fill in the remaining gaps.

I may never complete the album 100% but it has been fun to build and upgrade. This is the joy of collecting to me - set a goal, make a list and then somehow go out and find the coins you want.

I think you can probably obtain at least some of what you need here on CCF. I've had good success in posting what I need in the Wanted to Buy section and the Trade section. I have some duplicates that I might trade or sell here in the future, so keep checking the Buy/Sell/Trade forums.

Good Luck!

you got mail

I think KenKat's way might be the best solution for you since you do not live in the States. By buying small groups of coins you can slowly (and cheaply) build up a nice collection. I have been working on my Lincoln set (actually about 5 different ones) for about 3 years and have it to a point that I am almost satisfied with. The only coins missing are my key dates, 1970-S small date and the 2009 Proofs (which I will hopefully be getting soon).

I started by getting by Memorials in higher grades when possible and now they are all MS/PF 63-68, I have almost all my 1934-58 in AU 50- MS/PF 68, and I am currently trying to get 1909-1933 in XF or better. Each time I find a nicer coin than the one I have it gets put in one of the other sets depending on its grade. By doing it this way I never complain about the condition because there will always be a place to put it into my collection.