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 Replies: 20 / Views: 3,134 |
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Valued Member
United States
50 Posts |
Okay here is my situation: I completed by LMC set of BU/AU grade a couple of months ago. After this point, I started replacing my G-VG wheats with AU/BU wheats. I have been to three coin shops in three states on business over the last few weeks and have acquired 1958-1939 in AU/BU condition. At each shop there was a dead stop in this grade at 1939....I had no trouble with 58-39, but whoa am I ever having trouble now. I know an older coin in that grade is harder to find, but do you all wheat collectors see the same thing? Do I just need to drop my standards for pre 1940 wheats? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4000 Posts |
That seems to be my experience, too. If you look at the graysheet, they only publish MS63+ prices 1934 and up.
Compare those prices to the MS63's in pre-34 and look at the jump in the price. The lowest AU's you seek are comparable in price to the 34+ MS63's.
Mintage figures start to maintain hundreds of millions of coins in 1934, too.
Edited by Scooby Due
11/13/2010 10:47 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1027 Posts |
The Great Depression caused nearly every cent, nickel, and dime minted to be spent over and over again with virtually no saving. Very few coins escaped circulation and few of the ones that did are still around today. The silver dollars are among the least expensive coins of that era because few people in this country ever had a dollar at any one time so fewer of the dollars circulated.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4000 Posts |
Thanks for the pre-34 insight clairhardesty. That makes a lot of sense.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
958 Posts |
the 20-30's had some very low numbers for the S D mint marks http://www.mountainviewcoins.com/mi...ln-cents.phpthe mintage numbers i read somewhere that the usa was so in need for copper not only did they start making penneys from steel in 1942 they started a huge copper penny melt for shell casings and alot of the pennies in circulation pre 41 were destroyed. Unless you got a few thousand dollars laying around 11-s 12-s 14-d 15-s 24-d 26-s 31 31-s those ones graded AU are gonna be a pretty big chunk of change |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
958 Posts |
no proof sets were minted from 1916-1936
I guess it means they all were bussiness minted and sent to circulation
the nice ones that exist were pulled aside , unlike the 37-58 proofs uncirculated were minted for collectors
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Your making the mistake of coin shops. You just have to find and go to coin shows. Type in coin shows in Google, Yahoo, etc. and find coin shows in your area. If, as you mentioned you traveled to different states you should have first made a list of possible coin shows in those states. The reasoning is that a coin store just doesn't have the massive amount of inventory as with a coin show. Some coin shows have from 20 to a few hundred dealers and this incresese the amount of all coins and their conditions extensively. At most coin shows around me I have no problem finding Lincoln Cents of any year in anywhere from AU to MS grades. With enough money anyone could make a completed set of almost anything in MS grades by going to coin shows. As an example here is some of my MS set:  And note that although some have low mintages, people hoarded them in MS grades so they are always around. The 1931S is a good example which is why it is not way up there in value. |
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Valued Member
 United States
50 Posts |
Good points everyone! Thank for you input. Just Carl you have a good point about coin shows. I have only been collecting one year and I have yet to go to a coin show. It seems like every decent coin show in my region did not click with my work schedule. But I plan to hit coin shows hard next year! By the way, nice lincolns!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
I have taken a similar route to the one you have taken. Getting the Lincoln Memorial set completed wasn't too difficult as high grade coins are in plentiful supply and can be had for only a couple of bucks each. The 1950's were basically the same. The 1940's had a couple of dates that were a little tougher - the 42-S comes to mind. But - they are still pretty plentiful.
Going back into the thirties, it starts to get tougher. I was able to get late 30's coins in the $5-10 range for the most part. The early 30's are a different story. I have my set in BU/MS back to 1934 (my pictures are a bit out of date) and have been working on the early 30's now. These are much more rare and I've had to open the wallet some to get these - I'd say I've spent probably $20-30 per coin. I still have the 31-D, 31-S, 32 and 32-D to go. Of course the 31-S will be more.
After that, on to the 20's. I may need to drop down to AU on some of the branch mint coins - they start getting expensive quickly.
I think just carl is right - the coins are out there, but it takes some patience and some money to complete a set. When you get to the lower mintages, your chances of going into a store and finding what you want is going to be low.
Ken
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Pillar of the Community
United States
809 Posts |
Nice 09 cents just carl!!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1213 Posts |
I started on my Lincoln set around 1964. Two or three days a week, when my dad got home from work, he'd take me over to our local bank and I would exchange my rolls of pennies for new ones and search through them. Over the years of searching, I found every date/mint mark except the 1909-S VDB which I received as a high school graduation present. (Finding the 1914-D in VF condition remains my best find EVER). Most of the ones I have before 1938 are also pretty well circulated. I was on hiatus for quite a few years and 5 - 6 years ago started getting back in the swing of things. I'm also trying to upgrade the lesser quality ones with better quality and finding the same situation you're describing, but have had decent luck finding some of the earlier dates at coin shows.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2150 Posts |
I started My Lincoln Dansco 2 years ago. Upon starting I had '35-'09 including most proofs from '38-'09 in red BU within 9 months, with 90% of these coming from my local shop. Fast forward 2 years, I think I have picked up a total of 31 coins from '09-'34 in the AU-BU range, with 1 of those coins coming from my local shop. I agree with what most have said about coin shows being your best bet. There can be good finds on ebay now and again but usually I try and avoid it. When I first started this set I was raring to go but soon learned that if I was gonna meet my goal of a true AU/BU set it was gonna take some patience. I have gotten to a point in collecting where I would rather save my money for a couple of months and buy the best example of 1 coin I can rather than buying 2 or 3 that are just so so. Justcarl: you keep teasing us with that 1 pic of your Lincoln set, I would LOVE to see the rest if you ever get the chance. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
188 Posts |
Man, you rule! I wanna be like you when I grow up!
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Valued Member
United States
57 Posts |
I had similar experiences to the OP. I set a goal (in a Dansco non-proofs album) to stay with uncirculated (defined as no wear and mostly red) from 1930 onward, since 1930 started a new row in the album at the bottom of page 2. I agree that coin shows help, but only so much; shows with dealers with Lincoln binders are the best; I usually can find good deals in the binders, and typically buy the coins for some healthy discount off what's written on the 2x2. However, it still gets expensive.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
With coin shows I've found one of the more important thing to do is go as often as they have them and try to get to know the dealers there. You don't have to buy from them but talk to as many as you can so they get to know you. Naturally some dealers just don't want to be bothered with conversations but most sort of like to brag about how much they know about coins. If there are such frequent shows in your area or you know of some, it's a must to go and get to know the dealers. Remember that many dealers do this for a living so they tend to travel all over and can and do accumulate coins that are just not available to collectors that are stuck in one area. Due to this you can actually sort of make orders for certain coins. I had a few dealers looking for a certain coin for me for almost a year but two of them both came up with exactly what I wanted and for the price I wanted. And too the prices for people they know are also usually less since those dealers want regular customers and if they know you they may well consider you just that.
I guess I'm on the lucky side with coin shows though. Around the Illinois area we have a coin show on almost every Sunday of every month all year long. Some are really big and some small.
In the area there are also many gun shows, knife shows, computer shows, hunting and fishing shows, dog and or cat shows, camera shows and on and on and on. If you wanted to a person could go to some kind of show every weekend all year long and many during the week also.
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Replies: 20 / Views: 3,134 |
Posted 11/13/2010 11:16 pm
