20 June 2026: 1935 P Buffalo Nickel

 

My second buffalo nickel. This is the 1935-P Buffalo Nickel to go along with the first one that I received for my collection which was minted in 1930. 

I am aware of the 1937 oddity version of this coin however it is not something that I can afford to add to the collection. I am sure that if I saved some money I could buy one in really POOR CONDITION, but I don't want that. In addition, there are a lot of fakes out there of that specific coin. 

Therefore I purchased the 1935 version of this coin, mainly because it is the birth year of an older relative. (Happy Father's Day by the way!) 

I have thought about getting coins from various years in which family members were born. I think that some of that would be really easy and others really difficult to obtain. 

Growing up, I always wanted a Buffalo nickel, and as of the date of this post, I have two. I'm happy and content with that for now. 

I don't really have that much to say about this particular coin. I am looking to slow down in purchasing, although I am still kind of out there searching. 

Next up on this blog will be discussing a particular conversation I had with my father which blew my mind. Stay tuned.

20 June 2026: 1910 P Lincoln Wheat Cent

 

The next coin in the set of three that were purchased at the same time is the 1910 P Lincoln Cent, or the Wheat Cent. 

As I said in the previous post, it was VERY inexpensive and I felt like I needed to grab it for less than $2 USD and NO shipping costs. 

But there was a problem. I already purchased the exact same coin from the eBay store who is local to me, and for a much larger cost. The problem worked itself out though as I received a message from the local seller that they had mistakenly left the coin up on eBay even though they had already sold the coin the week before, therefore a FULL REFUND was given. I was very appreciative of their honesty to their error and grateful for the entire amount being refunded. 

It solved the "issue" of just having bought the exact same two coins. 

I had selected 1910 as the target year because I know that in 1909 the Lincoln Cents were just getting started. And there's some speculation of WHICH CENT FROM 1909 that has the lowest mintage number and different varieties and all of that. I just didn't want to give myself a headache trying to figure that all out. I went for the 1910 just to see if it was actually attainable. Obviously, it is as I was about to have TWO of them but like I said, getting the refund left me to receive this coin instead.

I tried to not make things complicated, and they ended up complicated in their own way instead. But I have put the coin in with the rest of the cents in its folder. Now I just need to make a decision on the following coins as it would complete the first panel of the folder: 

1943-D Steel
1945-D
1950
1950-D
 

Because I had luck in purchasing three various coins from the same seller at the same time without extra cost of shipping and/or postage, my brain began to float away in questioning whether or not I could get these four coins to fill up the panel and do so all in the same transaction. I suppose it is possible. I just have that nagging fear in the back of the skull that I don't want to do anything stupid financially speaking. 

For now, this is the second out of three. The final coin is coming up soon in the next post.

20 June 2026: 1907 Liberty Nickel

 

 

Well, either I am dumb or I have no chill. I literally said in the last post that I needed to slow down in order to prevent myself from being in a really bad situation. 

But instead, I found a different eBay seller who was selling coins and other various items. All of the coins listed for sale were under $2 USD a piece and NO extra shipping costs. I naturally purchased more. Three various coins to be exact. 

The first being the 1907 Liberty Nickel. My brain did not compute that I already have the 1905 variety, so now I have more. 

When I received the coin and looked it over, I realized the physical damage the coin has on it. It is not something that I noticed right before I bought it. 

I have a feeling that this coin was probably picked up by someone with a metal detector and when they went to dig up the ground and dirt to reach the coin, the blade of their digging tool struck the coin pretty hard. It is not something I can say definitively, it is just a feeling... a theory. 

I am still on the fence about Liberty Nickels. I suppose though that if I come across an offer that is impossible to refuse, then that's when I will buy more but it would have to be pretty significant. 

On to the other coins that I received in the same package in future posts. 

16 June 2026: 1917 Mercury Dime

 

And I am back with a new coin for the collection. However, I am starting to slip up a little bit as I begin the process of slowing down and letting the dust settle. The reason being is that I don't want to end up going broke spending all of my money on coins. 

But here is the 1917 Mercury Dime with no mint mark, meaning that it was minted in Philadelphia. This was purchased online. 

