As I mentioned in the roundup, we all were at my wife’s oceanside quilting retreat.  I came down to watch my daughter for the weekend, and our main activity on Saturday was going to the Virginia Aquarium.

It was quite a treat:  700,000 gallons of aquarium as well as sprinklings of other kinds of habitat.  What an incredible display of marine life it was.  Some of the staff was there to assist us in touching a few things:  horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs, and stingrays, which were our personal favorite.  (If you’ve never touched one, they’re a little bit spongy on the back.)  We also saw some sharks, dozens and dozens of other beautifully-colored fish like the lionfish, as well as some seahorses.  It was well worth the price of admission.

My daughter really likes “little” things.  She gets this naturally from her mother.  Outside of the exhibit area there were hand-crank machines for making elongated pennies.  We put 51 cents in the plunger in the top (two quarters for the cost of making the elongated penny, plus the penny), and the machine squeezed the penny through a press and made a design on the front and back.  The elongation happens because the penny only goes through in one direction.

So for a total of $1.02 my daughter has two elongated pennies:  one with a seahorse, and one with a stingray, her favorite.

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I was up in NY for a long weekend with my parents and other relatives, and came back to VA today.  On the way back I stopped at a coin shop we had passed several times, and got a chance to look inside.

The owner was buying a collection of coins from someone, so I waited until he was done.  I learned a few things today:

• The new Lincoln cents are making their way around. Both the owner of the store and the guy who was selling his collection were pretty talkative so we talked coins a little bit.  The seller had one of the new 2009 Lincoln cents and showed it to me.  This was the first time I had seen one.  I guess they’re taking a while to get around.  The first Lincoln cent design was introduced almost two months ago.
• Don’t try to make side deals in front of the dealer. I didn’t directly offer to buy some of the coins from the seller, but again, we were all chatting, so it came out that I might be interested in buying some of the coins.  I think I knew enough not to offer the seller any money for the coins right there, because that’s a good way to never be welcome in the shop again.  He offered to sell some to me, but I said that I wasn’t going to get into the middle of the transaction.  Nor did I talk much about what the coins were worth, because it would weaken the owner’s bargaining power.  Again, not a good idea if I ever wanted to come into that store again.
• Kennedy halves in 1966 had a doubled die variety. I offered to buy some Kennedy halves from the collection, but he said that he’d need to look through the 1966 ones before selling them to me, because there was a doubled die variety.  Certainly a good thing to know!  Now I get to look through my 1966 halves.

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Bob over at ChristianPF questions whether it was wise for the powers that be to allow the US Mint to proceed with its minting of four commemorative Lincoln cents to honor the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

I’m not totally convinced that the new designs will be in widespread circulation. As Bob noted, the cost of minting cents is prohibitive relative to the coin’s face value.  Though zinc and copper prices have dropped from their highs to their prices about five years ago, the cost of minting a cent is still the highest of the coins in relation to its face value.

The launch of the new design took place in Lincoln’s birthplace of Hodgenville, KY, on the bicentennial of his birth.  Half a million of the new cents were offered at face value at that ceremony to any of the 1,500 attendees that wanted them.  The Mint, though, has given no other information on the release schedule for the other designs, or how they will be offered for sale.  There will be a special collector’s run of no more than 50,000 sets in the 95% copper content, but nothing more on the common 97.5% zinc content.

Nor is there any requirement to mint a certain minimum number of coins.  That’s at the discretion of the US Secretary of the Treasury.  From Section 302(b)(2) of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005:

NUMBER- The Secretary shall prescribe, on the basis of such factors as the Secretary determines to be appropriate, the number of 1-cent coins that shall be issued with each of the designs selected for each calendar quarter of 2009.

At the moment, there is a surplus of cents available for recirculation, as people have been raiding their piggy banks and heading to the bank or the Coinstar machine to raise funds.  Hence, there’s no need to mint more right now, as there is still widespread acceptance of exchanging them for face value.

The cost issues associated with minting the cents are real.  Managing public perception of the coins and currency is a delicate art: as minting the cents becomes more and more of a loss, the public receives clearer and clearer signals that not only doesn’t a cent buy much, it’s worth more storing it away than spending it.

For the meantime, though, metal prices are lower than they have been, so the Mint might be able to get away with minting larger quantities of the new cents.  They’d certainly like to; all of these novel designs are money-makers for the Mint.  (That wording was clear, right?)  But, it’s not their call how many they produce.

