When you get to the point that a 'stopper' is bothering your enjoyment of your collection, perhaps then is the time to re-evaluate your collecting strategy. Sure, everyone collects a set by date and mint-mark. But do we have to do it like that? Type sets are the most obvious alternative. How about theme sets? Or collect all coins of a specific date, or period. Collect foreign coins. How about pick a specific coin, date, and mint and get one example in each grade? Let's get creative!
I love my birth year set of world coins. Most of them are very inexpensive even in original sets but they can be tough to locate. A cheap challenge.
Yep, yep. Birth year sets are nice. I threw a bunch of 2001 coins into a case to start off a collection for my son, born last year. He went to his first coin show at 4 months old.