1851 Indian Head Dollar

Coin Collecting: How Much Do You Have to Pay to Play?

By Doug Winter – RareDateGold.com

I get calls from potential new gold coin collectors nearly every day. Some of them have spent a good deal of time researching the gold coin market and have a good idea what the coins that they may be buying will cost. Others have no clue and are almost charmingly naive about what they can buy given their budget. This leads me to the topic of today’s blog: how much does a collector realistically have to commit per coin to put together a nice collection of rare gold coins?

I’ve stressed in numerous articles and blogs the importance of specializing when it comes to coin collecting. Collections that are all over the map tend to have “issues” (putting it nicely) and having a greater in-depth focus makes for a better, more productive collector. But a collector’s chosen specialty needs to be in sync with his budget.

If a collector calls me and tells me he wants to put together a set of Indian Head eagles on a budget of $1,000-2,000 per coin, my first reaction is that he’s not going to get far. Only a few coins in this series can be purchased in this price range and these tend to be either the generic issues like the 1926 and 1932 or relatively lower grade (Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated) versions of the slightly better dates.

This doesn’t mean that a collector with a $1,000-2,000 budget can’t play in the rare date gold coin market, there are some reasonably interesting coins available.

The collector with a $1,000-2,000 budget needs to make one immediate decision: does he care more about comparatively high grade than rarity?

If the collector with this budget is grade-oriented, there are a number of options that he can pursue.

One nice set that comes to mind are Philadelphia gold dollars struck from 1877 through 1889. This set consists of 13 coins and all of them can be found in MS63 for less than $1,500 per coin. And, if the collector in question wants to step up to MS64 examples, all the dates in this set can be found for less than $2,000.

Once this set is completed, the collector can focus on many other of the gold dollars from Philadelphia. All of the Type One issues from 1849 through 1854 can be had in MS63 for less than $1,500. And many of the Type Three issues from the mid-1850′s, 1860′s and early 1870′s are very affordable in MS60 to MS63 grades.

If the collector on a fairly tight budget is more rarity oriented, the Liberty Head quarter eagle series offers a number of potentially interesting options. Most of the Philadelphia issues from the 1840′s are scarce, and nearly all can be obtained in the lower to mid-AU grades for $1,000-1,500.

indian head dollar coins? | Currency Trading Exchange Guide

Some of the coins you list here are not US coins as you describe them. The 1851 silver dollar was the Seated Liberty type. The 1900 and 1902 silver dollars were the same type as the 1882 and 1896 dollars. The standing liberty design was not used on US coins until the 1916 50 cent coin.

Any genuine seated liberty dollar would be worth $ 100 or more, even in low grade. Ditto the 1876 trade dollar. However, based on the fact that you are listing a few coins that cannot be genuine, I question the authenticity of the rest of your collection. You need to show these to a reputable dealer that can pass judgement on whether your coins are genuine. and if so, you need to have them graded accurately since value is much greater for higher grade coins.

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