In any case, if only half a million of each design end up in circulation, they’ll be rare indeed.

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Over Christmas I found a Hawaii quarter, which is the fiftieth quarter in the State Quarters series from the US Mint.  We got home late Thursday and amongst all of the unpacking we punched out the last circle in the map and put Hawaii in.

We looked it over for about 30 seconds, and then my wife asked, “Now what are we going to do with it?”  (It was hers; she had been collecting them since before we had met.)

What, indeed?

I’ve mentioned before that most state quarters found in pocket change aren’t really going to hold their value.  Unless they’re errors or rare varieties, or in very high mint state, they’re going to be worth their face value, which, thanks to inflation, purchases less and less as time goes on.  (The Delaware quarter has lost almost 25% of its purchasing power already!)  Tens of millions of each design were minted.  The coins themselves are composed of less than three cents’ worth of base metals.  You can collect them if you want, but they’re not “collectible.”

So, back to my wife’s question: What do we do with them?  Right now we have $12.50 in quarters with a map, collecting dust, and depreciating.  It’s not really suitable for framing.  It’s taking up space and incrementally cluttering our lives.  We could:

• Buy a couple of pizzas with the quarters. The pizza place would probably appreciate the quarters for their cash drawer.
• Take the quarters out and start again. Our daughter is almost four, so she’s probably a tad young, but it won’t be very long (maybe a couple of years) before she can start learning her states.  It’s a good opportunity to learn some history.
• Pass the map on to someone who can use it as such. Decluttering can be a good thing.  We can’t save everything.  We can’t even save most of everything.
• Sell the map. Why not?

The most pragmatic thing to do with the map full of quarters is to not save it.  The fun was in the collecting, and now it’s over.  It’s time to spend the quarters.  If we really want then back again, it won’t take long to find them.

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I’m a fairly hard person to buy for.  I don’t really need anything per se, and I don’t buy a whole lot for myself, but if cornered in a dark alley, I’ll let it slip that I don’t mind cash.

My father-in-law asked me one year what I wanted for Christmas, because all he could really think of was cash.  I responded, “And cash is bad because … ?”  And he said, “Well, just giving cash seems a little crass.”

And I suppose it is.  Occasionally we have collections for special occasions at work: someone has a baby on the way, someone’s getting married, or we want to thank the cleaning crew at Christmastime.  Though a gift card is really more or less the same thing as cash, it seems much more thoughtful than just stuffing all of the ones and fives in an envelope with a card.  The cash is easier to spend, but it seems less like a gift and more like a handout.

But there are cool ways to give cash — ways that show some thought and don’t have the appearance of a handout:

• Presidential dollar coins.  I think these things are cool.  Hey, they’re only a few cents’ worth of metal, but they’re really shiny fresh out of the roll.  Or, left in the roll, they might be worth another buck or two sold uncirculated to a dealer.  Once in a while there may be a mint error that could be worth hundreds of dollars.
• Quarters.  I was an arcade fiend when I was in middle school so quarters were always a welcome gift.  Maybe throw in a state quarters map for fun, now that they’re all out in circulation.  It’s handy to have a few quarters in your pocket for emergencies.  An example: suppose you’re out with your young child who is still in diapers.  You end up one diaper short near the end of the day, and you’re no place close to where you can buy one.  If you manage to find a bathroom, often they’ll have a diaper vending machine if they have a changing table, but it usually only takes quarters.  I’d be glad I had a few at that point.
• Nickels and cents.  For that friend on your Christmas list looking to hedge against inflation with physical copper.
• Uncirculated anything.  I managed to get an uncirculated roll of 1995 Kennedy half dollars for face value at the credit union recently.  Uncirculated is more vaulable than circulated, but it’s never less valuable than face value.
• Two-dollar bills.  I’m giving a few of these this year.
• Currency origami.  Turn dollars into boxes, or other stuff.  We’ve done this before.
• Inside another gift.  Like inside a mug, or pinned carefully in the pocket of a pair of pants.

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A reader e-mailed me with this question:

I have just read your article on coin accumulation and I was hoping that you could help me.  My father recently died and left me in total 3146 British coins and 83 varied coins.  I want to know how best to sell them and if I could make them valuable.

