I moved from collecting U.S. Coins exclusively to collecting World Coins to keep me in that perfect state of mind but sometimes things change. Over the last 4 months I have been attending a lot of coin shows and there has been less and less foreign coins so my attention turned back to U.S. Coins. Soon I was searching for die varities & errors and chatting up a storm here and there about my purchased victories but I wasn't having Fun! If anything, I was constantly researching and hunting for that next under-valued coin to the point that it was interfering with life.

I found myself becoming obsessive and to some extent an investor and for me it just wasn't that joy that turned me on to the hobby. Varieties and errors were never the reason why I started collecting. It was all about history and how I connected to it through coins. Once I realized what was happening, the brakes were applied and my bliss returned once more. In other words, I wasn't being true to the real reason why I love coin collecting.

The more you learn about a hobby the greater the possibility is of forgetting what is was that attracted you in the first place. My advice to readers is never forget why! Write it down if you must, cause if you don't then it's a quick road from fun hobby to laborious chore or rut.

Glad you dropped a line :)) Just an FYI, having account you can post and all that good stuff but if you ever want to add some content let me know. Joining sites are kinda funky here, first you have to create a wikidot account (which you did) and then have to click join again for the site you want to be part of. Not my rules but it works.

Current subscribers will receive a monthly copy of Coin World that will be incorporating all of the aspects of Worldwide Coins in a special monthly issue. On the plus side, current subscribers were receiving bi-monthly issues and will now be receiving monthly updates.

I start every morning buying a cup of coffee. It's a ritual I've come to really enjoy this year as the cup-of-joe costs $1.79 so I get the added joy of seeing if I get lucky finding a 2009 dime or Lincoln commem penny and a quick side note, I've only gotten 1 2009 dime & penny so far.

After going through my change search ritual, I cracked open the old newspaper and noticed the headline that Starbucks exceeded earnings expectations yet again.

This got me thinking, some investors view the sale of commercial coffee chains (like Starbucks) as an indicator to the health of the economy. So if more folks by premium coffee then they have more disposable income and the economy is on its way to better things. Can the same philosophy be used for predicting increases/decreases of mintages for U.S. coins? This remains to be seen, but it was a crazy enough thought I might actually keep an eye on this to see if there is a connection.

Two gentlemen were at a table of dealer I'm fond of and monopolizing 8 coin boxes. Normally this isn't an issue but the two gentlemen were there before I arrived and were still at the table when I left two hours later. They sported a Red Book and were pouring over every individual coin and when I was leaving I noticed that they only set aside 3 coins.

With no access to the table I figured no big deal as I can catch him at the next show, but on the drive home it hit me. I'll usually spend 10 to 20 minutes and drop anywhere from $50 to $200 for coins (granted we are not talking $100 and up coin values here as the selection is the $2 to $75 variety) so even if we took a lower number (say $25 in 15 minutes) that equates to $100/hr on the low side to upwards of $400/hr. That's quite a bit of business to lose out on but what was the dealer to do?

If he drives them away then he could miss out on repeat sales from them in the future but if he let's them stay he misses out on making money. That is a pretty tough spot to be and really makes me appreciate what a dealer has to contend with.

My only advice here is this: The next time you are at a coin show and a dealer is very friendly and courteous be sure to thank him/her even if you don't make a coin purchase. Anyone that can stay that upbeat deserves the occasional THANK YOU!

http://www.whitmanbooks.com/default.aspx?page=80&SubCatOID=114

On another note, they changed the packaging size yet again though it's not a real surprise considering the addition of the 4 Lincoln commemorative cents (did anyone forget that these are copper?). It must really stink for coin supply manufactures making storage devices for these things. The height of these new sets are significantly taller than last years so if you bought a storage box last year then get ready to buy a new one. (doh!)

Officially there were no Silver Indian Head Cents issued by the U.S. Mint. My first guess would be that someone silver plated one but that doesn't mean the U.S. Mint didn't have an accident. This happens at times when the wrong planchet gets mixed in and in this case it could be a dime planchet as it was the only silver coin small enough to match the cent (I believe there is 1 1900 specimen out there).

