New Member With Questions

Welcome again Big_Orange_Fan! The fact that the Lincoln SVDB's are keys, and valuable even in those grades I would reccomend getting them slabbed and authenticated. The holders offer a decent measure of protection as well. There are are three or four reputable grading services. The top three are recognized as PCGS, NGC and ANACS with ICG and PCI gaining in popularity. ANACS does not require any kind of membership to make submissioins. I'm not sure about PCI and ICG but PCGS and NGC require joining a "club" before allowing direct submissions. Some dealers who are members will do this for you for a fee.
Dansco albums are quite nice, but much depends on how you want to display and house your coins.

I think mid-june is when the buffalo 1 oz. gold is going to be released. I don't know if they will be available directly from the mint or if you have to go through an authorized dealer to get them. I understand half, quarter and tenth oz. versions? will be available later on.

My daughter has a complete set of MS 64-65-66 Franklin half dollars in a Dansco album. However, she opted to keep all the proofs from that series in the ANACS, NGC and PCGS slabs to help preserve them. If you do decide to break them out,handle them with great care! Make sure when you slide the plastic inserts in the album over the coins they do not "rub" the surfaces of the coins. Do not touch anything but the edges of the coin and use clean soft cotton gloves made for coin handling. Finger grease will appear as a print down the road.

Have fun and I think you have some great ideas for building your collection!!! Mike

welcome big orange fan to a great forum family.. keep reading and asking questions buy more books instead of coins which is what I failed to do at first..

Hi. Welcome. This is a great place to learn and everyone here is as nice as they can be. You're in good hands.

Others have implied this, but you absolutely should send your Lincoln 1909-S VDB's in because there are a lot of fakes out there. In Fine and Very Fine, those coins are valuable enough to justify the cost of sending the coins in. I recommend NGC. You can submit coins directly if you are either a member of the ANA (that costs about $50 I think), or by joining the Collector's Society, which although it's nearly $100, they give you five vouchers for free grading and access to their wonderful and informative website. The other option is PCGS, but their collector's society doesn't give you free vouchers for joining. Plus, I just like NGC better because they have a friendly helpful attitude. Not that PCGS doesn't. Whatever. ANACS does not require you to join anything to submit. They grade very strictly in my opinion (therefore reliable). Plus they have groovy new holders.

As to holders, I use saflips for my less expensive coins. Soft plastic holders cause coins to become sometimes irreversibly damaged by PVC infestation. It's best to avoid those except for very temporary storage. I buy my supplies from Amos. Their online site is, I believe, https://www.amosadvantage.com. I use CoinEdge holders. They are designed to show the coins edge, and there are pages that are also offered so you can store your CoinEdge holdered coins in attractive binders. There a little more expensive, and you have to buy them by size (1c, 25c, 50c, $1, etc). There are lots of other good options available from that website. You can get cotton gloves and mailers there too, which will come in handy, I promise, if you continue with the hobby.

The Buffalo bullion coin was mandated by Congress to be produced no later than June 22. Apart from the sketches and the fact that Congress has also required the gold used to be from U.S. or territories or possessions, very little info has become available. Sure hope gold waits to hit $2,000 and ounce until AFTER I get mine. Stick around. I'd love to follow your progress.