What are you collecting these days?

I was just wondering what everyone is into (from a coin perspective) these days? What are your primary areas of collecting right now? Are there areas you’d like to move into? Have you “wrapped up” any collections or moved on from something? Etc.

Here is my current list by priority.

1. Roman Empire - working on getting a coin for each of a list of 160 types.

2. Chinese cash - working on organizing my entire collection by Hartill, finished Qing this past year. This is difficult to fill holes as it’s hard to find sellers that sell individual cash by Hartill number and are correct in their identification.

3. World Silver Crowns - this 9 year collection has slowed considerably.

4. Interesting bullion pieces (finished Queen’s beast, ongoing Chiwoo Cheonwang, etc.).

New area that will be a bigger part of 2023.

1. Roman Provincial - this has been a natural offshoot of my primary collection. It offers many more possibilities at much more affordable pricing. Also, the learning curve will be challenging and I like that.

 

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I'm trying to get some of the iconic coins I've always liked but didn't want to pay for. Like recently I got a German New Guinea coin and tried but failed to get a German China. I want to get a real Chinese fat man dollar. Those are some examples. Just trying to spend a little more to get some memorable coins.

 

In 2022 I completed 75 years of active coin collecting. I won't be adding anything to my collection in 2023. My time will be spent trying to organize what I have and decide how it will be distributed or disposed of one day.

 

“In 2022 I completed 75 years of active coin collecting.”

I applaud you. That is wonderful.

 

I've been collecting the French Colonial period of Moroccan coinage for 25 years now. That's my focus in the foreign-coin category.

Although, I do pick up random prooflike coins from around the world when I see them.

 

whatever gets my notice

 

I collect US Coins and World coins, by country and ruler. If I don't have an example of the country/ruler, then I collect it LOL
Merry Christmas to all!

 

Older world silver, especially thalers and crown-size coins with portraits of various rulers have long been a collecting area I have pursued. But that stuff is getting expensive. Just add a coin once in a while nowadays.

 

My main focus is in ancient coins. I haven't settled into any niche yet, and my interest is about as broad as ancient history itself! But I'd say my main focus is Early-to-Mid Roman Imperial - from Augustus to, say Septimius Severus. I want to get a Julius Caesar lifetime portrait coin, and I've got coins of every emperor up to Marcus Aurelius. Continuing that will be one area of collecting.

I've got a hankering to try a more focused sub-collection on one of the later emperors, because nice coins can be had much cheaper. Also thinking a sub-collection of animal types would be cool.

Another area of collecting which has just been opened up a bit to me is the Seleucids. I've been intrigued with what I've been reading about them and it seems like an interesting area. Ditto the Ptolemies.

I throw in World coins kind of impulsively. I don't really have a main interest there, just go with what appeals to me. I like British Empire history, with a special interest in the Victorian era, so I've got a number of coins from this period. I enjoy reading about the Cold War era too, so I have a few Soviet coins in my collection.

I have a good handful of US coins too, but the market for US coins is too "regulated" for me, if you know what I mean. I am just not that interested in the minutiae of grading, slabbing, price guides, etc.

What I hope to do in all of my collecting is, start to focus more on quality rather than quantity. This takes patience though, something I'm not really great at. We'll see how 2023 goes!

 

Hello World Coins brethren. I'm here, in response to the thread by @mrbreeze on the CoinTalk Ancients forum. This is my first post, on the CoinTalk World Coins forum.
I've been collecting coins, off and on, for many years. In the past 4 years, I've had my most recent flurry of coin buying, during which I've bought mostly ancient coins, some medieval coins, a few US coins, and a few world coins. However, in 2023, I plan to buy fewer coins, because I have almost all of the coins, that I ever wanted, that I can afford.
Here is a ranked list of the areas, that I collect, with the most interesting areas, to me, first.
Byzantine
Ancient Greek
Spanish Colonial
Ancient Celtic
Ancient & Medieval Chinese
Ancient Roman Republic
Ancient Middle East
Ancient Roman Empire
Early Medieval
Medieval Vietnamese
Ancient Africa
Ancient India
US
Japanese
English Late Medieval Silver Pennies
Ancient Central Asia
Early Medieval Islamic Imitations Of Byzantine
English Large Copper Pennies

 

My main box of 20(ish) has a mix of US and world. The goal is anything that I find attractive. In terms of world, I prefer larger sized coins (crowns) but that doesn't stop me from picking up something smaller if it's nicely toned or a cool design.

A side set that I'm working on is ex-Soviet nations. The idea is one silver coin (slabbed) from each country that used to make up the Soviet Union (with some addendums).

Here is a link to the composite thread (which still needs the Turkmenistan update and a Mongolia change):
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ddddd-ex-soviet-nations-set-composite-thread.388233/

I plan to continue working on both sets.

 

Mostly US gold bullion coins - old or new as long as it's US bullion based coinage.
Although .. it's a tad more expensive now than 5 years ago so my "collecting" has slowed down 3x lol

 

The bulk of my world collection consists of the German States and Notgeld coinage. I have a smaller collection of love tokens. The rest are coins I simply just liked the design of and purchased.

 

Lately I've been working on Australia Sterling and Decimal. I am trying to complete each denomination minus the key dates like the 1930 penny. Also trying to get as many coins as I can from 1945 and older.

 

I've made a big pivot. Part of it was shifting interests and part of it is I'm officially retired and my coin money should be self supporting. In theory.

I have had an obsession with Albanian coins for a very long time...but the set got to the point I had one missing coin (of those actually in existence and not counting provas). The set was over half top pops, and over at NGC it even won a major award last year. That got me to the point of 'how much money just to buy a coin with a one point better grade that may or may not look better'. In other words, with that award I reassessed and figured it was a mature set. It's now listed for sale at NYINC with Stacks. I love the coins but there wasn't much upgrading left and it turns out I like a set I'm still active with. Who knew? It's never happened before .

On the other hand I'm still very much interested in my Japanese coins and now have been wanting to expand, and can used my freed up funds for a far more interesting collection. I'm also considering a big pivot there--in my heart I'm a type set person but with Japan I've ended up with a lot of date runs. Perhaps I will shift there too. I'm not sure because it also turns out there is a bit of OC in my make up.

But without the Albanians it's really an end of a big era for me. Very weird feeling actually.

In case anyone wants to see the set I'll keep it up until the sale. https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/164777/

 

It's interesting how often people will finish a set and then sell it. It's definitely more fun to hunt than to have it completed. My collection is in the minor leagues compared to yours, but I can't part with my complete sets, but the ones I just had a lot of but would never finish I found it easy to let go of. A complete set seems like too much of an accomplishment.

 

@Stork

Wow. The end of the Albanian era is huge news. I’m glad you are happy with the process, though, and seem to be in a good place about selling them. I wish you good luck and hope you crush it.

 

For me it's 1700 to 1800 silver Tari coins minted in Palermo, Sicily. I'm glad I bought some in the last 10 years because they have since shot up in value and it's pricing me out of the market. I'm always looking on American eBay and Italian eBay and I've picked up a few this year but less than I used to buy.