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Poor College Kid Collectors


TreasureGirl

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I'm mostly curious about this one; right now I'm just collecting junk out of circulation (and have only recently decided to spend on some silver dollars mentioned in another topic) because I feel a little guilty feeding my habit when I'm getting married in May and staying in college for at least 3 more years; I even feel bad keeping folders of SQs because it doesn't seem as though they'll ever be worth much more than a quarter apiece and it's at least $25 squirreled away because of that. What do you all do to manage your limited funds but still add to the collection?

 

You can collect in justa bout any generalized area (US, World, Ancient, Copper, Silver, Tokens, Medals) with a budget of $20 per piece. Only with gold would your collection be really limited.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello!

i have same problem all the time, that don`t have enough money to buy coins ;) . trust me, it will go harder every year!

I started collecting coins when i was 6 years old. It started when i got Italian 5 lire 1959 aluminium(dolphin).

When i get 16, i started to collect only silver coins. Now im 20, and i started to collect gold coins ;) I have about 250 different type silver and 10 gold. I just can`t let this hobby go. The more i earn, the more money coins take :ninja:

When i was in school, i traded coins.

Good luck to you!

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Seeing how we're talking budget collecting, and how US money seems to have millions of times more "Jackpots" that you can hit compared to Canadian coins...

How can I get rolls of U.S money, thats not straight from the mint, if I'm in Canada?

 

I do alright when I get my Canadian rolls. I even managed to score two silver dimes in the same roll once! It all depends on what you're looking for. I'm not picky and will take just about anything, so I manage to find US wheat cents and Geo VI cents fairly easily. Nickels aren't quite as easy, but I manage to find my share of 1950s and 60s without too much difficulty, and then, of course, there's the few silver dimes and the one silver quarter I've found (so far). If you live in an older neighbourhood, it doesn't hurt to make friends with the teller at the local branch. Sometimes when people die off (or move to nursing homes) their family will bring their coins to the bank and you can score some interesting finds.

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Silver dimes and especially quarters are very tough to find in circulation, that's for sure. Almost all the ones found now are either acidentally spent, or from stolen collections (unfortunately)

 

Since Canada's coinage has changed more than US has, it is tougher to find older coins here, but as Topher mentioned, you can still have fun. Lots of 1940s and 1950s 1c and 5c still out there.

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Bobette- the only way to get U.S. rolls would be to actually cross the border, and any rolls you find in the border areas likely won't have anything good in them since it's often just US change that Canadians took back to the U.S. Also a high likelyhood you'll encounter Canadian coinage in those rolls!

 

Also keep in mind that there are more US collectors, and thus you hear the US stories a lot more.

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Just found a 1968 silver dime in a bunch of rolls I picked up yesterday. Several US dimes (no silver), and two British 5 pence coins. This weekend I'll go back and check the rolls of dimes for that elusive 1970 dime. I've found 5 silver dimes in circulation in the last 2 years, and not a single 1970! (I know, only 6 million made). Next week, I may get $100 in quarters and see what turns up.

 

As ccg said - pennies and nickels can yield some nice finds. I find about 1 US wheat cent for every 1000 or so pennies and 1 Geo VI in every 1500 or so. Haven't had much luck with nickels lately, but I'll try them again in a few weeks time. I'm thinking of visiting Buffalo in a few weeks (when I go to Niagara Falls and St. Catherines to visit clients), and picking up a bunch of US rolls to see what I can find.

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  • 2 years later...

I think my financing approach is a little different than the responses I've read. I personally buy certain coins or notes, keep some, re-sell the rest for a profit, then use that profit to continue the trend over and over again... it works very well and I would recommend it. I also buy collections of banknotes, keep the good ones, then resell the "junk", collecting a little profit on each sale so that at the end I either got the banknotes I kept for "free" or made some money on the whole thing. For example, a few weeks ago I made a $150 investment into a collection of 50 banknotes (of which I kept 2 excellent pieces). Over the past 2 weeks, I sold about 75% of what I didn't keep, and got back enough money to buy about 10 new additions that I wanted AND re-deposit $160. All through ebay.

 

Despite all the issues with ebay and fakes and stuff, I think ebay is a college-kid collector's best resource for getting extra cash on the junk we don't need.

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(cents for those sensitive to terminology)

Thank You.

 

Now, back to your question.

