BGB...you could start a collection of Lincoln cents from 1940 on that wouldn't set you back much money at all and many times sellers will sell the PDS of a year at the same time. You also could just buy the entire set that starts at 1940 and goes to ?? for not much money...seems around $20 or so depending on the condition of the coins. I think I still have a couple of sets of them around here someplace..
What I was really thinking though would be to search one coin type at the time on ebay and see what they're selling for and then maybe buy one coin at a time. You might to start with buy you a nice Dansco type set book to put your coins in as you acquire them. Some coins you'll be able to put in there from pocket change or a trip to the bank. Most banks in our area have half dollars and Sacajawea dollars and if you're lucky you might can find one with a Ike dollar that you can get, but if not, you can buy a nice one on ebay for way less than $10. Once you get a few holes filled in then you will get the fever and want to finish filling in as much as you can. Maybe try to get one or two coins a month and if later on the early issues cost more then save up a couple a three months and buy a nice one for your book. Try to keep the grades nearly the same but if you have to on some more expensive coins (example Classic Head large cents) then buy a lesser graded coin to fill in the hole and maybe at a later date you'll have money to upgrade the coin and can use the money from the coin you had to help pay for the upgrade. And, not sure if you have one or not, but you probably need to get a Redbook Guide Book to United States coins to get a ball park idea of what you might want to pay for a particular coin and some basic grading guides to help you understand what to look for in a certain grade. Just do it for fun and little by little you'll get more comfortable with your buying decisions and understand more and more about the hobby. I've been actively collecting since a child but really got into it a lot more when ebay became my friend as living in a very rural area my only choices were a trip to Savannah about 65 miles away to a coin store or to subscribe to Littleton and buy from them. Ebay and the folks in these rooms I've learned a LOT about coins but still consider myself a newbie compared to many others in here with much more knowledge than me. What's good is when you find someone with good knowledge who will share that knowledge without all the sarcasm as you sometimes find. Good luck with it and always have fun with it and know that without a doubt, you're going to get a bad deal along the way somewhere...we all have. Just try to learn from it, move on and keep learning! 🙂
There are three kinds of people in life....those that make things happen, those that watch things happen and those that wonder what happened. Which group do you belong?
