Jeff in Wisconsin asks, "I saw an ad in a magazine by the Littleton company offering all 50 state quarters in uncirculated condition for $19.95. I thought this was a good value but wanted to ask your opinion as well.
"I don’t collect coins a whole lot but would like to have a few sets of these. I’m wondering if they will be in sealed plastic or open to the air and if I will need to have to purchase a book to display these as they don’t tell me any of this and I didn’t see a phone number either."
The Littleton offer for a complete set of 50 state quarters for $19.95 isn't a bad deal at all. If you bought the same 50 coins in uncirculated condition from a normal coin dealer, you'd probably pay double that, since some of the coins were issued more than ten years ago and are very hard to find in circulation in mint state.
However, what the Littleton offer doesn't tell you is that the set is a mixed-mint set, meaning that the coins will come from a willy-nilly combination of P-Mint and D-Mint coins. (The U.S. Mint strikes circulating coins at both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints; they place a mark on each quarter to denote which Mint struck them.)
When people collect coins today, they usually want one from each Mint, so you'd have 50 coins from Denver and 50 from Philadelphia. This is the "full circulation set" of State Quarters. The set Littleton is offering for $19.95 has just one of each state quarter design from a random Mint.
Littleton's Offer Details
The set that Littleton will send you will arrive in an archival-quality plastic coin tube (if they're still sending them out the way I got mine when I did a test-buy of this program last year.) The archival-quality tube means that you can keep the coins in the tube without worrying about them becoming toned or damaged over the years.
The $19.95 I paid also included a folder for the coins, so check the ad you saw to see if the folder is shown or mentioned. It has a green cover and has punched holes, sort of like the classic blue Whitman penny folders you may have seen.
You have to put the 50 coins into the folder yourself, if you want to. The folder that came free with my set seemed to have been specially made for this promotion because it had only one slot for each quarter, rather than the customary one slot for each quarter from each Mint (100 slots total.) Regardless, I feel the set is well worth the $19.95.
Littleton's Catch
Now for the catch. Littleton makes the lion's share of its revenue through its "coins on approval" service. When you buy one of their introductory offers, you agree to accept some coins on approval, which means they'll send the coins out at their expense, usually about $50 retail value worth for new customers, and you can buy the ones you like and send back the rest. You can even send them all back if you want. They won't charge you in advance for the approval coins, and an approval program is a nice way to buy coins since you get to see them before you buy.
However, Littleton is well-known in coin collecting circles to have some of the highest prices for coins anywhere. They charge three to four times what you'd normally pay for coins if you bought them from a local coin shop or online.
Running an approval service is an expensive business; they have to cover a lot of overhead for their people to process the coins, there's a certain amount of loss from dishonest customers or lost mail, plus there are mailing expenses and other costs. This overhead is part of the reason why Littleton's coins are extremely expensive.
Should You Buy From Littleton?
So, do I recommend that a new collector such as yourself try Littleton? As long as you understand the terms of the introductory offer, I think it's a great buy and you should definitely do it if you want the 50 state quarters collection.
When your first set of approval coins come, you'll also receive a whole packet full of nice full-color literature describing Littleton's other offers. These brochures are often very educational and informative for new collectors, and I don't think it's such a bad idea for new collectors to buy a few coins from Littleton here and there until you decide whether you want collect seriously or not.
However, if you do decide that you want to become a regular collector, that is the time at which you should start researching other ways to buy coins and doing price comparisons to what Littleton charges.
A Warning About Littleton Coins
The one thing you should NOT do is consider Littleton Coin purchases to be any kind of investment that might turn a profit someday. Littleton's prices are so high that it will likely take 30 to 40 years or more for their average coin to turn a profit when you go to sell it.
Littleton is a great company for new and casual collectors, with their convenient, personalized approval system and outstanding customer service, but Littleton is not a good choice for people who take coin collecting even a little bit seriously.
Learn more: Check out my customer review of Littleton Coin.