Couple of checks here. You can e-mail me the photo at moc.oohay|cole_drol#moc.oohay|cole_drol and I'll post accordingly. Second try weighing the coin, a silver dime weighs approximately 2.5 grams while a cent weighs 3.11 grams. If close to the silver weight you might have something.

Another check to do is look at the legends. A cent is about 1mm larger than a dime so look at how far away the legend is away from the edge in comparison to a regular Indian Head Cent.

If this thing passes some basic tests you may want to take the chance and spend a few dollars to get it verified by a third party grading service. Might be getting ahead of ourselves here but here's hoping.

Regards,
Ken

The honors of the 101st listing goes to the Native Indian Dollar authored by one of the sites administrators, GregA. Over the last two years the site has been rapidly expanding and as of this writing now consists of 101 coin descriptions as well as 48 articles, Forums & News Feeds.

Access to the site is completely free. There are no special member areas or "pay to access" areas. As a site created by collectors it exists to serve collectors, there is no profit involved. Annual & monthly fees to keep the site running are paid for by small advertisements which ensure the existence of the site for years to come. Anyone interested in contributing or donating content can join the site through a simple and painless registering process.

On a personal note, a special shout goes out to GregA for having the honors of this moment. As the main site administrator, I can't thank Greg enough for his contributions and involvement on this site.

I could create a blank page and see if anyone wants to contribute

New Pages

Created a couple of new pages for folks, the first is Current Metal Prices & Currency Calculators. This is a neat little page that displays current precious & base metals, watch those nickel prices:). Also added 2 cool google widgets for our users, a currency converter and an inflation calculator for anyone wondering how much purchasing power had. I played with this by plugging in a 1941 Walking Liberty Half and it returned a value of $7.32 in 2008 dollars.

The second page was for Coin Storage. This is part of our collector learning series which has been on the back burner for a bit. The next planned page to create for this series is for the topic of Coin Handling

New Coins

Website maintenance isn't the only thing I do and of course I bought more coins (yes!). My goal for a 20th Century Canadian set continues on as I grabbed 3 different George VI 5 cent coins. Already posted a page on these so I'll work on pics next,

Another purchase I couldn't help myself with was a 1947 Philippine 50 Centavo General MacArthur commemorative. Probably overpaid by a $1 or $2 but it was in great shape and what really got my juices flowing was the subject of MacArthur himself and all of the soap opera moments with President Truman, Congress, WWII, & the Korean War. Yep…just had to have it ;)

Anyone that used to frequent the PCGS CoinFacts.com site there is some bad news. The pages have become static and will no longer be updated. Instead they now offer a new version (that will be regularly updated supposedly) but you have to pay $9.95 a month.

The demise of a yet another free site is slowly shrinking collectors on-line resources for coins. Rest assured that Typesets.Wikidot.com will remain free and be continuously updated. In another two months our site will be three years old and while that sounds young it's fairly old in the on-line world where sites are born and routinely abandoned within 12 months.

http://www.treas.gov/auctions/treasury/gp/bidresults/fy2009/aug26_2009_bidresults.shtml

of the 30 or so lots, only three went for under $1k and some went much higher!

Greg

The good - small, light, cheap, and long battery life
The bad - windows vista, and I ran out of cash to buy MS Office so I'm going it with just OpenOffice

Well, enough of that lets move onto the good stuff…coins :)

I've heard lots of banter lately over whether or not certain U.S. denominations should be eliminated (like the cent) or if coin compositions should change. So here are my opinions on this:

Regardless of what some people may say coins have no purchasing power thanks to inflation. We use a decimal monetary system so the primary purpose of coins is to complete a decimal cash transaction for retail. In this light, it shouldn't matter what the composition of coins are as long as they are cheap enough to make and serve their function in life. If anything we may want some funky denominations to make decimal transactions easier so less coins are required, how about a 75 cent coin? Long story short…coins are good and we should keep them!

