The advanced collector would give an eyetooth for any of the following: 1859-S Liberty Seated silver dollar, MS-63 grade; 1876-S $5 gold, MS-65 grade; 1808/7 overdate half cent, MS-60; 1915-D Lincoln cent, MS-65; and the 1941-S Walking Liberty 50c, MS-65, sharply struck. Of course, a collector would also need the commoner coins as well, as no silver dollar collection would be complete without a common 1881-S, etc., but it is the rarities which are the hardest to find and which create the most interest.

On the other hand, the typical uninformed investor would probably not know which coins were scarce and which were common, and in any event, if he didn't make his own investment decisions, he would be apt to accumulate in quantity such items as the 1881-S Morgan silver dollar, MS-63 grade; 1901-S $5 gold, MS-64 grade; 1909 V.D.B. Lincoln cent, MS-65; and so on.

An investor once told me that his entire holdings consisted of a quantity of bank-wrapped Uncirculated rolls of 1963 Washington quarters which he had purchased for $10,000 the group. After owning them for five years and not realizing a profit, he sold out and left the field of coins to become involved in investing in baseball cards, which he was told were "a real growth area." This was a shame for numismatics, for he was a professor of English literature at a well-known Eastern university, and undoubtedly he could have made some interesting contributions to the rare coin hobby.

The uninformed investor usually ends up buying coins which are desirable in high grades but which are not rare. I suggest that while owning one each of such coins is fine, as each is a necessary part of a specialized collection of its particular series, it is important to acquire rarities as well. On the other hand, anyone with a limited budget can form a truly interesting and numismatically important collection simply by acquiring inexpensive examples of coins with "stories."

Inexpensive, Interesting Coins

Coins do not have to be expensive to be interesting, and while in the American series we all enjoy reading about 1913 Liberty Head nickels, 1804 silver dollars, 1822 half eagles, 1787 Brasher doubloons, and other rarities priced at the best part of a million dollars each, such coins do not have a monopoly on historical and numismatic interest or desirability.