What's your favorite order of stacking 90%

[silverflake]

On the SLQ idea of not getting the full weight, heres a real life example. I have been 'stacking' silver in one way or another since 1991. About 10 years ago i had amassed a big old container of silver quarters. I decided to sort, bought a bunch of plastic rolls, started sorting into decades. Sure enough, the silver Washingtons fron 50's and 60's stacked right up to the rim. The one roll of SLQ's i had (mostly no date) fell almost an inch shy of the top of the rim! Similar for Washingtons of 40's and 30's. Not enough Barbers for a roll but I imagine the same is true. I need to weigh those rolls to see how short they are.

Regardless, keep stacking.

[pennypicker]

Man... I would love to have a time machine and go back to 1964. But I'll bet that even then you couldn't get full wt rolls of Standing Liberties without
paying a fortune. Now you'd likely pay in excess of $1200 for one (XF 40 examples go for $31).

What most people aren't aware of is that vintage baseball cards have far exceeded the gains of coins. The value today of an unopened 1964 5 cent pack of of baseball cards is $1000 ($1500 if mint). So in Rays' example that initial $10 purchase in 1964 of standing liberty quarters is now worth $1200 whereas if you used that $10 instead to buy 200 nickel packs of 1964 baseball cards and kept the packs unopened they would now be worth $200,000 ($300,000 if kept in mint condition).

Most people think the baseball card hobby is dead but this is far from the case. High-end "investment grade" psa graded pre-1980 single cards and unopened packs are continuing to rise every year setting new all-time price records at the major auction houses. Just this past July 18th on ebay a PSA 9 Pete Rose rookie card sold for $150,001--and this is a guy that has been banned from Major League Baseball!

[beauanderos]

Man... I would love to have a time machine and go back to 1964. But I'll bet that even then you couldn't get full wt rolls of Standing Liberties without
paying a fortune. Now you'd likely pay in excess of $1200 for one (XF 40 examples go for $31).

What most people aren't aware of is that vintage baseball cards have far exceeded the gains of coins. The value today of an unopened 1964 5 cent pack of of baseball cards is $1000 ($1500 if mint). So in Rays' example that initial $10 purchase in 1964 of standing liberty quarters is now worth $1200 whereas if you used that $10 instead to buy 200 nickel packs of 1964 baseball cards and kept the packs unopened they would now be worth $200,000 ($300,000 if kept in mint condition).

Most people think the baseball card hobby is dead but this is far from the case. High-end "investment grade" psa graded pre-1980 single cards and unopened packs are continuing to rise every year setting new all-time price records at the major auction houses. Just this past July 18th on ebay a PSA 9 Pete Rose rookie card sold for $150,001--and this is a guy that has been banned from Major League Baseball!

Who buys this stuff? Old guys with lots of money? (the same ones haunting the coin shows?)... when they are gone who is going to buy the goods? Not denigrating anyone's hobby in the least, but it
doesn't always mean it will pan out as an investment. I have a fairly top-notch stamp collection that I couldn't recoup anywhere near what I have in it.

The stamp collection, btw... is what I put any spare cash into when I should have been stacking the silver back in 1964. Stamps were plentiful and inexpensive. When the collection finally did get too large, I switched to coins... but that wasn't until around 1980. Bad timing.

[beauanderos]

On the SLQ idea of not getting the full weight, heres a real life example. I have been 'stacking' silver in one way or another since 1991. About 10 years ago i had amassed a big old container of silver quarters. I decided to sort, bought a bunch of plastic rolls, started sorting into decades. Sure enough, the silver Washingtons fron 50's and 60's stacked right up to the rim. The one roll of SLQ's i had (mostly no date) fell almost an inch shy of the top of the rim! Similar for Washingtons of 40's and 30's. Not enough Barbers for a roll but I imagine the same is true. I need to weigh those rolls to see how short they are.

Regardless, keep stacking.

