Sorting Through a Pile of American Coins
One of the many relaxing tasks related to collecting American Coins is sorting through a pile of coins. One of the rules of coin collecting is to never let an unprocessed coin leave your hands. While the number of valuable coins found in circulation is limited, there are still enough unusual coins in circulation to make it worth a collector’s time to sort through the piles.
To get started in the process, you’ll want to make sure you gather all the coins you can. Empty your pockets and purses of all the change that you get each week. Put the coins in an open bowl that allows easy access to the coins.
To make the sorting process easier, and to assure you don’t miss anything, I would recommend you purchase at least a low-power magnifier (3x-5x). If you can afford it, a 15x-20x model would be a good second purchase, since it will allow you to see finer details if the low-power magnifier shows an odd mark. You’ll also want a good lamp to light the sorting area.
In addition to filling your initial collection, you’ll want to look for oddities. Look for odd marks on the front, back and sides of each coin. At first, you’ll spot lots of oddities, but after a while you will come to realize what is really odd and what isn’t, and your sorting will speed up.
Set all of the oddities to one side. With the remaining ‘normal’ coins you can start a new collection for a niece, nephew or grandchild. You can also start roll collections, in which you collect an entire roll of New York State quarters, for example. Or, you can simply put the coins back into circulation.
Once you’ve accumulated a good stack of ‘different’ looking American Coins, it is time to visit a coin shop to have them looked at.