Shoutout to the guy who told me to stop sorting my coins by year

I used to organize my coin collection by year minted because I thought that was the right way. Last month I was at a coin shop in Denver and the owner watched me sorting and just goes "why are you doing it that way? nobody buys by year unless it's a key date." He told me to sort by condition and country instead. Tried it with my Lincoln cents and suddenly I could actually see what I had. Has anyone else been sorting wrong for years?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley18117d ago

Man I did the exact same thing with my Morgans for like two years. Had them all lined up by date not even looking at condition. Then I realized I had three 1921s that were all AU but some dinged up early dates mixed in. Switched to grading first and suddenly my Dansco actually made sense. The Denver guy was right sorting by year is just organizing for the sake of organizing. Condition tells you what you actually own.

noahmartin17d ago

Same thing happened to me dude, it's a brutal wakeup call.

casey6823d ago

Man those three 1921s in AU condition probably justified the whole collection's value right there. I did the same dumb thing with my Walkers last year - had fifty of them lined up by date like they were baseball cards. Then I actually looked at the fronts and realized my '46 was beat to hell while my common '47 was a solid MS63. My Dansco looked Like a mess after I regrouped by grade but at least I knew what I was dealing with. Sorting by date is just pretending you're organized when you're really just hiding from reality.