You'd be surprised that the core of the coin's weight resides in the planchet, so just because the stack's are noticeably shorter doesn't correlate that well with their loss in weight.
The high points of the reliefs are what gives stacks their full height, and merely because those contact points become worn doesn't mean the weight loss is proportional to the percentage
loss in height.

You want to see something really upsetting. Stack fifty Barber dimes next to fifty Mercs next to fifty Rosies.

[Country]

Nice post, Country. Lots of grist for the mill. Good point about the vending machines, although not too many of us remember the 50's
as well as you might.

Man... I would love to have a time machine and go back to 1964. But I'll bet that even then you couldn't get full wt rolls of Standing Liberties without
paying a fortune. Now you'd likely pay in excess of $1200 for one (XF 40 examples go for $31).

But, boy howdy... you coulda backed the truck up on Morgan's... if only we had known And BU Franklin rolls

When I was younger in the early '60s, you could go to the bank with a SILVER certificate and obtain a SILVER dollar for your dollar. In fact, one day I asked for one, and I was given a 1928-P for a dollar. How about that one! Further, in the '60s the mint divested itself of hundreds and hundreds of bags of BU SILVER DOLLARS from its vaults. I remember that the bags were selling for $1250 by some national dealers in Coin World at the time. Even further, I remember that the bags were sold to dealers, and they received whatever the mint pulled out of vault. Some bags were 1000 coins of Seated Liberty Dollars from a century before that had been sitting in the mint's vault for a hundred years! Of course, at that time I had very little money to spend as a teenager.

[Country]

Man... I would love to have a time machine and go back to 1964. But I'll bet that even then you couldn't get full wt rolls of Standing Liberties without
paying a fortune. Now you'd likely pay in excess of $1200 for one (XF 40 examples go for $31).

:

Even if you could go back to 1964, there would be two problems. First, there was a coin shortage for several years back then, so you wouldn't have found as much as you might think. Secondly, you probably didn't have quite as much money 52 years ago as you do now. So how much could you have spent- even if you bought back then at face value?

IN 1965, LBJ directed the mint to only release clad bags to the banks. Mixed bags with the SILVER were held back since the government assumed that ALL SILVER coins would be pulled out of circulation by the public. Once the coinage shortage lessened (I'd say around 1969 or so under the Nixon administration) these mixed bags were again released. However, that didn't stop big time accumulators from pulling the coins and melting them down into bars for resale. I believe many of the old odd weight bars appeared in the '70s because of this.

[JobIII]

1. Walkers -or- Mercs
2. All Silver Dollars (though I don't stack much, but I really like these)
2. Other Halfs (Ben's and Kennedy's)
3. Wash Quarters
4. Rosies
5. Older varieties of 90% (This grouping would rank higher if they weren't typically so darn worn thin)

~JobIII

[pennypicker]

Man... I would love to have a time machine and go back to 1964. But I'll bet that even then you couldn't get full wt rolls of Standing Liberties without
paying a fortune. Now you'd likely pay in excess of $1200 for one (XF 40 examples go for $31).

What most people aren't aware of is that vintage baseball cards have far exceeded the gains of coins. The value today of an unopened 1964 5 cent pack of of baseball cards is $1000 ($1500 if mint). So in Rays' example that initial $10 purchase in 1964 of standing liberty quarters is now worth $1200 whereas if you used that $10 instead to buy 200 nickel packs of 1964 baseball cards and kept the packs unopened they would now be worth $200,000 ($300,000 if kept in mint condition).

Most people think the baseball card hobby is dead but this is far from the case. High-end "investment grade" psa graded pre-1980 single cards and unopened packs are continuing to rise every year setting new all-time price records at the major auction houses. Just this past July 18th on ebay a PSA 9 Pete Rose rookie card sold for $150,001--and this is a guy that has been banned from Major League Baseball!

Who buys this stuff? Old guys with lots of money? (the same ones haunting the coin shows?)... when they are gone who is going to buy the goods? Not denigrating anyone's hobby in the least, but it
doesn't always mean it will pan out as an investment. I have a fairly top-notch stamp collection that I couldn't recoup anywhere near what I have in it.

