After collecting 'garbage' grade coins for years, I carefully delve into the 'graded' arena.

When I was a child of around 8 years old, my grandfather gave me a small box of silver dimes. At the time, I was immediately captivated by the seemingly innocent discs of silver. The struck me as being simultaneously strange and beautiful. Thus a 'coin collector' was born!

For the next 10 years I gradually expanded my collection of general circulation and obsolete coins by whatever means presented themselves. I gathered memorial and wheat cents mostly, with the occasional indian head penny, or mercury dime. I even purchased my first proof sets (90 and 91) and a proof Silver Eagle (92) during this time.

When I became a legal adult, my collection, for the most part, went on a shelf with only the occasional addition. One notable addition was an auction lot of Walker Halves, that were in Good to VGood condition, for the simple reason that I didnt have any.

It was to be another 10 years before I would pick up the habit again. For the last 4 years I have actively been filling holes in my various circulated coin sets, and expanding my proof collection. I've bought a few from E-bay, and some from local coin shops and the US Mint.

My latest addiction has been the Silver American Eagles. They offer the best bang for the buck for someone on my budget. At 18 to 50 bucks apiece, they are fairly affordable, and beautiful to look at. I've picked up a few cheap loose examples as well as some nicer graded examples. I've been sticking with NGC and PCGS slabbed coins, and plan to keep it that way unless a really great example at an awesome price comes my way. If that happens, I'll probably re-submit it to either NGC or PCGS for a 'true' grade.

Well, thats all I have for the moment. If you want to see a listing of my non-graded coins, goto: http://www.geocities.com/taikyotojin/CC.html