Opinions on working a set wanted

[newprepper]

When you work on your set, do you hold out for the best or do you buy lesser coins at good deals if they present themselves and upgrade when the coins come along?

[bsshog40]

I always aim for the best coin I can get and afford first. No reason to get lesser coins and then have to look for an upgrade latter and then have to deal with selling the other. Jmo

[cpm9ball]

If it were me, I'd hold out for the best I could afford. For one thing, if you settle for something less, you'll probably never be happy with it, and when you do finally make the move to upgrade, you might just lose some money on the other.

 

Here's a suggestion you might want to consider. Suppose that the lower grade costs $200, and a more suitable grade costs $500. If you can afford the $200 at any given time, why not make it a point to set aside, say, $20, every week, so that when you do find the coin you want, you won't be as hard-pressed to come up with the cash.

 

Chris

[newprepper]

Here is my conundrum, I am working a lincoln set, (a spoonload of coins) I have mostly RD in 66-67. however I have noticed that you can get BN and RB top pops fairly cheap. And some that I have in RB were about $3.50 average. I'm definitly not talking 5 bills. I understand your point though. for anybody real familiar with the lincolns, what grades am I going to have to settle for in the teens and 20's?

[Walkerfan]

I buy the best that I can afford. It's tough to upgrade and not lose money, esp. in the short term.

[e1cnr]

do you want to complete set? and how soon?

 

I worked on a much smaller set, first completing and then upgrading. The upgrades caused duplicates and the problem that sometimes lower grade was better coin.

[newprepper]

I guess its a balancing act.

[physics-fan3.14]

Here is my conundrum, I am working a lincoln set, (a spoonload of coins) I have mostly RD in 66-67. however I have noticed that you can get BN and RB top pops fairly cheap. And some that I have in RB were about $3.50 average. I'm definitly not talking 5 bills. I understand your point though. for anybody real familiar with the lincolns, what grades am I going to have to settle for in the teens and 20's?

 

It depends on how you want to define your set. Do you really need to have all RD coins? Or are you happy with the equally as attractive and exponentially more stable (and cheaper) RB and RD coins? If you must have all RD coins, then I would hold out and save your money. If you decide that RB coins aren't so bad, go ahead and buy them.

 

[grip]

In ten years time , about half of my RD lincolns have turned RB.

[newprepper]

I was afraid of that, how does the guarantee work for that?

[grip]

PCGS no lomger has a guarantee on copper.Not sure about NGC.

[newprepper]

So much for those slabs protecting the metal

[copper toning]

You could always break your set into some thing like 1930+ red, 1919-1929 rb, 1909-1918 bn, or of course any combination. It would keep the price down and maintain a consistent theme.

[newprepper]

You could always break your set into some thing like 1930+ red, 1919-1929 rb, 1909-1918 bn, or of course any combination. It would keep the price down and maintain a consistent theme.

 

Great idea, thanks

[grip]

You could always break your set into some thing like 1930+ red, 1919-1929 rb, 1909-1918 bn, or of course any combination. It would keep the price down and maintain a consistent theme.

 

Great idea, thanks

 

1+ The slab was for protecting the coin,not a guarantee against the color turning.

[BKW]

Here is the link to NGC's gurantee: NGC Gurantee

 

The 2 provisions pretaining to copper are:

 

"The NGC Coin Grading Guarantee does not apply to copper, bronze or copper-nickel coins graded by NGC prior to April 1, 2000.

 

To the extent that the NGC Coin Grading Guarantee applies to copper, bronze or copper-nickel coins, such Guarantee expires on the 10-year anniversary of their date of encapsulation by NGC."

 

Here is the link to PCGS' gurantee: PCGS Gurantee

 

The pertinent section pertaining to copper is:

 

"IMPORTANT: Because the color and surfaces of copper coins can change due to environmental factors, PCGS does not guarantee the color of copper coins, or the absence of copper spotting, for any PCGS graded copper coin graded or sold after January 1, 2010."

 

My recommendation on buying RD coins is to look for ones in older holders. If a coin has been encapsulated for say, 10 years, and still looks RD then it is likely very stable and with proper storage is unlikely to turn.

 

 

[World Colonial]

It is either a matter of personal preference or how often the coins become available for sale.

 

For many or even most US coins, if I collected them (I do not), I would not bother to buy a coin and then upgrade later. The reason for this is that I do not consider hardly any of them to be that difficult to find except when very narrow criteria is applied to them.

 

For world coins such as most of those I collect, the buyer frequently has to settle for what they can get when it is available. Outside of the more available South Africa ZAR and Union coins I collect, there has almost never been an instance when I had a choice between two high quality coins I wanted to buy and many times not in any grade. For some of the series I collect, I see maybe a few coins in total in a year in better quality, many times not at all and for specific dates, the typical number I see in a year is zero. For this reason, I have recently started buying some coins in circulated grades occasionally but I will just keep them if I find something better later.

[yonico]

Do you buy coins that appeal to your personal taste in Lincolns, or those that will rank higher in a registry set?

Because, and this is just my opinion, RB and BN Lincolns are prettier and more original-looking than the RD ones ( that goes especially those 1933 and earlier ) .

I , pesonally, wouldn't consider a 66RB "lesser" than a 66RD.