What really mucks with our government decision making for coins are special interests groups, in particular the vending industry. Yes they fight to keep coins (which is good) but they fight any change in weight, size, or denomination (which is bad) because they do not want to modify their machines that take coins. This drove me nuts last weekend as I went to a self car wash that cost $4 but they only took quarters (argh). After my wonderful car wash experience my son wanted something out of a nearby vending machine and with a dollar in quarters left over I figured why not. The only thing less than a $1.25 was a pack of gum and of course I used my last singles on the darn car wash change maker leaving only a $10 bill in my wallet. In the end we walked away with nothing and stopped at a corner store. Why can't these machines take larger bills!!!

Another argument I hear is that toll booths need coins at their current composition & weight so as not to change their equipment. I don't know if anyone has driven on a highway lately but most states are putting in those electronic EZ-pass detectors. Coming back on from Massachusetts there were 4 toll lanes open with three for EZ-pass and only one for cash (guess which lane I was stuck waiting in)! So this argument holds no weight (joke intended).

My final opinion…coins good, lots of denominations good, composition (or weight) change good!

Absolutely! It's the old supply and demand and currently there is not enough demand to meet the existing supply of coins.

Unlike electronic funds (like credit cards or EFTs), coins are primarily used for retail transactions for everyday folks (like you and I) so you are correct in assuming that less customer transactions are occurring contributing to this scenario.

To give a better relationship of coins to the economy, I just plotted the mintage of dimes from 2000 to 2009 and overlayed the Dow Jones Industrial Average. There is definitely a pattern here and I'm kicking myself in the backside for not noticing before. Could have saved me & my family some dollars by selling stock positions in certain years. Live and learn.

Can't imagine people paying exhorbitant prices for current issue coins like that. Shame on the scammers. I hope people have more sense (or is that 'cents'?) than to be taken advantage of in such a fashion.

Thanks for the information!

The best thing about collecting world coins are all of the interesting facts you learn about the countries as well as exotic animals on some of the designs. If you are looking for any circulating issues shoot me a message as I have a couple hundred modern coins and I might be willing to part with a few :)

I'm pleased the site has been a help, it's not perfect but little contributions here and there and we keep growing.

An animal type set is pretty cool you go so many different way and there so many coins to choose from! If you ever want to share some pics your more than welcome. In the mean time if you ever need assistance just drop a line and we'll help.

Good Luck

Anyway, thanks for hosting the site.

VSE WAREHOUSE
6681 RIVER RUN ROAD
RIVERSIDE, CA 92507
REGISTRATION AT 8:00 A.M. AUCTION STARTS AT 9:00 A.M.

Lots of raw silver rounds, bars, some foreign bullion, proof sets, & some proof coins. Additional info can be found at http://www.treas.gov/auctions/treasury/gp/riverside_coins.shtml

Here are some pics

U.S. Mint authorizing production of additional 7million nickels, guessing that additional production requests will be made for nickels & dimes from now till the end of the year. At this point I wouldn't count any mintage figures till Jan 2010

For an annual fee the banners can be removed but at this point it's not about money but about principle as the hosting company is barely a reflection of what it originally was when this site started almost 3 years ago.

Again my apologies

Okay…I had to post this because some jerks are really hyping this up and convincing people that 2009 nickels & dimes are ultra rare. The mint has made slight more than 79 million nickels and 146 million dimes, yes these are low mintages for modern coins but trust me when I say they are not the mintages of a rarity but one for con artists!

I've seen nickel rolls going anywhere from $300 to $500 and dime rolls from $50 to $100. There is even one sleaze bag on a Wensy auction listing a single dime for $25. Please DO NOT BUY at these prices. All you are doing is supporting these scammers!

I've already gotten 1 nickel & 2 dimes in simple pocket change and that's without even trying to look. I'm sure if you go to your local bank they'll have a few or even some rolls that you can purchase at face value. So please do not buy into the hype.