Here’s what I would suggest doing (not knowing at all what you have):

1. I’d recall anything that your father said about the coins. He accumulated (or collected) them, so he may have talked about them or mentioned why he collected them.  If you don’t know, does anyone else who knew him know?
2. Handle the coins carefully until you know better what you have. You might have a common 2007 50 pence coin (worth about US $1) or you might have a half-crown coin from the 17th century.  Handling the 50-pence coin with your hand probably won’t hurt the value much, but doing the same to the other might devalue it quite a bit.  It’s safer to handle coins as little as possible, by the edge if you do, and to wear gloves to avoid transferring oils and moisture from your hand to the coins.  Coins aren’t made valuable; they’re kept valuable.
3. Identify the coins that you have. Things to look for initially are (a) the date and (b) the denomination.  Older British coins might not have the denomination on them but if you have the date that’s a start.  This website seems to be a good source of information on British coins, or if you’d rather get a book, you can check out a world coins book for the appropriate century or centuries.  Knowing what you have is essential to getting maximum value.
4. Determine the values of the coins. The books on world coins linked above will have pricing information.  I’ve found these prices to resemble market prices but not dictate them.  If you’re qualified to grade your coins (you’ll know if you are) then so much the better.
5. Weigh the costs of your time against the likely value of your coins. You can sell all of the coins at once to a dealer, and she may totally lowball the value of what the coins are actually worth, but you’ve sold them, and invested almost no time.  Or, you can go through all of the coins one by one, determine their values, condition, etc., and make a literal mint on them, but it takes a lot of effort and time.  Somewhere there’s a “sweet spot” of time invested vs. payoff.
6. Weigh the costs of selling the coins against the likely value of your coins. If you’re going the eBay route, there are lots of people looking that will check out your listings, but that audience costs:  listing fees, final value fees, PayPal fees, shipping fees.  Buyers will factor in shipping when they bid, so if sell a coin worth $10 for $10 on eBay (their cost including shipping), you’ll make maybe $5 after all is said and done.  Larger value items will probably do better for you because the shipping is a smaller part of the overall cost.
7. Determine how quickly you need to sell the coins (if at all). If you’re in a hurry, you’ll probably get less than if you wait for the right buyer to come around.  A coin dealer will probably make you an offer on the spot, but it will be a lowball.  A pawnbroker will really lowball you.  A collector will pay what you want if he really wants the coin and if it’s a fair price, but you might have to wait a while for that collector to come around.
8. The most value might be gained by spending them! If you live in the UK, heck, spend the modern coins or put them into a savings account.  If you live in the US, you just received a whole bunch of non-dollars — which, given the ongoing federal government bailout, might be a good thing!

Anyway, those are my general suggestions.  Any other thoughts?

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Commenter "jnwcmr" asked on my post on how to turn an accumulation into a collection:

I have an “accumulation” of coins and banknotes from around the world, and I’d like to organize them. I’d appreciate an email on where to get plastic protector sheets for them, and maybe a pointer to some tips for newbie “collectors.”  Thanks.

I’ll do one better than that:  I’ll post my response here, and ask others to chime in on the comments.

I haven’t had a need for a huge amount of supplies yet — wouldn’t that be nice! — but I have gotten coin supplies on eBay.  I’ve bought some Airtite holders for some silver eagles, as well as a kit with 500 2"x2" cardboard coin holders and a plastic box to store them in.  (Here’s where I bought the kit.)  Those supplies have lasted me so far.  Boxes of coin cards seems to be a more compact way of storing the coins, but albums are probably a better way to display them.  (One page in an album can display the front and back of 20 coins.)

EBay also has listings for currency and banknote protectors.  Vernon Coin Center (the store I linked to above) also sells these.  The plastic used in currency sleeves and coin protectors should be free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  PVC breaks down over time and releases hydrochloric acid which attacks most metals and paper.  Airtite holders are made of virgin acrylic plastic.

I also figured out how to safeguard my coins.  (No, I’m not saying how.)

I have a small number of world coins that a friend collected for me when he went to Europe in the mid-1990s.  All I’ve done with those is sorted them by country and placed them in their own small plastic bag.

I’m still in the process of moving from accumulator to collector myself.  As I mentioned in the other post, I buy coins mostly near melt value and stray from this guideline only to get something unusual or something in really good condition.  In other words, I’m still deciding what I’d like to concentrate on.

