My neighbor brought down an old box of coins that his 90 year old grandmother had been collecting over the years. Typical stuff: IH, wheats, memorials, kennedy halves, rosies, buffalos, liberty nickels, and mercs. All heavily circulated and not really worth much at all. But the kids and I had a blast looking through them. She had also bought quite a few foreign coins and tokens over the years and those were even more fun.
So much fun that the kids are hooked. Adding it up it's easy to see that I could go buy a few circulated common date coins of each type for around $30. The idea would be to get a representative sampling of different coins from the past so that the kids could really get a feel for what our coins used to be like. They literally had no idea that coins used to look different from what they look today.
My point is that sometimes it's better to have a wide variety of so-so coins than to have just a few higher quality coins. But it really all depends on what you intend to do with them. I want my kids to be able to hold them in their hands and play with them without the quality or price being drastically hurt. It's true that coins like this will never really be worth anything. But I'm not looking at them as an investment. It's just $30 that you spend to give them something to look at and to think that they are really into a cool hobby. Heck, I will spend $30 buying them dinner tonight at a low end restaurant. Why not spend that same money to give them something that will last a lifetime? Some day they will pass them down to their own grandkids and will be able to enjoy reliving the time they have spent collecting them. So in my particular situation I'm going to stay away from proof and better quality coins for now and instead concentrate on buying quantity over quality. Once the kids have one of just about every type of coin (within reason), then we can start looking at buying better stuff.
As for investing, I'm somewhat torn. I've been looking to spend some money to buy some gold and silver to have as a possible investment and to hedge against the falling dollar (and for emergency type situations). But I'm not sure what to buy. On one hand, buying culled or polished silver halfs seems to be about the cheapest way to accumuately junk silver. They will always follow close to the spot price and even make a nice coin to look at now and then. The kids can even lightly pollish them if they want to without hurting the value significantly. However, from a collecting and beauty standpoint, the silver eagle coins are where I'd love to be. But you really pay a premium for them (as much as 20%!). I would need to keep them in good shape and out of the hands of my kids if I want them to retain value. They are indeed beautiful coins, but that beauty comes at a fairly stiff price. Finally, there is the option of silver rounds which are about the best price point you can get. But beyond the melt value they have no collectible value whatsoever. And then of course there's gold...
So I'm curious to hear what others have to say on investing in silver. Building a small collection for yourself or your kids is one thing. But buying something that you use as a long term investment is quite another. Junk coins seem to be the best bang for the buck. But they are just that, junk silver. They can be fun to look at though. Silver eagles are wonderful coins but cost so darn much that I'm tempted to stay away from them. But in the end I will probably diversify and get a some of each type.
Thoughts?
