Have something to keep you guys real busy during freeze out

[digitrich]

Try and buy a used stereo microscope for looking at your coins and finds. Get a book like "Cherry pickers' Guide"; tells and gives values for die cracks, over dates and etc. You will be amazed at how many of your Barber series coins (common dates) under a microscope have these valuable flaws. I found a 1888 over 7 Indian Head that I was literally going to throw in a jar. That coin pays for my SE, and x1 all by itself! I had already looked at it under a 7x loupe and was not able to tell, but my microscope goes up to thirty power. I bought it new through a jeweler friend of mine for about 200 bucks. That sounds like allot of money until you realize just one small rarity coin pays for it instantly. A real good book for Indian rarities is the guide book of " Flying Eagle and Indian Head Cents" by Richard Snow. Covers every year in detail, history and rarity versions (some are microbial). If you do buy a loupe (magnifying glass), make sure it says "Hastings Triplet" that's not that manufacturer, but a way it's manufactured, to give you the best view. 7x magnification is a little low, 10x is just about right, and 20x is just to much. So far, just farting around, I've found about 10% of my coins I find have errors, re punched mint marks, die cracks, over dates and such, about 20% of my barbers, so lucky James, what's 10% of 321? or is it 358 and 1 deer this week Sounds boring at first but the first time you get a close to uncirculated find or token under that microscope, the minute detail will blow your socks off. it's a blast.

 

[mattockman]

I spent about a week looking at all my pennys about 6 years ago and found what I thought were errors.....just a magnify glass and the coin guy I went to show said they are errors but not the sought after kind....mostly slight doublings....I guess not double stamped but miss aligned or something slipped.....I was P.O'ed I really though I had something.....who knows maybe they were good and he just isn't very good source of info....I tossed them back in the chump change pile....the guy said if it can't be seen by the naked eye then it is not really sought after....is he right? or wrong?

 

[digitrich]

Red Book says if it can't be seen by a 7x loupe, it's probably not a considerable error. But most errors, most people can't see with the naked eye, so he's wrong. Most coin dealers don't deal with anything but the most obvious, mainstream errors like the 1955 double die etc. Hence the book CherryPickers... the idea being, going through a dealers collection or flea market table and cherry picking the errors they obviously didn't know about or were to lazy to check for. There are dealers that specialize in nothing but error coins, those are the ones with the knowledge. Some errors, re punched dates and mint marks are so faint that you couldn't possibly see them with at least a 10x loupe. So their mistake is your cheese.

 

[mattockman]

n/t

 

[Elton]

Did you actually sell any and recoup your expenses ????

 

[digitrich]

No, don't need the money. Good thing about coins is they pretty much go up in value faster than inflation so the longer you hold them the better. In the late 80's you could invest in coins as an IRA deduction and then congress did away with that, so the coin market fell sharply. My CPA tells me that they are thinking of allowing collectible coins as an IRA deduction again and he'd be surprised if that didn't happen in the near future. If that happens your coins are going to rise in value greatly, so selling them now would be a mistake. I don't sell any of my finds, it's kind of like a college fund for my boys. In ten years, they will be in college and maybe then I might sell them or give them to them. Plus you don't pay income taxes on your finds until you sell them or social insecurity