A Long time collector starts his very first registry set after initially shunning the concept when it first came out.

I started collecting in my pre-teen years when my grandfather sent me 25 pounds of wheat cents out of the blue. My father purchased me a couple of whitman albums and I was hooked. I branched out like many others through my pocket change and infrequent trips to the coin shops in my city. About ten years ago I realized I had some nice circulated albums and was working my way through other sets as fast as I could. I guess I had delusions of being the Eliasburg of circulated coins. I was hoarding for lack of a better term. I put everything aside and spend the most of the next decade building a set of Barber dimes from the ground up. It was a challenging task, and one that I think will never probably going to end, but it has gotten to the point that upgrades to the set run in the hundreds of dollars and are few and far between. So I needed something else. I still acquire random coins, just because I love them, but I needed a focus, a collecting goal. I don't know about some of you but collecting without a goal feels chaotic and wrong to me.

That all leads to this foray into a registry set.

I was laying in bed contemplating how I could regain collection focus and surfing ebay at the same time. I ran across a pair of MS65 NGC quarters on a buy it now for a ridiculously low price and I bought it. That sparked my rememberance that I had been buying and storing via my Dansco album, 2x2s, coin world holders, etc premium quality quarters for no other reason than they looked nice when I bought them. Well, I pulled everything out and looked through the registry sets and started doing some research and analysis and realized that this was something I could do, and it was.

I started by sending in every nice coin from 1955-1960 that I owned to get a feel for the quality that I had been importing into my collection. Well, I was doing all right as the majority, outside a few surprises came back between 64 and 66. So then I sent in one of my more treasured prizes, a 1944 toned on the entire obverse with electric blue and purple with pink undertones on some of the lighter areas. The coin came back MS66. I guess I do have a knack for picking out quality. So out of the 83 or so coins that make up the set I probably have 50 or so coins that I have put together over the years. I am going to send them in in batches as I can afford it, while picking up either other premium quality raw or NGC certified quarters that I don't already own and see what I can do and how far I can climb on the merits of my grading versus what NGC grades my purchases. I am already off to a roaring start and of course you are free to look at The BQ Contingent as I will keep the photos and descriptions coming as I fill out the set.

Happy Collecting

BQcoins

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