Regards,
Ken

When I first started this blog I just finished a U.S. type set and started working on a "Family Heritage" type set. Well that set was completed a few months back and I was contemplating on starting a 20th Century Canadian type set.

Now glad to report I'm fully engaged! I'm only 3 coins away from completing one cent coins with major varieties and ready to move onto 5 cent coins.

Being 20th century issues I thought this would be quick, easy, and cheap. Turns out I was wrong. Yes it's been somewhat affordable but far from easy. The most difficult thing I discovered was getting decent quality modern coins (from 1950 on).

Most dealers don't stock individual common modern "foreign" coins as the cost to store versus sale value/demand just is not worth their time and since U.S. banks don't have Canadian coinage I couldn't even roll hunt. The only outlet was the internet and I probably overpaid but it was worth the convenience. Even on-line it was tough but with a little persistence something eventually popped up. This really shocked me as I thought the challenge would be early coinage (1901 to 1940) and silver dollars.

Oh well, another lesson learned

_{BU One Cent Coins I Still Need:}

• 1 from 1980-1981
• 1 from 1997 to 2000
• 1 1999 "P" issue

With so many avenues to purchase a coin I was thinking maybe a good service to provide is a page on how to buy coins on-line. I'm not an attorney or a member of the FTC with full knowledge of buyers rights so it will definitely have to be a page that grows overtime. I'll investigate further if this is worthwhile pursuing but if anyone has another idea I'm open to any ideas.

-Ken

Not much time for coins but somehow as collectors we still sneak in a little time here and there. For me it was circulating coinage. To kick-off the month I was happy to get my first 2009 coins in some change, a dime and a new Lincoln penny.

Typically in my area, new coinage usually starts to circulate around May so it's about 2 months off of the normal cycle. Considering the recent coin stoppage of nickels & dimes, I was pleasantly surprised with the dime. Though not ultra rare I didn't expect to find one so quick. With summer upon us I'll let this little ten cent piece find be the pride of my collection for a month or so.

Ahhh summertime, it's amazing how little things just make your day :)))

All I can say is…Wow! You are incredibly engaged in this.

If this was about another auction site I can guarantee there would never be any response from the owner or CEO.

From my perspective you brought back many of the original web auction philosophies originally used in the 90's and provide a place that puts capability & opportunity in the hands of buyers & sellers. Thank you for your dedication..

I wish you the best on wensy.

I've been a member of auction site Wensy.com since shortly after it's launch in 2007 but have never purchased a single coin till today. It wasn't a steal but simply a nice borderline VF coin from Chile that was priced around book value. With their coin inventory at almost 12,000 listings, my passing fancy of just watching has turned into one of general interest as a possible coin purchasing outlet.

Wensy is a completely free site born out of the failure of Yahoo auctions and subsequently picked up a decent percentage of yahoo auction sellers. I've kept an eye on the site over the last year and a half to see where it was going and who was advertising. As expected, many of the over-graders from the old Yahoo transferred accounts and exist there today but there are on occasion some hidden gems. Some sellers you may recognize as they utilize both E-Bay & Wensy to hawk their goods.

Wensy's purpose in life is not to compete with e-bay but to provide a low cost auction solution for sellers/buyers. Born out of the frustrations of originator Darren Bock, Wensy is basically a home grown & operated site with a lot of personal interaction from the site owners. Being small they don't have the huge overhead & support staff of e-bay and simply deploy a "Strike and you are out" attitude.

For buyers it's a two strikes and you (and your IP address) are blocked from entering the site ever again. For sellers it's a three strikes and you are out with the same penalty.

The Good

Purchasing the coin was fairly simple and most sellers accept multiple payment options including Paypal & Google Checkout which is a nice change from E-Bay. One possible thing I haven't tried is since there are so few members, in relation to overall supply, many auctions go unclaimed. If some coins are just sitting there for weeks on end with no nibbles then there maybe an e-mail & best offer opportunity to buy it below the auction price.

