Buying, Selling, and Collecting Coins Part 1

Coin collecting can be a lot of fun. It doesn't matter whether you are buying a few wheat cents to fill an album or collecting rare Charlotte gold, the joys remain the same. I can remember as a kid, the fun I had with my dad searching through wheat cents and pocket change for different varieties. No, I didn't find anything rare but I did find some pretty neat varieties and I got to spend some quality time with my dad. Fishing was a way of life for my family and I, but during the winter months the streams we fished became unfishable. My dad always found something for us to do that didn't involve Nintendo or TV. What better way to pass the time than to look through wheat cents and pocket change. I learned so much about coin strikes, and grading coins just by looking through wheat cents and pocket change. We were generally looking for varieties, because in the 80s and early 90s finding a key date in change would be like hitting the mega millions. One thing I learned a lot about was strike doubling. I can't tell you how many times I thought I found the elusive 1969-S double die cent only to have my dad explain that it was strike doubling. After about the 300th strike double I finally caught on to the difference between strike doubling and die doubling. Today there are many reference books available on things to look for in pocket change. A couple highly recommended books are The Cherrypicker's Guide volumes 1 and 2, and Strike It Rich with Pocket Change. Don't let the second title fool you, as you probably won't strike it rich looking through pocket change. However, you might find some coins worth quite a bit more than their face value and have a little bit of fun while doing it. For those of you with young children, it is a great way to start teaching children about money and a great way to spend quality time without electronic devices. Who knows, it might become their job one day.