The coin is made up of 90% silver and 10% copper which makes the value of the coin today worth what it is made of. 

If I was going to be honest, this would not be the first time I have collected or owned a Mercury dime. I had actually found a Mercury dime in the garage of the family home when I was a teenager, it was in terrible condition and was minted in 1942. I put it in a coin folder for Mercury Dimes and it was the only one I had up until I was made to abandon it.

I knew that a few months ago that I would want to grab AT LEAST ONE Mercury Dime and hold on to it for the collection. At least now I don't have to give it up or abandon it if I don't want to! 

I figured that I would get the very year of making these dimes and I found this one with relative ease. However, I am a bonehead!! Mercury dimes were minted starting from 1916, and not 1917, so this specimen is not one of the first of its kind but rather in its second year of being minted. 

What I have learned about this coin is that the obverse has a portrait of a lady on it and she is wearing a winged Phrygian cap. But the public at large mistook it for the image of the Roman messenger god. And that is why they call it a Mercury dime. I am guessing that without that misidentification that it was to be called a "Liberty dime" but we'll never know.

The reverse has an image of a battle axe called "fasces" that is bound with wooden rods and an olive branch representing "Strength and Peace" which is a wild combination. I had never heard of fasces before. I must research that at a later time. 

The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia alone minted 55,230,000 of these dimes from the grand total of 91,962,000 in 1917. 

As I stated earlier, they began making these back in 1916 and the mintage in 1916 was a lot less than 1917, by a long shot. There are only 264,000 of the 1916-D versions of the dime, making it ultimately valuable and incredibly more difficult to just find and totally EXPENSIVE to buy. Although the U.S. Mints in San Francisco and Philadelphia each minted over tens of millions of them. Denver being the "near impossible" coin to collect or find. Therefore, my mistake MIGHT have saved me a lot of money.

Littleton Coin Company will sell it to you for about $2,300 USD while eBay sellers are bleeding customers out with prices ranging from $700 (being in the poorest conditions) all the way up to $50,000 USD.

But you have to be careful at what you are looking at, some of these specimens over on eBay are not the actual old currency but instead just collector pieces or tokens or coins which were enlarged to show detail, which aren't currency at all. Please beware of these sorts of scams online!!! 

My apologies for being all over the place on this post. My thoughts are scattered this day, because of a few future posts that are coming and I am not exactly sure how to approach those stories. Be patient as those posts will be coming here soon. 

Thank you for reading. Happy Collecting!! 

10 June 2026: 1 Reichspfennig from 1911

The second coin that I intended on receiving on the eighth of June, instead arrived on the tenth.

I caught this coin from the same seller where I bought the 1893 Indian Head Cent. Hoping both coins would come at the same time. 

What struck me was the date, the history behind the coin. I actually took pause before buying the coin and did some history searching on the coin as much as possible, as well as the history of Germany at that time before the First World War. 

The date, 1911, isn't seen very well as I did not do a very good job at photographing the coin on both sides and for that I apologize. It does say 1911 though. The fact that the coin was in such a condition and being over hundred and ten years old and you could still read the words and make out the symbols and the designs were just amazing to me!! I just had to pick it up. 

I would have never thought as far back as the first of June of this year that I would be collecting foreign coins, with the exception of the occasional coin that made its way across the board from the nation of CANADA. I figured that Canadian coins were inevitably going to cross my path at some point. 

I saw this coin from 1911 Germany and that was when Kaiser Wilhelm II was in power.

Wilhelm II was also in power during the First World War and he eventually would abdicate and flee to The Netherlands. He was the last German Emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918. The fall from power and grace was the great marker to the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern Dynasty's 400 plus year rule over the lands of Prussia.

I digress before I get too heavy and boring with the history lesson. 

Even though the coin came a little later than expected, I was still happy with it. It will probably be the only one that I actively attempt to purchase, unless someone who knows that I restarted this hobby find something that they feel that I would enjoy. Either that or my younger brother who lives in Germany might send something of the nation's old currency because Germany has gone to the EU and now uses the Euro. The Deutsches Mark is no longer in circulation. 

