Which would you buy?

Sorry if I was unclear.

Would you say to always buy the 67 if the rest of his collection was 65's? What if he could physically afford the 67 but needs to buy 10 more 65's but won't be able to for quite a while if he buys the 67 versus a 65? What if he cannot tell WHY the 67 is judged to be a higher grade than the 65?

Those are all potential situations where I believe the old axiom, "always buy the best you can afford" may not hold true. I believe in the last one more strongly for many modern coins where many, (most), collectors cannot tell a difference between a 69 and a 70, but are being told they need to spend huge money on a 70.

Edit: I guess another point where I would disagree with the "always buy the best you can afford" strategy is what is meant by afford? One month coin budget, 6 months, a year, more? My points above were trying to say even if you can "afford' it by spending your year's coin budget on one coin, I don't think that is very prudent. This may be a point of our disagreement, what is meant by "afford".

 

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It's probably the only point of it, judging from the rest of your post.

Clearly, any given collector has to decide many things. What type of coins will he collect? How long is she willing to work to complete a certain set? What is his intent with this collection? And so on. All of these will dictate what one can "afford", obviously.

But the OP's question seems to make it clear that he has $X to spend, and for $X, he can get 2 lesser coins, or 1 higher quality coin. Nothing in his post seemed to suggest that there was a period of time to be saving for, or that he had another collection to match, or anything else. This all seems tangential to his original question, and, to be honest, seems to be a lot of wharrgarbl with no real purpose except to contrive a scenerio where disagreement may be found.

The OP asked if he should spend X on 2 inferior items, or one superior one.

In such a case the answer is clear.

Always buy the best you can afford.

 

I wasn't disagreeing with that outlook. If its simple as that I agree, I was simply trying to say "always buy the best you can afford" is NOT always true. Its as true as "never clean your coins". Great advice for beginners, but advice an advanced collector will outgrow.

That's all.