The Bad

Overgrading & Overpricing!!! Here's an example:

Advertised listing for a 1911D Barber Half as Fine+ for $55. Current trends for this coin in VG8 are $17 while a grade of F12 is $45. After looking at the pics, I would have graded this in the upper levels of VG (VG10) with some Fine details for a grade of VG10+ and a reasonable price would have been in the $25 to $30 range. Unfortunately, this seller's overgrading & overpricing are consistent.

Opportunity?

I really like the site & potential yet at the same time hate to see new collectors overpay & get soured on the hobby. Small auction sites have few (if any) external (third party) blog sites or tools to help buyers like we have with e-bay.

Maybe we can use this site? Question is how or if anyone is really interested? What would folks like to see? I don't want anything that only rips it a proverbial new one but to help promote it as another resource for collectors while providing buyers with a helpful resource. I may be the only person concerned so maybe I'm just dreaming but if folks are interested I am open to using this site.

Don't Get Confused with E-bay

E-bay is a money making machine and is geared towards sellers and commissions so it has every vested interest to quickly move auctions in high volume regardless of quality of sale. Essentially this is their business model for making money.

This type of auction site is great if you have a steady stream of product and you can easily justify any fees in replace of any marketing you would have done if you were a private company.

The Wensy site is really catering to the low volume sellers. These are folks who occasionally sell things or simply have a smaller supply of product and cannot afford the continuous levels of fees (remember Wensy is completely free). It's also a low cost, get your feet wet kind of thing for a small business. Essentially you get a free website via a store front and your administrative duties are managed for free (you don't have to pay your kids, niece or nephew to man a phone and take orders).

The only downside is advertising as Wensy is not a business model but a service provider and they are doing exactly that providing a free service. Since no revenue is being generated by the site (except for some pittance of google adwords and the occasional generous donation), most site maintenance is focused on…duh…service! But isn't this what being a small business or entrepreneur should be embracing? Absolutely, Wensy is not responsible for my business but simply a service (and to some extent providing you with free IT support). As a business owner it should be my creative juices that solve the advertising gap and if Wensy comes along with a feature that helps then great and all the better.

In the end you cannot compare E-bay to Wensy! It's apples to oranges, business vs. service, you get the point.

ok….starting to ramble a tad, time to search some more auctions :)

http://s115.photobucket.com/albums/n308/SWThomas/?action=view&current=man-versus-kids-hilarious-fight.flv

Sorry brother…this was just too funny not to post

Sweet part is if you go all electronic the rate is only $9.99 a year and you get access to CoinValues, Worldwide Coins, & Paper Money Values. The also throw in stamp magazines but that's not really my bag. So essentially you are getting 4 magazines for only $10 a year.

I've pulled together a few hundred dollars with an itching desire or is that desires. The choices at my door are….

1. Two elusive coins
2. A new netbook so I can work on this site while on the go
3. A new smaller digital camera (again for something on the go)

There's no easy answer here. The two coins while not super expensive they are a pain to find but will eventually become available for sale at a later time.
The netbook is a nice convenience but I can still maintain the site from my desktop computer.
The small digital camera would come in handy and I'd have enough money left over for a nice coin. But I do have a fantastic camera set-up at home so there is a fallback plan.

A few years ago the choices would have been easy…pay cash for one and put the other stuff on credit. Ah but how things have changed. Large purchases need to be strategic. To put my collecting needs before my families is irresponsible.

Unfortunately with this post I still have not made a decision. But, I have chosen to blog about my dilemma so that others can understand that a hobby is just a hobby and to let the expenses of such interfere with life is risky. Balance between personnel enjoyment and responsibilities is something we must all come to terms with when collecting. We all would love to have everything now (who wouldn't) but the most important thing to remember with collecting coins is that they will always be there tomorrow so the opportunity will come again.