I thought about making another post about a topic that has to do with Germany and its leaders on coins, but I think that I will finish this post and include it here instead. 

I saw something on eBay that looked awkward. It was nothing something that I was familiar with and I did some research with. 

To put this as delicately but as firmly as possible to drive home the point: 

Germany NEVER put the face of their old leader on ANY of their currency. Neither coin nor paper money. The old leader being the person who was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until 1945. There ARE legitimate coins with the standard imagery, such as the swastika and eagle, but not the face of the leader. 

I saw an item that made it look very similar to the Jefferson nickel but instead it was the German leader's head. It was wildly fake, and the price to buy it was incredibly ridiculous and I believe that the seller was trying to earn money and profit off of someone who was ignorant to that fact that he never was on any official currency of any kind. Other than being on a token or some kind of souvenir, he did not give his consent for his likeness to be put on any currency so if you see something like that, just know it's just for fun and that it is not actual currency. It's just a plaything, a token, a replica. And undoubtedly a bad plaything at that!! That is all I wish to say about it. 

Stay tuned as I did purchase one coin today. I will blog about it once I receive it. Thank you all for your support and reading these so far. I appreciate all of you. I will have some links for you in a later post so that you can find me outside of Blogger. (That is, if you haven't already! Chances are you saw where I posted this link and clicked on it to read all about what I had to say. THANK YOU FOR DOING THAT.)

8 June 2026: 1893 Indian Head Cent

 

After the flurry of shipment of coins, I felt that I needed to stop and take a break before I lost control and went broke. I did not quite go into panic mode but rather "caution" mode for lack of a better term. 

I gave it a rest. I admired and was grateful for what I did have, and yet I knew I would continue on, I just did not know when. I hoped that it would take some time before I went back into it. 

Well, I don't think that it waited long enough. 

A few days later after the last purchase online, I spotted something that was available. An Indian Head Cent that was from an earlier year than what I had in the collection. And the price was smaller than what I had paid for the other cents. 

The cent came from a seller I had previous bought from before and I figured I would stick my head out and show myself into buying another item from their online store. 

Not only that, but I bought the first international coin that I never heard of, and it was in amazing condition for being as old as it was. But that blog post is coming up soon after this one.

Therefore, I bought two at the same time. Although truthfully, it was still two separate transactions, which was a dumb move on my part.  

I got the Indian Head cent, but not the international coin. I reached out to the seller and was told to wait. Thankfully that is what I did as I would eventually receive both items from the one seller. It just should have come on the same day but it was two days apart in one arriving after the first. 

I will work on having more patience. Thankfully I didn't chew out the seller or anything. 

30 May 2026: The First Personal Deal (Part 2)

 

I did the best that I could with what I had to take photographs of the 1812 Large Cent and 1901 & 1903 Indian Head Cent.

Some facts about this coin: 

Again, the dates it was minted were 1808 until 1814. This coin was minted during the time of the War of 1812. This was minted at the beginning of said conflict with the British. And because of it, the notoriety of this coin goes sky-high with fascination for numismatists. 

-The mintage of the coin is only 1,075,500 in total. 
-The coin is made of 100% copper. 
-The value of the coin APPRECIATES every single year. I believe it is because of the low mintage, the year minted during the beginning of a war, and 100% made of copper adds to all of its value. Plus, the condition of course. 

To give more of a perspective, if this coin would have been near mint condition or uncirculated? The monetary value of the coin would be worth FIVE DIGITS!!!!

Below are images that I found online that would be in the five-digit range in value: 

What an incredible find!! This would be to date as of the first of June 2026 the OLDEST COIN that I have ever had in any personal coin collection. Over 200 years old. WOW!!! 

The age is more of a fascinating fact to me rather than the value. Nonetheless, I will be taking care of it as it remains a part of the collection. 

But now let is go BACK to all of those "Wheat Cents" that I received. Unfortunately, I did lose count/track of just how many of them there were. What was I going to do with them all? I could not just let them exist in Ziploc bags. It would be hard to look at them whenever I wanted to view them in appreciation or if I wanted to show someone else in person.

At long last, I was able to purchase the appropriate coin folders for Lincoln Cents. 

