Expert: Neil S Berman - 6/6/2010

Question
Years ago I started putting away any coins I came across w/dates between 1960-1980. This would include pennies,dimes,nickles,& quarters.I mostly did it simply because I thought it was interesting from historical standpoint to hold a 1965 dime & ponder how much of the world it had seen... & if it could talk what stories would it tell? But I fully understand most coins w/these dates are simply worth face value only. Because of that,in more recent years I started actually collecting & buying much older...rarer coins.

My question is although the 1960-1970 coins I've amassed over the years, which is prob $400-$500 in face value.... Is it meerly a small savings I've put together? Or is it reasonable to consider in another 10-20 years a jar full of 1960-1970 coins could be considered to be much more than just a jar full of coins? After 50-60 years from minting do some coins start to raise in value? And yes they all appear very circulated...some in good shape.. others in bad, but dates & features on most are very clear & visable. I've been told thats a good thing.
Just curious what you may have in the way of advice coming from your years of experience & knowledge. Thank you so much for your time & insight.

Jay

Answer
What you have is an acummulation, and not a collection. Sadly, there is no value in the coins metal content, and not likely any coin with a numismatic value, so in 60 years you will still have what you have now, a pile of coins with no interest to anyone. Most of your coins have mintages of hundreds of millions each. I did the same thing when I was a kid in the 1950s, and the coins went from face value to only a couple of grand, and there all silver types like Morgan dollars, Seated Halves and quarters, etc. I would have done way better to do what you should do, which is sell this stuff and buy one coin that you can enjoy.