Coinbuf

What to say about myself, hmmm.  My first introduction to collector coins was in the late 1970's when my grandmother gave me a group of old Indian Head cents and a trifold holder.  These intrigued me but they were dark and rather gungy so I asked if I should clean them up, she said I could so I grabbed a can of Brasso and went to town shinning those babies up.  If only I knew then what I know now about the cleaning of coins.  The one saving grace is that all those poor cents were super common date coins in F or lower so there was not much value lost.  I still have those coins in that same folder and they are still quite shinny even today.

But the experience opened my eyes and mind to the world of coins and I began to purchase some very inexpensive low grade raw coins that I could afford as a young boy.  As I reached the late teens school and girls took over the interest, and the available funds, so coins sat in the background for quite a few years.  Somewhere around my mid thirties I rekindled the desire and I started to look around at the available outlets to acquire coins.  By now the coin slabbing business had begun but I was still an album hole filler and I settled on Lincolns, bought myself a Dansco album and started buying.  Boy did I make some costly mistakes buying coins that had been cleaned and recolored, most of which I only realized many years later.

But I was lucky that I found a local dealer that began to teach and mentor me on what to look for and how to grade.  Being rather hard headed I tended to resist by along the way I started to understand and my buying got better.  Around this time I had mostly finished my album except for the expensive keys that I was afraid to purchase raw given my history of mistakes.  One day this dealer had a 1909-S VDB that he put up on his bid board, PCGS MS64RB in a rattler holder.  I was determined to buy that coin and I did, my first slabbed coin.  After I bought that first coin I decided to investigate other slabbed coins and I was off on the hunt.  I also thought that I would clean up by having all my raw Lincolns graded so I bought a PCGS membership and sent off a large submission with great anticipation.  This was the moment that I learned how many mistakes I had made much earlier on my raw purchases.  As you can imagine that first submission was very disappointing indeed.  Of course being hard headed (I think I mentioned that before lol) I blamed the TPG and gave them a good cussing out in my mind.

I have no idea why but I stuck with it and over time I found out that most of those first submission duds were my fault and became a better more quality conscious buyer.  Since that time I have gone on to now complete my slabbed Lincoln set thru 1958 and am working to fill in the slots from 1959 to current.  This is not a priority for me as I really am not that fond of the Memorial reverse design so am not as motivated.  Along the way I also developed a liking for Morgan dollars and over time have bought a semi complete date/mm set, just missing the super expensive dates which I may never be able to afford.  I also have gained an appreciation for type set collecting and am continuing with those pursuits.

Coins are a journey that takes many twists and turns, a continuous evolution that I have and will continue to enjoy.