These books took what seemed like forever to come into the mailbox. They were a little more expensive than what I would have been comfortable in paying for, but the price was the price online and there was no bargaining. 

It turned out that these Lincoln cents are coins are mostly pieces of currency that I would have never thought that I would ever see, much less own in a collection. I did the very best that I could to identify the cents to put them in their proper place. But because of the poor condition of 99% of the coins, it was a bit of a difficult task. Only ONE coin was in such poor condition that I could not see a date on it. I could not even see the "19" part of the date and that means it could be anywhere from 1909 to 1958. But the number of the date is TOTALLY worn off the coin. The other coins were put in their places. 

I would not dare to say that I have these books full of cents, but I will say that it is a very excellent start. As a collector, I have a lot of hunting and work to do in order to have FULL BOOKS, which will be the goal for Lincoln cents now that we know that 2025 was the last and final year of them being made.

And there you have it. Quite the journey! Quite the story about all of the one cent coins going all the way back to 1812 and then jumping one hundred years to 1912 then 1916, 1917, and 1918 then spanning sporadically until 1958 with two cents that I already had in the wallet, one from 1964 and one from 1967. I did put those in when I finished with the lot. Too bad there is that one coin that I just could not identify... and then again THANKFULLY it is only the one. Stay tuned to this blog to find more coin finding adventures as they happen.  

The next post, we're going back to eBay for another Indian Head cent. And then on to something special. A coin from a different nation. 

30 May 2026: The First Personal Deal (Part 1)

 

After displaying and promoting the small bits of success that I had with purchasing coins on eBay and growing the personal collection, I came across a someone who said that he had a small collection of coins and that I would be welcome to them. 

In advance I received an inventory of what the person had in their coin collection, and there were quite a number of surprises in terms of coins that were one cent. 

The Lincoln cent was made by the U.S. Mint started in 1909, which would have been U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's 100th birthday. And they continued to make Lincoln cents until they discontinued the cent altogether in its entirety. The last year that the cent was minted was 2025.  

The coins from within were Lincoln cents with various dates going all the way back to 1912. Then subsequent years were absent, but then coming back in 1916, 1917, and 1918 which is remarkable considering they were minted during the First World War. (The United States entered into the war in 1917.) It is just something I noticed that the U.S. Mint still made coins even in times during war. 

From there, it was various dates going all the way to 1957. That was part of the Lincoln cent collection of the group. 

These are better known as "Lincoln Wheat" because of the wheat that appears on the reverse. These were produced from 1909 until 1958. Starting in 1958, the Lincoln cent has the image of the Lincoln memorial on the reverse that appeared until 2008. 

But as I stated, the lot of cents were 1958 and prior. So they were all Wheat cents. 

One of the greatest surprises of the lot of coins was the inclusion of earlier version of the one cent coin because I also received two Indian Head Cents with mint dates of 1901 and 1903.(minted from 1858 to 1908.) and I added two more to the collection on top of the 1905-P that I previously purchased.

Remarkable additions and the biggest surprise of them all was one specific coin. A large cent from 1812. Better known as Classic Head cent, which were made from 1808 to 1814. 

It was an incredible addition to an already large lot of coins.  

As you can tell these bonus cents (as I affectionately have called them) are nowhere near in any condition that would be considered good. But the more I researched these other coins, the more I was surprised about the information that I found. 

More of that in PART TWO!!! 

29 May 2026: 1905 P Liberty Head Nickel

 

Okay this post is going to be confusing for a lot of people, but I will do the best that I can to explain the events. 

My confidence in buying coins from eBay began to spike during the whole month of May. Even though people generally warn you that buying coins from such online websites like eBay and Amazon could possibly lead you down a path you don't wanna take and you find yourself into purchasing FAKES!!

I believe that I have yet to be cheated by this, but the vibe I had, and the feeling of great accomplishment was soaring high. I eventually decided to go through and purchase more than one coin per transaction. 

What I ended up with was several Lincoln cents and one 1905 P Liberty Head Nickel.

The Liberty Head Nickel was made by the US Mint from 1883 until 1912.

