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.

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!

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!)

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 ;)

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!

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

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 :)))

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 :)

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.

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 :))

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 :)

The answer lies in it's usefulness with respect to purchasing power. To support this position let's begin with 1945 (hey day of half dollars in circulation). With a little help from the site "Measuring Worth" we have calculated the purchasing power of the half dollar into 2008 dollars.

In a matter of just 40 years, the purchasing power decreased by 83%. Given the rapid decrease and throw in it's large size (30mm) it's suddenly not hard to see why average Americans abandoned the half dollar. Is the solution to increase the denomination? It's hard to believe that the 1, 5, or 10 dollar bills will be eliminated anytime soon so this collector firmly believes we will never see a 30mm size coin in circulation in our lifetime.

If unchanged, 2008 will by far be the lowest mintage for the entire Kennedy series. Collectors are already talking about the possibility of 2008 being the key to the series. But will it carry a hefty price premium like some hope?

The answer to this question is…probably not. Kennedy halves have not been issued for general circulation since 2002. This means that most of the 3.4 million coins are either in the hands of collectors or dealers and in a condition of BU. That's quite a few coins available to collectors. Does this mean that they are worthless?

Absolutely NOT! The low mintage will more than likely garner a small price premium over other Kennedy issues, just not enough to retire on :) On the other hand, quite a few coins have been altered to add an image of President Obama making them worthless so maybe 3.4 million might be an over estimate. To be on the safe side this collector picked up a couple of coins just in case.

My wife in her sweet way attempts to buy me something coin related each year and typically it's a so-so product but I really do love the effort she puts in with making such an attempt at a hobby she has no interest in whatsoever. For example, last year she gave me a book called "World Coins & Currency: Warman's Companion" This was the most worthless thing I've ever seen printed. It was so bad that I couldn't even leave a review here on the site.

But this year she hit the mark! As the wrapping paper fell to the floor that Christmas morn I was mildly surprised to receive a copy of Dr. James Mackay's "The World of Coins and Coin Collecting" book as a gift.

Though I haven't finished reading it yet, I did do a quick flip and it instantly caught my attention. I'm actually excited to have another book to read so this was a great gift receiving Christmas :)) When I'm done I'll be sure to post a review in the forums.

Personally I'm using this time to focus on some low cost or no cost activities to keep the flame burning.

1. Cleaning up the old collection - It's amazing, I liked to think I'm a focused collector but over the last couple of years I've picked up enough odd coins that there is a considerable amount of coins sitting all over the place. I have pulled these all together and made three piles: 1.) Unique coins that I'll put into their own albums, 2.) Potential investment coins that I'll put in my safety deposit box (I never keep expensive coins at my home), and 3.) coins that just don't fit in that I'll use for trade or sell.

Another thing to do is to inspect coin holders. How many need to be changed out? Are coins improperly toning. One thing I decided to do was to use my label maker and add labels to my cardboard holders. This actually worked out better than I thought so I'll defintely be playing with this for a while.

2. Planning and Budgeting - As long as I have at least a spare dollar then I have money to buy a coin. With limited funds, I'm using this time to layout what, how, and when to buy coins. One set I have only needs two coins to complete but those last two coins cost $150 each, I decided to place these on hold and start a new set so I began planning a Canadian type set. You can actually pick up quite a few early 20th century coins for less than $5 each and some such as large cents are as affordable as $1.50.

3. Working on this Website - Not stopping at coin shops, shows or even browsing online purchases has left me with some extra time which I can spend cleaning up this site. I started working on the coin library again by adding mintage tables (through 2007) and my goal is to have all circulating U.S. coins completed by the end of the year with descriptions, mintages, and photos. This stuff definitely keeps the collector fire burning even though I can't buy all that much.

So now my time is all filled with enough to keep me interested in the hobby and to keep this blog a roll-in…till next time :))

I actually work full time and as some know I have a family and the site is a part-time passion. Unfortunately work has been kicking my butt taking away time from my sharing here at the site. Hopefully things will change shortly.

Rest assured my collecting has not taken a vacation. With only 3 Russian coins left to complete a set I decided to start a second set and have begun a 20th century Canadian type set. This will be my largest type set to date (approximately 163 coins). I've already picked up three coins for the set so this may take some time.

For those interested on where my son is, he continues his collecting of the occasional coin but prefers tokens as he bought another one yesterday. I bought him a Harris 60 pocket coin wallet to house his 2x2's and I had to admit they are pretty handy so I picked up a few for myself.

That's a quick update for now as I have to get ready for work.

Sounds like an easy task but I was actually hard pressed to find examples of pre-communist Russia. I visited a total of 6 tables that I knew carried a wide assortment of world coins. All that was available was about two dozen common copper coins (which I already had) and silver coinage (regardless of condition) only yielded 6 examples with the lowest priced at $150 which was out of my price range. There were quite a bit of gold coins but since my collection does not include gold coins I passed them over.

As I spoke to the dealers, all 6 confirmed that they have had a hard time keeping Russian coinage in stock and demand has driven up the prices in almost all grades. I've heard stories that Russian coinage was hot but I've always been able to find what I wanted so I figured it to be localized to Europe….apparently not.

As tough as it was, I was still determined to go home with a coin so I reverted to my last option…rummaging through the bargain bins. After two hours of moving from table to table and searching what felt like an endless flow of coins in 2x2 holders my persistence paid off. I found an 1897 50 Kopek coin in a grade of Fine for $9, not perfect but it had more than enough detail to fit into my type set. It's hard to believe but it was the only silver Russian coin I could find for under $100. I don't mind the prices going up but I typically collect coins in grades ranging from VF to XF and to find no examples in this grade range was a lot tougher than I thought. Looks like this set is going to take a little while longer :(

If I get a chance later this week I'll post a pic.

^{What I still need: 1/4 & 25 kopek coins, and a 1 rouble coin.}

I wonder if the Mint plans on doing something special?

For those not familiar with what I'm referring to, mint sets from 1947 to 1958 were issued as double sets (2 Phily, 2 Denver). 1959 marked the first year the Mint issued a single set (1 Phily, 1 Denver).

In my personal collection I have every year of the single sets except 1959 & 1961. Hmmm, just to be safe maybe I should pick these up at today's prices in case the Mint does something funky that drives up prices on older sets next year.

Lately though, they are in marketing over-drive saturating the market with special packaging of coins and as a collector I've finally hit my limits. It was bad enough with multiple finishes unc, satin finish, proof, and burnished coins now we are being bombarded with special coin packaging sets. For just the Presidential Dollar series here are your choices of sets:

Presidential $1 Coin Historical Signature Sets
Presidential $1 Coin Uncirculated Sets
Presidential $1 Coin Proof Set
United States Mint Annual Uncirculated Dollar Coin Set
United States Mint Uncirculated Coin Set
United States Mint Proof Set
United States Mint Silver Proof Set

What the..???? If the Mint spent as much time with actually creating attractive coin designs as they do with marketing we'd probably have some beautiful coins in circulation!