Collecting For Children

In my last post I looked at Starting My Own Collection, and after seeing how much fun I had, my daughter Zoe said that she wanted to start a collection of her own.

Before really starting the conversation with her and offering up suggestions as to collectibles that would be ‘perfect’ for her, I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting into.

The first thing I took into consideration was the purpose of her collection. Was it for her enjoyment or investment over the years? And the main issue I focused on was her age. Since she is 5, I am really starting this collection with her. However if she was younger I feel like I would be starting this collection for her.  So taking this into consideration I wanted to make sure that we chose something that she could pick out and I would be comfortable with her handling without fear that she would break it into a million pieces.

The next considerations were ones that I faced with my collection.

How would we store her collection? I had a feeling that whatever she chose to collect would need to be taken with us into the parks in some fashion, and at home it would need a home. And I knew that she would also want to see, feel, and show her collection to her friends often, so it had to be storage option that was durable and somewhat portable.

Cost was another huge issue we needed to address. If this was an investment, how much were we expecting on our return investment? And if this was purely for her enjoyment, how much were we willing to lose? The second question is a very honest one, because we KNEW that her collectibles would at some point be damaged or lost.

Another issue we faced was completion. And while this may be more of a thing that bothers the adults more than the kids, it is definitely a concern. I knew that personally I did not want to be scouring eBay for older items or items we saw once on a trip that would fit ‘perfectly’ in her collection.

And then the next consideration was a contingency plan for her collection. What happens if they discontinue the item she is collecting? What if it isn’t available in her favorite character? So with these two questions in mind, I wanted to make sure that we chose something that would be around and be available in a large variety of characters since it would inevitably change over the coming years.

So taking in all of these considerations and visiting parks to see what she really noticed as we went through stores, we talked and she decided that she would like to collect pressed coins from the parks and resorts.

She loved the fact that there was a large variety available in and around the parks, she could actually ‘make’ her collection, and that she could bring them with her to the parks.

Now the first thing to know is that you can not only press pennies (a cost of $0.51), but you can also press dimes (a cost of $0.85) and quarters at ($1.25). Since we would need to carry a lot of change around, we took time to make sure that she had a special coin purse in our park bag for her coins.

Then above the pressed penny machine in Animal Kingdom, we found the solution to our storage and portability problem. There are several designs of pressed coin collection folders that held her pennies, dimes, and quarters.

And to address my completion issues that I have obviously passed to my daughter, I found Presscoins.com, which is dedicated to the collection of pressed coins at Walt Disney World. The site is kept up to date and is a great resource for collectors! And since we are planning a trip to Disneyland in August, I found ParkPennies.com, which is an awesome site that has information for Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Disneyland Resort Paris. ParkPennies also has a great guide to Pressed Coin Collecting!

Since we have started her collection, we have also stumbled on some bonuses to her having something that she absolutely wants in the park. The first of which is that these coins are an excellent incentive for good behavior. Also, they have come in handy as a way to defuse situations like being stuck inside of stores during a sudden downpour.

Zoe is really enjoying her collection, and I feel prepared to help her grow her collection over the years.