I took advantage of a combined discounted shipping rate for postage from an eBay seller and purchased the Liberty Head Nickel and these older Lincoln cents. The more I purchased, the larger discount I received to pay for shipping, which I thought was a great deal.

And what I would find out about the Liberty Head Nickel much later after I received it, is the fact that the coin that I purchased is actually a highly collectable coin. The value of the coin (depending on condition and whether it is circulated or uncirculated) gives it a large value span between $4 USD and $30 USD typically. But those coin specimens that are uncirculated will range anywhere between $80 USD upwards to $4,250 USD and even higher. 

Now I do not wish to get into very specific details about how much I paid, what the value of each coin is worth, and so forth and so on, but I bring up this point rather to input that this Liberty Head Nickel that I now have in the collection is very sought after and did not realize that fact until after I received it.

When I learned about this fact about the coin in general, I definitely became more and more excited about what I had done with the hobby up to that point and was sharing quite a bit about what I have collected so far in 2026.

That led to someone reaching out to me privately to discuss their collection of various coins that they had, and I was welcomed to it if I had any interest. Which will be the topic of the next blog post here.

Disclaimer: It will be the topic of discussion, ONLY IN PART. I do not want to give out too much information of who, what, where and why. It will be coin related and how it involves the collection in how it is in current time.

STAY TUNED. 

29 May 2026: 1930 Buffalo Nickel

 

After the first purchase online, I set my sights on buying something that I had always wanted to have but never did. It was the 1930 Buffalo Nickel, also known as the Indian Head Nickel. But officially it is named Buffalo Nickel. 

For whatever reason I have this memory in my head of an episode of the TV sitcom "Silver Spoons" in which the episode is wrapped around finding a Three-Legged Buffalo. Of course, this episode was talking about the 1936 version of the nickel. Deep in the back of my brain, I can hear the voice screaming in excitement "It's a THREE-LEGGED BUFFALO!!!!!!!" followed by a very shitty laugh track.

It is today, a very sought after coin. These coins in the best of conditions, pristine and uncirculated (near mint condition), can fetch well over $100,000 USD at the right auction. All the way down to nearly $500 per coin that has been circulated simply due to the error of the buffalo having three legs minted on the coin. 

Knowing that I would never have enough money to own a Three-Legged Buffalo nickel, I simply went back to find the oldest coin that was in the best condition that the seller had at the time. And that was an older coin of 1930 mint date. Up to the point of purchase, I had never seen a Buffalo nickel before. I had heard the older generations talk about having them when they grew up but never heard anyone talk about still having one or a few or several just laying around since the nickel was changed to the Jefferson nickel in 1938. 

The Buffalo Nickel was minted from 1913 until 1938. Not a very long time before the U.S. Mint moved on to the Jefferson nickel. Most sources state that the Buffalo nickel: Designed by sculptor James Earle Fraser, it is celebrated for its distinctly American frontier motifs: a composite Native American profile on the obverse and an American bison on the reverse.  

This 1930 specimen is the first that I have owned. But I feel it will not be the only one to enter into my personal collection. I deeply intend on purchasing more Buffalo nickels in the future and hopefully through the same online seller as long as prices do not turn astronomically high. Wish Me Luck!!!!!

5 May 2026: 1908 Indian Head Cent

 

My first coin that I purchased from eBay was 1908 Indian Head Cent. This came from a coin shop that is local but also had an eBay store for which I was super happy it existed.

I had selected this coin because I had never seen an Indian Head cent before, much less owned one for the collection. 

Once I get to know the eBay seller/shop owner a little better, I will ask if I can get their permission to promote their store here. Perhaps maybe get them a little more business. 

But this 1908 Indian Head Cent was something that I purchased based on the fact that I had never had one before, plus the age of it. This coin is more than a hundred years old, and it was going to be very curious for me to see what a coin of that age would look like. When I received it, I was absolutely satisfied with it. I showed it off to the neighbors for about three days straight and did some talking about it (and future purchases) on social media. And the feedback was mixed. Mainly because I had inadvertently discussed this personally with people with little to no interest in either collecting or coins and money in general. 

My next purchase and next addition to the collection would also come from the same seller.