The stamp collection, btw... is what I put any spare cash into when I should have been stacking the silver back in 1964. Stamps were plentiful and inexpensive. When the collection finally did get too large, I switched to coins... but that wasn't until around 1980. Bad timing.

The high-tech boom coupled with an easy money policy has produced many new multi-millionaires with millions in discretionary income. If anyone of them decide to buy back a piece of their childhood by laying out $150K for a piece of cardboard it would seem absurd to most but to them just a drop in the bucket.

[beauanderos]

and I guess some of them would brag to their highroller friends (sorry, Adam) about how much they paid for it!

[pennypicker]

and I guess some of them would brag to their highroller friends (sorry, Adam) about how much they paid for it!

Actually you're right on when it comes to the mindset of the very rich. They prefer very rare (cards) items that are extremely expensive so they can brag and show them off. The more they have to pay the happier they are in many instances. The psychology of the very rich is quite interesting. For example the card below is a common player named Charley Neal that most people have never heard of--he wasn't Jackie Robinson by any stretch. This card in "near mint" books for $20. But because this one graded a gem mint 10 the card collectors fought over it on ebay last month and it sold for $3792. A $20 version "near mint" card of Charlie Neal is very nice and almost new looking but the very rich want the very best so they upped the game from $20 to $3792 so one could have the bragging rights of owning it. The winner could of had two PCGS-63 $20 Saints and two rolls of ASE's but instead went for a thin piece of cardboard

[silverflake]

So yesterday I took my roll 40 of no-date Standing Liberty Quarters which falls about half an inch shy of the top of the coin tube, and a roll of BU 64 Washington Quarters which come right up to the very top of the tube and I weighed both. Keeping in mind my scale is not the greatest (think I bought it 8 years ago for 9.95) the Washingtons weighed 251 grams (supposed to weigh 250g so theres the degree of error). The SLQ's weighed 238.4g. That's a about a 5% difference. As far as silver, by my calcs, the Washingtons have the full 7.2 toz of silver. The SLQ's, 6.84 toz (forgive me if numbers aren't perfect but hopefully you get the drift).

Just observations from my home front. Apply these to whats happening out there in the market.

Regardless, keep stacking.

[mtldealer]

full weight Kennedy halfs... everything else is underweight and I try to get rid of it

[beauanderos]

full weight Kennedy halfs... everything else is underweight and I try to get rid of it

Franklin's are usually full wt, unless one had an unusual amount of wear. Post 1955 usually not a problem. Washington quarters are mostly full wt (715 at least)
back to about 1950, with some occasional full wt coins into the 40's. Rosies are usually good back to about 1956. Coins earlier than that require specimens that
would be judged as XF or better to qualify, which makes them numies and they're sold as such. I've gone through bags of Barbers and don't think I've even encountered
a single one heavier than a 1916 slick Walker.

[beauanderos]

So yesterday I took my roll 40 of no-date Standing Liberty Quarters which falls about half an inch shy of the top of the coin tube, and a roll of BU 64 Washington Quarters which come right up to the very top of the tube and I weighed both. Keeping in mind my scale is not the greatest (think I bought it 8 years ago for 9.95) the Washingtons weighed 251 grams (supposed to weigh 250g so theres the degree of error). The SLQ's weighed 238.4g. That's a about a 5% difference. As far as silver, by my calcs, the Washingtons have the full 7.2 toz of silver. The SLQ's, 6.84 toz (forgive me if numbers aren't perfect but hopefully you get the drift).

Just observations from my home front. Apply these to whats happening out there in the market.

Regardless, keep stacking.

Just as an interesting experiment... try measuring the difference in height and see if the weight is exactly proportional to the height difference?

[rainsonme]

I am the opposite of all you good people, which figures, I lack any sense (no puns, please).

At junk silver prices, only with strong dates and no damage other than wear:
1. Barber Halfs
2. Barber quarters
3. Barber dimes
4. Commenorative Halfs if they are EF or better
5. Standing Liberty Quarters
6. Old Walking Liberty Halfs prior to 1930
7. Old Merc's prior to 1930
8. In desperation, old washington qtr's prior to 1940 or Canadian halfs prior to 1950.