There are a few ways to specialize in a particular area of coin and currency collecting:

• Acquiring all of the coins of one particular design.  For example, all of the Mercury dimes, or all of the Franklin half dollars.  Most of the coins in a series are reasonably priced because they’re common, but a few "key date" coins will be quite expensive simply because there aren’t enough for everyone to have one.
• Acquiring all of the coins of one particular series.  My wife has a cardboard map with each of the statehood quarters in it (except Hawaii).  A friend at work collects silver eagles and silver eagle proofs because he thinks their design and look are beautiful (I agree).
• Acquiring examples of coin varieties.  Each coin is unique and the process of minting, transport, and storage of coins affects a particular coin uniquely.  Coins can be struck twice before put into circulation.  Uncirculated silver coins (especially Morgan dollars) can end become beautifully toned.
• Acquiring currency of one type.  A friend from church enjoys collecting silver certificates.

Basically, collect or specialize in whatever interests you!  If this is the route you’d like to go, an inexpensive way to go about it is to start with relatively low grade specimens to achieve a complete collection, and then "trade up" if you’d like to improve the conditions of the specimens you have.

These are my pointers.  I found Coin Collecting for Dummies to be a good primer on the subject.

Any other tips from other collectors?

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FMF recently asked about collecting and it reminded me of an article I read in one my coin magazines.

Like FMF and many of the other commenters on his post, I have some coins.  Having coins — even a lot of coins — doesn’t by itself make someone a coin collector, though.

It’s relatively easy to buy more coins than most people own by bidding on someone else’s coins on eBay.  The person selling them might be a collector or might be selling on behalf of a collector, but the buyer doesn’t instantly become a coin collector just because she plopped down $10,000 to buy a collection from someone’s estate.  She’s definitely a coin accumulator, but not necessarily a collector.

Collections are generally more valuable than accumulations.  Picture a jar with a few hundred Lincoln cents and Indian head cents.  Take these same coins, put them in 2×2 cards, write the year and mint on the cards, organize them, and catalog them, and instantly the coins will be more valuable.  Why?  Because a collector knows what she has far better than an accumulator of the same item.  The accumulator has a jar full of coins worth a few bucks and might sell it for $10.  The collector would buy the jar for $10, knowing that they’re might be a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent tucked in there that is worth $100 or more.  And that’s just one of the coins!

This isn’t to say that accumulating something (coins or otherwise) that can be more carefully collected is worthless.  Many coins, particularly pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, are mostly silver and will carry a melt value regardless of its condition or rarity.  Many coins, frankly, aren’t worth more than their melt value.  But some coins are worth many, many times their melt value — even millions of times their melt value.

I’ve taken a few steps to turn some of them into a collection.  If you have a bunch of something — buttons, campaign materials, old documents, bottle caps, whatever — these suggestions will help you to turn that pile into a collection.  I’ll use coins as an example, but these are generally applicable to just about anything.

• Assemble what you have.  Get everything in front of you so that you can look at it all at once.
• Sort what you have.  This might mean gathering the coins by denomination, then by year and mint mark.
• Organize and store what you have.  A bunch of plastic bags with sorted coins is a start, but carded coins organized by date and stored upright in a box is better.
• Catalog what you have.  Organizing the coins makes cataloging them much easier.  Cataloging can be done with software or with a notebook.
• Learn about what you have.  It takes a bit of knowledge just to organize the coins and to know some of the differences, but would you know a key date if you had it in your hand?  Would you know a doubled die?  Would you be able to tell an XF from an AU?  This special knowledge is what sets apart a collector from an accumulator, and it can consume a lifetime to learn.
• Choose what you have.  Once you know a bit about what coins you own, and which ones are valuable, then you’re in a position to choose your purchases in order to move the collection in the direction you want it to go.  Having a goal for your collection might mean trading or selling the (lesser-quality) duplicates in order to fill in the gaps.   (Right now about the only thing that will entice me to pay much above a fair markup to melt value is whether I have one or not.  I might eventually want to collect a full set of something, but for now I’m content just to get varied, neat-looking coins.)
• Protect what you have.  By this point the collection is valuable and probably extremely difficult to replace should it be lost, stolen, or damaged.  The more valuable the collection, the more it must be protected from damage and theft.  Coins might be stored in a fireproof safe.  The high-grade or rare coins might be slabbed (certified and encased hermetically in plastic) and appraised or registered.
• Enjoy what you have.  A well-organized, lovingly-assembled, well-understood, and carefully-protected collection is a joy.  It’s a conversation piece, and it’s a source of wealth not only for the items themselves but for your knowledge of what those items are.

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