The 72 var. 2 is in hand.

So far this month I haven?t picked up one graded coin! Oh they are out there but I?m not willing to pay the prices some people are asking. I probably could have picked up one or two but part of this journey is NOT to spend money hand over fist. For me the challenge is not getting the coin, the challenge is getting the coin at a very reasonable price. Let?s face it, if I won the lottery tomorrow I could pretty much fill many of my sets with top end coins but then where is the fun of the hunt?

Not to be deterred, I have been looking for raw coins to fill the holes in my albums. A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to come across a 72 var. 2 Eisenhower Dollar. (See the picture below.) That is THE key coin in the set. While the coin is not in pristine condition, it is a type 2 and I only paid $2.00 for it cherry picking it out of a bowl of ?Ikes? on a dealers table. This week I managed to pick up two more raw ?Ikes? leaving just one hole left to fill in my non-proof set of Eisenhower Dollars. Fortunately, the one hole is the 1976 S silver UNC Ike on which is relatively easy to get my hands. I guess that leaves me the proof Eisenhower Dollars to collect now. I have most of them, lacking only the 72, 73, 74, and 76 silver proof coins. But there is no great challenge in getting those 4 coins just in getting them at a fair price. Of course, with a raw set in hand, I can start looking in earnest for those elusive high grade Ikes for a registry set.

With the Eisenhower Dollar set well in hand, I have decided to start a new album. This time it will be Walking Liberty Half Dollars. I probably have 6 or 7 so I still have quite a mountain to climb. After thinking about it and considering a number of different coins, the Walking Liberty Half Dollars seemed a natural progression given I have a near complete set of Kennedy Halves and a half complete set of Franklin Halves. Ironically, none of these sets will ever show up in a registry. To me there is just something special about working with raw coins and filling the holes in albums. Graded coins while certainly a journey on which I will continue seems to be a whole different world of collecting compared to albums. So I guess I have the best of both worlds.