A long time ago, when I first went into a coin shop to actually BUY silver, I asked the old owner at Beaverton Coin, Bob, what I should buy. He said "buy what you like". And I have been ever since.

When I die, and my kids pack up all those boxes and dump them at the local bank coin machine, I will make a lot of you happy. Unfortunately, I wont be around to read all the "whooping" on the tracking thread.

(bought an 1894 dime at junk price last week --- I think that was an OK deal; and a 1917 half with S on the front week before that)

[beauanderos]

I am the opposite of all you good people, which figures, I lack any sense (no puns, please).

At junk silver prices, only with strong dates and no damage other than wear:
1. Barber Halfs
2. Barber quarters
3. Barber dimes
4. Commenorative Halfs if they are EF or better
5. Standing Liberty Quarters
6. Old Walking Liberty Halfs prior to 1930
7. Old Merc's prior to 1930
8. In desperation, old washington qtr's prior to 1940 or Canadian halfs prior to 1950.

A long time ago, when I first went into a coin shop to actually BUY silver, I asked the old owner at Beaverton Coin, Bob, what I should buy. He said "buy what you like". And I have been ever since.

When I die, and my kids pack up all those boxes and dump them at the local bank coin machine, I will make a lot of you happy. Unfortunately, I wont be around to read all the "whooping" on the tracking thread.

(bought an 1894 dime at junk price last week --- I think that was an OK deal; and a 1917 half with S on the front week before that)

I'd say you did great! That 1894 is worth at least $10 even in AG condition

[rainsonme]

With old coins, there are more ways to "win". The very marginal, almost numismatic, may someday drift up into that category and hold a small premium. And should silver decline in this deflationary depression, these near-numismatic coins might hold up a little better. That's a rationalization of my illogical "stacking" --- but really, I am just doing what Bob said, "buy what you like". I like these old coins. And if/when silver rockets to $100/oz, I dont think I will really be upset about the possible 5% loss from wear. For me, the 1964 Kennedys, qtrs, dimes with no wear hold so little interest, I would prefer rounds.

[coppernickel]

Several posts noted commemorative coins, I have a few and was startled I had forgotten that entire field, even silver dollars can be found for great prices. Recently these are harder to come by.

[coppernickel]

You want to see something really upsetting. Stack fifty Barber dimes next to fifty Mercs next to fifty Rosies.

A picture would be great fodder, and I would like to see your point.

I could pull together the Rosies, but don't think I have enough to make a stack of Mercs or Barbers.

[Treetop]

Have to agree with others who mentioned commemorative dollars and halves. When I find these close to spot I get those first. I have a good amount of the dollars, used to be able to get them on ebay for great prices. Probably wasnt wise but i got rid of all the packaging and such, it was just to much. Likely lost out on potential upside there, but they are still in great condition, and Ive got most of the set at this point for just above spot. I like to get those out and my best examples of the older 90% from time to time and just look at them.

[Hutch88]

1. Franklins
2. Mercury Dimes
3. Kennedys
4.Everything else
I just started stacking and have quickly fell in love with Franklins. I don't know why I love those coins so much but I just think they are so cool.

[Shazbot57]

1. Franklins
2. Mercury Dimes
3. Kennedys
4.Everything else
I just started stacking and have quickly fell in love with Franklins. I don't know why I love those coins so much but I just think they are so cool.

Regarding Franklins:

[Rosco]

Morgans
Rarely find in My Price range
Franklin's
Rosie's
64 Kennedy's
Due to current costs
Washington's

[hirbonzig]

1.Rosie's
2.Franklins
3.Mercs
4.JFK's
5.Morgans

[InfleXion]

If I'm trying to be cost effective I'm going for 64 Kennedies, but I prefer Franklins and Mercs. I will chase after Morgans if they cartwheel. My next would probably be the silver Eisenhower dollars with the eagle on the moon on the back. Peace dollars aren't bad either.