Based on the dramatic drop in overall mintages, 2009 is shaping up to be a key or semi-key year for all denominations. For collectors, this will add a little excitement to issues targeted for circulation as they keep an eye out for BU coins from banks or in pocket change.

From an economy health view this is not a pretty picture. A lack of coinage demand (especially dimes) is a reflection of people turning in coins to banks at a much higher rate, thus keeping more than enough coins available for business transactions. The economy is fragile enough where people are no longer taking loose change for granted. If this is any kind of early indicator then it may be more than a year before things start looking up.

BTW if anyone is interested, I noticed the Krause 20th Century Circulating World Coins catalog is list on Amazon for $6.61 used. I paid around $25 and love it, so at that price it's a steal! books.

Greg

I can honestly report that I took my best first shot and cavalieri….your list is available :))) be sure to check out the ships link.

Sill not as affordable as Greg's son's find :) but at least now reasonable for most. Looks like the mania lasted no more than a month, patience is a virtue.

Though I'm sure anyone that paid high prices will come up with unique descriptions to get their money back like "First Day of Issue" or "First Strike". So be one your toes to avoid these.

When it comes to the "blue collar collector", basically folks that routinely buy coins in the $20 to $100 range, they sometimes get forgotten in the world of high priced rarities and all of the talk that goes with it. But I have to tip my hat to the editors at Coin Values!

In their June 2009 issue they dedicated the main article to coins for $100 or less by Al Doyle. I usually have my doubts when I read these articles as they tend to hawk dealer stock for coins that no one really wants, not the case here!

Though limited to just U.S. coins, the article did a fantastic job of visiting and recognizing value in almost all major coin series including 19th century issues of half cents, half dimes, trimes, and nickel 3 cents. From sleepers to fan favorites there was a little of something for everyone.

The only area lacking that I would have enjoyed would have been some recommendations on commemorative pieces. Don't get me wrong I still loved the article. And I'm sure smaller coin dealers across the nation also cheered as many of their clientele probably fall into the $20 to $500 spending range and this article just helps their customer base.

Anyone with a small budget I highly recommend you grab a copy from your local newsstand before next months issue arrives, you won't regret it :))

Chile, mintage 173,000, value in a condition of fine $1.25
El Salvador, mintage 1,000,000, value in a condition of fine $2.25
Honduras, mintage 168,000, value in a condition of very good $1.50
Nicaragua, mintage 750,000, value in a condition of fine $2
Philippines, mintage 4,540,000, value in a condition of fine $0.75

I'm pretty sure these are the only countries that issued a centavo in 1919. Nothing rare but there are a couple of low mintage coins (Chile & Honduras) where I'd keep the coin just for the unusual factor. As far as reading material for that many countries I'd have to recommend the Krause Publication "Standard Catalog of World Coins" (see our recommended reading page). It's a bit pricey but you migh pick up a used copy on the cheap or you could just post your questions here and I can lookup info for you.

Ken

P.S. If you can't read the country name then checkout this site http://worldcoingallery.com/ and see if any of the pics from the countries above look like your coin.

Thanks for your patience,
Ken

Single coin .40
One Roll - $6
Two Rolls - $13
$25 Box - $320

Huge mintage figures aside, first year type coins very rarely goes up in value. Typically, new designs are hoarded by both collectors and non-collectors alike which ensures many uncirculated examples are available for future collectors.

Of coarse the U.S. Mint can't be left out in the cold, so if you think you are going to get a better deal with the Mint think again as a two roll set will set you back $8.95. That's a 795% profit for the Mint surpassing any other rolled coin by a huge amount.

I realize prices won't break the old wallet but I think I'll just wait to get one from my local bank for a whopping price of (you guessed it) one cent :)

Thank you

PS: I am changing every hyperlinked cell today!!

If you open the door to modern U.S. gold coinage then I guess the next question is why not commemorative gold coins? It is also non-circulating coinage and you may be tempted to add some. If it was me, I'd probably split it up into two sets:

1. Classic U.S. Gold Coins
2. Modern U.S. Gold Coins