Another great blog post on CoinWeek worth your read: Coin Collecting Strategies: 7 Ways to Improve Your Coin Collection you might also like: Stick With The Keys… Coin Collecting Strategies Collecting Strategies: How to Assemble A World-Class Collection of Coins Coin Collecting Strategies: Some Thoughts on Rarity
There is one answer to all of those posts... Rule #1: Be rich. Be rich so you can buy all of the "keys". Be rich so you can amass a world-class collection. Be rich so you can afford the rare. ... ... ... I'm all for advice, but when it comes to my hobby I do what I want to do. Call me stubborn...but I don't need the "big boys" telling me what to do.
Obviously the author of these articles is used to dealing with higher end collectors but a lot of relevant advice here nonetheless. One of the things that really resonates with me is the advice to sell the extraneous coins. He may say "common saints" but that can apply to anything. I recently unloaded virtually all of the duplicates/extras/bad deals/ect and used that money towards coins I actually enjoy. Everyone has their own goal in collecting,and you can never go wrong if you truly collect what you like but there is an "end" to every collection. I work in a coin shop occasionally and it is amazing how many collections meet their end by the collector dying and the family mercilessly selling the "junk" as soon as they get the chance. I see it first hand. I personally don't want that end to my collection. I want to sell it in my lifetime, and I want to see returns on it. To build a great collection it requires more than just a lone wolf attitude. You really gotta be a student of numismatics and that includes literally investing sometimes whether it be a good reference book or selling off the coins you never look at. That's just my opinion having been around the hobby for a few years now, and reading just a few Q David Bowers books
Point taken, and that new article was actually quite benign regarding the normal "spend more money" pontification. The other articles I read months ago -- and they were preachy at best. As I said, I am fine with advice -- but when it comes to my hobby I can fend for myself, thanks.
#6 on the first list is a huge biggie Say you are like me and have been working on a 7070 and you get to the point where most of the coins left are in the $75-300 range but some of those few you need can be had in very low grades of $30-40 so you are tempted to buy them just to fill the hole. I don't always have $100 to spend on a coin but I normally do have $40 to spend and have done that in the past and then I end up with #1 on the list lots of dead coins that got upgraded when I have had more money. I have solved this two ways number one is doing less inexpensive sets like the Franklin half dollar set that I can easily add a MS61-Ms63 coin to my set at any given time for less than $40 when I want to buy something but don't have the money for a more expensive coin. Its also why I started collecting world bullion from different countries. And the second way has been by starting cheap starter sets for my kids. I purchased a couple of the Whitman 20th century type set albums and when I feel like upgrading a coin in my 7070 i downgrade it to my kids sets (like I wanted to upgrade my mercury dime recently as I had an AU in my 7070 so I bought a ms63 and downgraded my AU to one of my kids sets). Now my kids have sets when they get older and I can upgrade my coins without creating a ton of dead coins. I just finished my oldest boys 20th century type and am now working on my youngest boys I figured when I was done with his I would maybe start a whitman 20th century type for myself and maybe also do a whitman 20th and 21st century type set for myself as well.
