Easiest and hardest

Im my experience I'd have to say the Lincoln cent is the easiest set to assemble. There are no real rarities. Even the 09sVDB is easy to find in great condition at just about any coin shop or show. Unfortunatelly, price is an obstabcle a lot of times depending on the grades you want.

The hardest. I had to think a long time on this one. I have to say any type of large cent. There appear to be a lot for sale at any given time, but they usually are the same group of dates. Some come onto the market very rarely. I'd wager of all the circulation sets, the large cents remain one of the largest group of uncompleted sets among collector's collections.
Guy~

 

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There are almost too many candidates for easiest, so instead I'll suggest something different. Something that would be a small challenge but still obtainable as well as being different. Consider two cent pieces. A date set is very short, and there are a number of neat varieties to watch for while you're shopping - I like to think of cherrypicking opportunities, personally. And even if you included major varieties you've still got a pretty short set in front of you.

For hardest there are a number of candidates. I can think of a few types of collections one could start where one or more coins that would fit are unique, sometimes with others having less than a dozen examples known.

I think challenging but obtainable is a more interesting list.

And no bonus points for pointing out that the set I'm collecting has one unique coin in it. That's just bad form.

 

Easiest
Franklin Halves

hardest?

US Double Eagles? You need some money for them...

Ruben

 

there are Ikes that are hard to find. There are no Franklins that are hard to find.

Ruben

 

I love the idea of collecting a full set of full step Jefferson nickles. Which dates do you think will be the hardest for me to find?

 

Well nickeldude, ironically I would say the Jefferson nickels are pretty darn easy to complete. Other than the 1950-d and 1939-D, there are no coins over ten bucks. Of course, if you get into proofs and errors you'll have to save a little more.
The harder series to assemble are plenty. Even when you get into the key date Morgan Dollars, you will need deeper pockets. It's all part of the excitement of coin collecting. My advice: Buy the 2009 Redbook and decide which series fit your interests (and budget) currently.

 

True, but you don't need to do FBL, but I think a 72 TypeII is a difficult Ike to find, although not that expensive.

There is a good point about Ikes, but hey, SBA's might be even easier without even the need to find a TypeII '72?

Ruben

 

I know you didn't mean it this way, but "hard" can also be trying to find a "key" needed on a budget with a minimum grade that one will accept. I think if it is done within reason and one may have to spend a little more, it can usually be done with a lot of patience applied to the search. I have to say though I don't think it would be a whole lot of fun to be able to go Heritage or somewhere and be able to always buy the best they have with no regards to price. Well, maybe it would be fun for 2 or 3 months or...........

 

Thanks to all who responded and I too think that collecting a complete set of full step Jefferson Nickels would be one of the hardest and a collection to me would ever never get old and always provides a challenge. Based on everyones answers it seems that almost any set will be a little difficult to finish if you want it to look nice. Thanks again to all and keep on typing if you have something to say.

Nickeldude

 

I think as a Jefferson Nickel collector, I will have to disagree. Most graded Jefferson Nickels are in the MS65-67 range and there are a whole bunch of dates that cost more than $10. Try finding a 1945-P in MS67, your gonna need more than Benjamin for that.

Of course I didn't feel that a collection of MS66-67 Jefferson Nickels was challenging enough so I decided to assemble the finest registry set of rainbow toned Jeffersons. It is proving quite challenging indeed.

 

Let's define this a bit more clearly..

Are we talking Easiest as in cost? Or Easiest as in "Money is no object"?

If money is no object, you'll find that these sets are a monster to put together..

Business strike Trimes
Gold Dollars
Quarter Eagles, all of em
Half Eagles, ditto
Eagles, ditto
Double Eagles

It's not even the money as much as availability. I kind of laugh when people call some "key date" and "rare" coins rare. Key date coins are expensive, the vast majority of them are not what I would call "Rare".

A 1916 Standing Liberty Quarter, a 1916-D Mercury Dime, oooh, Rarities!

Nonsense. There's many of them on the market at any given time. You may have to be patient to find a nice one, but if you have the money and make enough noise, you'll find a nice copy of either within 60-90 days on the Quarter and a few weeks on the dime.

Now go find an 1875 Eagle. Go ahead, find one for sale, Heritage has had seven in the past 14 years. Figure in the other dealers and usual suspects, and maybe 15 have come to market in total? Of those I would assume not more than 10 in total have been offered to the general public.

So in reality unless you are in tight with some major dealers, you might have a chance to buy one once every couple of years, and it might not even be a nice one.

That's a rare coin.

 

Have you tried to get a 1983 Plain proof dime? or an '82 plain business strike?
If THOSE two aren't keys, then I don't know what is. [then there's the 1996-W, which is set-only and probably counts as a key date]. The silver proofs are all keys.

Then there's the 1950-D nickel, and some of the "Essus" from the '50s. These are rather rare, as well.

 

Are we counting varieties?

 

Easiest: Jefferson Nickel before 1968. You can find even war nickels if your lucky enough from the bank.

Hardest: ?

 

One thing that was specified was "what would be the hardest excluding gold?"

 

It depends on what you call "full steps." I have come to accept the TPG definition of full steps as being 5 steps. Other people (such as Jody) will only call coins with 6 steps "full steps." From a technical standpoint, I cannot disagree with the 6-step standard, as that's how the coin was actually designed.

I only approach it from a practical standpoint. I want the best-struck coin for each date/mintmark that I can find. (By the way, as a technical point, the best-struck coin doesn't always have full steps.)

The hardest 5-step date is the 1969-D. Other tough ones are 1968-D, 1970-D, 1969-S, 1964-D, 1976, and 1938 (reverse of 1938) (This information is per the most excellent reference "The Jefferson Nickel Analyst" by Bernard Nagengast.) I would say there are at least half a dozen dates where 6-step coins are unknown.

Good luck!

 

Easiest - I would cast my vote for SBA dollars.

Hardest - If the possible candidates can be stretched to include tokens that circulated as much, if not more than regular coinage during their day, then Civil War tokens would be the hands down winner, even if gold was included. There are well over 10,000 varieties, approximately 70% of which have populations of 20 or less. Hundreds, probably close to 1,000 varieties are rated as being unique. Even if you had unlimited funds to spend, a lifetime would not be long enough to see each variety be offered for sale. Even a "short set" of one token from each of the 400 issueing cities was not completed by the partnership of George and Melvin Fuld, who owned over 500,000 cwts between them.

 

Yep!! I was going to say the 69D is the Holy Grail of the Full Step collectors. I was looking for the artical from a few years back where someone searched I forget how many OBW rolls over years time and found one full step nickel and had it certified by PCGS I believe and sold it for $$$$.
53 s/d and 54 d/s have no known examples of full steps.