Picked up a few over the past few years and now i am hooked.

After attending the local coin show here in Richmond, i picked up a few more commems. Last year i picked up the 36 Connecticut since i attended grad school in Hatford and i used to ride my bike past the Charter Oak. Little did i know how much that single coin would cost and i was shocked. After the CT half i picked up a few of the texas commems because i really like the extreme detail on the coin. Fast foward 18 months later, while at the Richmond coin show i picked up the Dansco album for the 55 piece type set as well as a few coins at the show. Although most of these coins have mintages well under 10k amd as little at 2k, they are all readily available.

The one thing i will say is you must be patient and do your research before buying any of these coins. Many sellers are way overpriced and there are a lot of counterfeits out there. When i find a coin worthy of a bid i take snapshots and do comparisons with graded coins looking for counterfeits. Bu doing this it really gives you a better idea of how the coin looks as well as pointing out inconsistencies. Every coin i ourchase i weigh them once received and to date i have only received one counterfeit, the seller was more than willing to make it right as he admitted to know nothing about them as he acquired it with other stuff from a rental unit.

To date i only need the Hawaii and thw Spainish Trail to complete my Dansco album and i started the complete set in the 2 volume Dansco albums. These coins have amazing high relief detail and really show the artistic creativity of the day not to mention the long term investment potiental.

Here is my advice.

1. Be patient and dont buy using Buy it Now unless the coin is 20 to 30% below fair market value. Auctions are where the best deals are.

2. Study each coin and do detailed comparisons with graded/authentic coins, this will help avoid counterfeits.

3. After receiving the coins, weigh them, they should be in the 12.3 to 12.5 grams. The weight could be as low as 12.04 grams but that will be a very worn out slick. Anything higher or lower needs further testing. My brother wound up with 2 counterfeit halves one weighed 11.4 and the other weighed 14.04 grams. Both looked amazing nut they were fake.

4. Never ever buy from Russia, China or for that matter oversees. These are where the counterfeits are coming from. Also ask yourself, wjat would someone in Russia, Lithuania pr China be doing with these? Not to say people oversee collect them, it is just too risky to buy from them.

6. Only buy from those with perfect or almost perfect feedback.

7. Really check out the pictures very well. There is one dealer that has great feedback with about 140k transactions. Their pictures look amazing and their RAW coins sell consistently at graded prices. I made my 1 and only purchase from this particular dealer as the pictures were fantastic only to discover they were all cleaned. The pictures they take do not show cleaning marks or hairlines. After this purchase i looked at their negative feedback only to see that most complaints were about their coins being cleaned. Learned lesson, even with the largest dealers you have to be careful.

8. Read all negative feedback. Although some dealers with huge numbers of transactions may have negotiate feedback, read the feedback to see if there is a common complaint.

9. Again, be patient and let the coin come to you. As you get started it will be very exciting as you learn about these rare coins so dont jump on each one as they come up.

10. Dont be affraid to buy graded coins and worry about cranking them out for the dansco album. If you follow step #1 and get it at the right orice it will be ok to crack them out as they look so much better in the album. Dont get me wrong, some of the higher end graded coins will be better served in their holders.

Tom

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