How do you define your collection?

Hmm...my collection is mostly junk, but it's my junk and I love it anyway! Also, I'm trying to buy more quality slabbed coins.

 

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The 'junk' in ones collection is often the stuff we get for nothing from the ground, little gifts, and from circulation. These junk coins get put in our collections (or accumulations) because they have a story for us, and have character to us. No one will 'buy' our junk, and if they paid more for it than we did, they would see 'problems' not 'character'. So we accumulate this 'junk' with a story, this junk that has eye appeal at a bargain, but problems at retail value. That is how I would describe the 'junk' we accumulate in the 'garage'.

For me this also includes foriegn coins found in circulation too... Same stuff I could probably go down to the coin shop and get from his junk bin for LESS than the 25c I 'paid' for it by accepting the coin in leiu of a quarter at the gas station!

 

If I didn't know better I'd swear you just described me! I think our collections must be kin.
Guy

 

I have three categories: Mint products (mint sets, proof sets, silver proof sets which I collect every year...though price is getting up there!), my sets, and miscellaneous (generally stuff I found in circulation, items my grandfather passed to me, or gifts/sets given to me through various holidays/occasions).

As for defining my sets I generally follow these rules to keep me on track. I find if I don't I eventually loose my mind and collect anything. The sets and rules keep me focused:

1.) Define grade range for set-I have a hard time mixing this. Yes, I have some 1940's Mercs in BU, but they don't match my VF-XF set, so they go in a separate box and not in the show-off album.

2.) Collect no proofs before those produced by San Fransisco. Again, if I didn't set the boundary, where would the madness stop?

3.) Series defined, primarily be me, as any set of coins with at least the same obverse or reverse. For example, the Washington Quarters and the State Quarters would be two separate albums as both obverse and reverse changed...making a new coin series. However, State Quarters and Park Quarters go in the same album/same series as the obverse has not changed.

Again, I don't expect anyone on this forum to adopt my definitions, but since it was asked of the OP I decided to contribute. I just had to set boundaries as I know I would have collected anything with a mint mark under the sun if I didn't.

 

Although I have been a collector primarily from circulation since I was age 9 in 1969, my collection has always centered upon what I would find in change. Even yesterday in my office, one my colleagues was ordering lunchtime delivery and noticed a "strange" coin, undoubtedly taken as a cent. It was a German 5 Euro cent coin, for which I promptly paid her a nickel. This, too me anyway, is still quite fun.

When it comes to my "serious" part of collecting, I am building a virtually complete set of silver and clad modern US commemoratives. With just three silver dollars remaining to complete the collection since 1982, I have two of these coins on my watch list.

I am also hunting around to continue building an extensive British decimal proof collection which will include those few coins only available in uncirculated condition, as well. I particularly like piedforts. I was able to obtain a lovely 2004 set of piedforts, a missing 2001 piedfort and since the dealer had three books on British coins that I liked, I purchased the books as well as the coins. A silver lining, of sorts.

Finally, I have been taking a peek at my Canadian and Australian collections. I had the extremely good fortune to purchase a complete set of 10 of the first series of $20 Canadian Aviation coins with gold cameos. This set was one I had been interested in purchasing when it was originally issued in 1990, but times being very tight at the time, forced me to pass on the set and almost all non-US coins for many years hence. I also was able to purchase Australia's 1991 25th anniversary of decimal coinage set in .925 silver, also at a very reasonable price.

 

Tons of silver, mostly Morgans and mostly toned. I also have a mishmash of other coins I pick up randomly. World coins from many other countries and a batch of coins I received from my parents. But most important of all they are all coins I like.

So this is how I categorize my collection "Coins I like"

 

With the exception of bullion and a few modern commemoratives, I classify anything from post WWII and mint issued, as unimportant to me. My mint sets are stored in a suitcase, for my kids to get rid of, when they inherit them. If it weren't such a pain in the ... to sell, they would be gone in a flash. I wish I never had started buying them. I do not even consider them as part of my over all value to my collection. My true collection is in classic US coins and paper currency, a collection of Civil War Tokens, and collectable numismatic items from the Columbian Exposition. I don't hoard, save anything in rolls or buy in bulk.

 

The other day I was at the bank and I asked the teller if she had anything old or interesting. She said an old guy had come in with rolls of cents that he had been "saving for years". It had to be true because the wrappers were from a bank that had closed @ 25 years ago. He had written wheats on the wrappers and sure enough, I've gone through half of the $10 worth and so far only 1 non-wheat. Habit made me put them aside but since I'm being sentimental about them even though there's no reason to care about them, you guys have made me realize I should let them go. There's a dealer nearby who pays .03 for wheats so I'm going to get rid of them and triple my money. Then I'll use that money towards my half cent obsession. Thanks for giving me the strength to thin the herd.

 

To sum it up briefly I'd call half of it "Gem junk" and the other half "general junk".

When other people were spending a week's wages on Morgan dollar or walking half Gems I was buying modern and world Gems. I was couldn't afford to compete with anyone so I looked for rare coins that no one else wanted. It didn't matter to me if they were rare because of low mintage or because everyone was too busy with "real coins" to save any. While I concentrated on only seeking Gem I did get any date I knew was scarce even if it was only Unc or BU.

But I also like to collect coins, tokens, and medals so this means ALL coins, tokens, and, medals and a lot of this is mere garbage to most collectors. It includes things like countermarked pennies and Mardi Gras doubloons but it also includes some more sought after things like telephone tokens and transportation tokens.

I do have several more typical collections that don't fit in either of the major categories but they all give me a lot of pleasure even where they have no real value and might never have any real value. Some things are for profit potential and some are just for fun. The only fly in the ointment is having to have so many safety deposit boxes and not seeing so many of the collections for long times. If I had it to do over I might specialize more.

 

I define my collection as just that, a collection.

 

I'd say two collections for me, 48 coins total...

1. The coins I don't ever want to part with (26).

2. Coins that I'd sell to upgrade, etc. (22).


I have 1 modern coin (not included in above #s), a 1999 ASE PCGS MS68 FIRST STRIKE...paid $18. I think $18 is dang good considering this coin was the very first one struck on a brand new die and placed on special pallets for the TPGs. If CAC ever starts stickering moderns I'll send that 1999 MS68 in....I think its a 69 so it should get the "GOLD".....

 

My collection is a bit busier than I want it to be. I can see why sometimes you need to sell things. It's not a bad problem to have I suppose but it makes it hard to focus on any given area. My excel file has individual sheets for: Bullion, (which includes bars, rounds, most of the ASEs (not in special sets) and any other PM type object.) Then I have sheets for Silver dollars, half dollars, quarters, silver state quarters, dimes, Jeff. Nickels, Buffalo nickels, cents, 19th century, commemoratives, the US type set, 1914 types set, gold, World coins, and a currency sheet.

The main parts of my collection would probably be my small collection of nice Morgans, Kennedy half P and D set up to date, MS Franklin half set complete, Buffalo set pretty far along, the US type set, the 1914 set, a large collection of modern commems and a small gold collection. Sometimes I think I could be happy if all I had was my US type set to work on and nothing else. Or just the buffalo nickel set. Or just the 1914 type set with currency. Maybe if I just did those sets I'd be happy. I don't know. But I really like my Morgans too. So it's hard to give up an area for me.

I also have coins I don't consider to be part of the collection but save them. They are not documented. There are some I have from childhood that have cool memories attached that make them worth far more than their value. The bulk of it I have collected since I got back into coins in the spring of 2008.