Not being out of high school, my budget is open, but small. What I like to do, is take a folder for type coins, and put a spin on it. One folder, I might make all proofs, or all with tonning. This really adds some spice to my collecting, and is very rewarding when you finish a set.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There are times when collecting should be put on hold. If your budget is too tight don't waste your time buying junk because junk is a very poor investment. At this stage in life it is best to become a vest pocket dealer. Buy only for resale. It can be even more fun than just collecting since you will see more coins and meet more coin people. When others, like parents and spouses see that you are actually making money they will get off your back and develop new respect for you.

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There are times when collecting should be put on hold. If your budget is too tight don't waste your time buying junk because junk is a very poor investment. At this stage in life it is best to become a vest pocket dealer. Buy only for resale. It can be even more fun than just collecting since you will see more coins and meet more coin people. When others, like parents and spouses see that you are actually making money they will get off your back and develop new respect for you.

 

 

I did the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. I bought junk coins while I was in college (not always, but usually) and I couldn't be happier with them. I love coins for their history, not their "collectors" value. Resale is useful to make a buck, but a collector it does not make. This is all personal opinion granted...but I've always been one to ignore the value of a coin and see it as a work of art and of historical significants. To me, a hobby isn't about the money, it's about the love of doing said hobby. I love semi-worthless junk coins just as much as the wallet gnasher coins. :ninja:

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Not meaning to drag this one out but I thought I'd mention how I started coin collecting and when I did, money sure wasn't what I had at all. Way, way back my Dad came home and in his change was one of those shinny, Silvery looking new Pennies that just came out. That was the 1943 Lincoln Cent. My Dad said I could have it and although money was really tight then, I got that one and he followed that one up with some more of those all the time. Took almost a year but I accumulated an entire roll of them.

Being a kid made it easy to run around sort of begging for any old coins to neighbors, relatives, friends and anyone that would think a coin collector at my age was a nut. Oddly enough many people did give me what they thought of as just old coins. Even one relative gave me a pile of Missouri Mills and if you know about them, worth $0.001 each but that too was a lot of money way back then. I continued to ask, ask, ask and as long as I was a kid, usually got coins for either face value or free. Naturally I eventually got to old for people to just give me coins for nothing including relatives so while in school, I got a small job just to buy coins with the pay.

Collection just kept on growing although slowly, just kept on growing. It takes time if you don't have money but slowly and eventually you too could have a really nice coin collection.

Back to the Chicago area for coins. Remember to try flea markets. A small one on Lake Street near Manhiemm Road in Melrose Park, Illinois has one coin dealer that is really cheap. There is an indoor one called Wolf's somewhere in a Northwest Suburb. The really large flea market opens in Mid April at the Allstate Areana Parking lots. Used to be the Rosemont Arena. Usually at least several coin dealers there.

Also try the Morton Grove Coin store 9241 Wahkegan Road. They sell at all now four coin shows in the area. One each Sunday for the first four Sundays of every Month.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well Treasure Girl, I fall in the poor college student category myself. I fund my collecting in a few different ways. First off, my girlfriend and I hunt through rolls of coins we buy from banks, mainly half dollars but sometimes dimes and nickels as well. You'd be surprised at the amount of silver coinage still floating around out there to be found by a persistant collector, especially in half dollars. The great thing about this is there's no investment. You can always spend the coins you don't keep or take them back to the bank. Another thing I do is cherrypick varieties. I look in dealer stocks and on Ebay for things like 1981-S type 2 Anthony dollars, 1972 type 2 Eisenhower dollars, various doubled dies and things like that. Coins I can pick up for a few dollars because they aren't recognized for what they are that I can resell for quite a bit of money in some cases. Getting a Cherrypicker's guide book definitely helps with this, but they can be expensive. You can find a lot of info on varities online and on boards like this. Then there's the old tried and true method of saving up for big coin purchases as well. Those are my methods. There are also many series in both U.S. and world coins that are very fascinating and cool without costing an arm and a leg. My best example in my own collection is a set of silver 2 and 5 Reichsmarks with the Swastika reverse from the Thrid Reich. These coins have a lot going for them. They have a high silver content (62.5% for the 2 and 90% for the 5) they're very historically significant and the best part.....the most expensive coin in the set can be had for around $100 in a nice circulated grade. Most of them are much less than that, usually around 9-12 for the 2s and $19-30 for the 5s. There are many great series like this that are fun, historic and won't cost you an arm and a leg.

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