Coin Talk

When I re-discovered my coin collection last year after decades, I found it moldy and sticky – boxes covered with exploded bottles of home-brew, perhaps a year earlier. I spent the next few days carefully washing coins and discarding many, many folders, boxes, flips – almost everything but the coins. Starting fresh, I looked for ways to store/display my collection. I offer these experiences and opinions to hopefully guide someone doing an internet search just as I did about a year ago.

My Use-I’m not done with my collection, so I’ll be adding missing coins, key dates, and upgrading – money and time permitting, so I want to interact with my collection. I want to occasionally show coins, but mostly ‘manage’ the collection. While I might someday sell some ‘extra’ coins, I’m not a seller, and I don’t have to transport my collection. How you use your coins changes everything, so my advice is to consider that first.

Note – when looking through my 30 year-old collection, I had some coins ruined (mainly zinc pennies) by storing in cheap plastic and bad folders. Most new products are ‘archival’ safe, but check.

Folders – I had these as a kid, and will buy them for my son in a couple of years when I give him ‘extras’ to start his own collection, but these offer neither the protection nor the display I want, so I decided against them.

Plastic – Individual plastic containers seem ideal for truly valuable coins. I have a couple of very nice coins, but – and this was hard to come to terms with and admit – my collection just isn’t that ‘valuable’. Granted, I have a LOT of silver, but the value of most coins isn’t that much over bullion, so the expense isn’t justified for me. In addition, they don’t provide the display or tactile feel I want.

Flips/Other – 2×2 flips are a nuisance for me – staples, sorting, writing on them. Plastic 3-ring pages/binders seem cheap compared to albums. I definitely use flips – for my good extras, but don’t want them for my ‘A-team’. I use red boxes for the good, extra flips. I use plastic tubes for the junk extras. Using internet coin stores, you can get a LOT of supplies for very little money. I purchased a pack of 100 flips and 5 tubes for each coin type (x2 for pennies), storage boxes, gloves, and some other small supplies for under $40 incl. shipping.

Albums – I like these the most, but at $15-25 each, this can quickly get expensive. However, it’s a one-time purchase, and only one book per series of coin, because I store extras as noted above. I like that I have them on a bookshelf – two shelves and growing, and I can reach for them, show them, do some research, pick an empty slot or a coin to upgrade, and go to ebay easily. For me personally, albums have to do two things: 1) display my coins well, and 2) make it easy to easily remove the plastic shields so I can add or replace a coin. I’ve now purchased hundreds of dollars of different albums, and can attest that not all do these tasks equally well.

Happy coin collecting! Let me know your thoughts!

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