Collecting Conundrum

I would choose #1 and only buy from a reputable dealer. Is there a coin shop dealer that you have developed a relationship with?

#2 is not bad either; you just end up paying a premium for the grade. I have no problem taking coins out of slab. It's not like you are buying these with the intention of reselling.

#3 is the least appealing option to me.

You can navigate purchasing raw coins safely with enough experience. Especially with buyer protection and good return policies.

I would go with option #1, but don't leave it up to hope or chance Navigate cautiously.

You actually listed your three options in the correct order.

1. Take a chance on raw coins and hope for the best.

No need to take a chance. Research, research, research! If you take your time, the right coin will come along and you will know it is the right one.

2. Buy slabbed coins and then remove them from the slabs.

Although I would personally prefer the first option, this is probably the most likely scenario. Nothing wrong with it, just make sure to follow through and crack the slab! You do not want to look at an empty hole, or you would not have posted this topic!

3. Buy really low grade examples that hopefully will still be distinguishable for what they are.

The worst case scenario, of course, but an acceptable one if you know what to sacrifice. Low grade because of honest wear, yes. Low grade from damage or other problems, not so much.

By "grade set" do you mean trying to get all the coins in the same grade? If so, no. I'm trying to keep it affordable and also trying to find the best (most recognizable) examples I can afford. Some of my newer coins are probably in MS grade, but the older ones are, well, about what you' expect.

Since I'm primarily buying these to fill my Type album and not for investment (don't tell my wife that, though), I'm less concerned with buying coins that may be over-graded and/or cleaned and more concerned with buying coins that are outright fakes (although I do avoid the coins that are mysteriously super-shiny while still having plenty of pits and scratches). The more I read on this forum, the more paranoid I am getting. In fact, I just took a magnet to my entire collection (fortunately, only the 1943 penny was attracted to it).

I'm not too worried about my Morgans, Barbers, and more recent coins. But now that I'm looking at stuff like Trade dollars, early Seated Liberty dollars and early Large Cents, well, it seems like these get faked a lot. I can barely afford to buy decent-looking specimens of these coins in the first place, so it would break my heart (not to mention my bank) to spend hundreds of dollars on a single coin and later find out it was a fake.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. If I see any potential candidates on places like ebay, I'll be sure to post them here for your opinions. Except, it looks like I need a lot more "quality" posts before I'm allowed to do that...

Right now, I suspect the Type 1 Standing Liberty quarter may end up being the one coin I don't end up putting in my album. I recently got a decent 1871 Seated Liberty dollar for around $175. It's pretty worn (you can't really make out "Liberty" on the shield or "In God We Trust" on the reverse), but it's at least recognizable for what it is. Similarly, I hope to find an earlier example without the motto for around $200-300 in the same condition. And I'm sure if I look around I can find both early Large Cents in the $100-200 range. The point is that I don't need to have a coin with every detail crisp, as long as the key elements are there and you can tell what it is.

When it comes to Standing Liberty quarters, however, the key difference between type 1 and type 2 is whether the breast is exposed or whether she is wearing chain mail. I can't even afford a type 2 in good enough condition to clearly see the chain mail let alone a type 1 where I can make out the exposed breast. The ones I have seen tend to sell for upwards of $500 (often much more) and I just can't justify (to my wife, let alone to myself) spending that amount of money for a "non-investment" (ungraded, not in a slab) coin. Of course, as I tell my wife, while having a coin graded and slabbed certainly increases the value and makes it more likely to appreciate in value, a good raw coin will at least keep its value over time since there will always be collectors looking for them.

Thanks for the feedback, jbuck! Yes, I'm aware of the difference on the reverse with the stars, but in my personal opinion it really is the obverse that is the critical difference, since supposedly the whole reason for the redesign was to cover up the breast.

The NusmisMedia price guide is very interesting, but doesn't come close to reflecting the prices I have seen at local dealers and on ebay. Maybe if I started hitting the coin shows I could find more reasonable prices, but so far for the level of detail I would like I'm seeing prices above well above $200 mark. But I will keep looking!