A few questions about selection, guidance and direction.

As it was suggested to me by a member here to create a new topic on some of my questions, I sat down and listed them out so I can be as honest about my thoughts.
so my questions for the bill collector's are listed below;

1. How would you determine what direction a collection should take on?

2. What would you consider a minimal Grade to acquire so you would not be beaten up if you decided to sell?

3. Budget preparation and adherence to that budget? when to say that's too much $$$

4. Boredom of a selective collection theme? Has this affected how and what you collect?

5. Shift's in collection direction.

6. Identification of collectable series?

7. Theme based or denomination based?

As you can see I am total novice at this and unsure of what and how to select that direction in fear of errors and mistakes. I appreciate your input and opinions no matter if they might be positive or negative.
Thank you.

BTM

 

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Age old questions sir. All of them are very personal, depending on the collector. Myself, I mainly gravitated towards Type collecting versus series collecting due to costs and boredom you mention above. However, others will get great joy out of a very deep collection of a particular series.

In the end, its about what gives YOU satisfaction.

One point I have "tried" to keep in mind over the years is to always remind yourself this is a HOBBY. Way too many dealers try to play up the idea that this is a good investment to get you to pay much more for items. Never fall for that. Decide how much you can spend on your hobby, and stick to that. I always ask myself how much can I afford to lose forever, and that is how much money I have for my hobby. Yes, eventually you or your heirs can sell and get money back, but if you allow yourself to justify your hobby spending as an "investment", it will lead to bad things IMHO.

 

Only you can answer these questions for your own collection, however, I would give the following advice:

If you're contemplating buying a piece because you're trying to fill a hole and not because you love the piece, you've gone in the wrong direction. Buy pieces that you think look attractive and don't worry so much about the technical grade. Sometimes a piece with a lower grade is more appealing. If you like something, chances are, other collectors will like it too.

 

buy what you can afford. you can always upgrade later. or save up for a coin that you are proud of and want to show off. it is all about having fun. coins can be an investment, but you will have to do a lot of studying to know which coins bring good money. this will become a lifetime experience. some coins go up in value and some do not. you get to know this after looking at many many coins. discover what you like most. do not forget that there are World coins out there. I collect mostly world coins by topical/themes and a miscellaneous section. and some U.S. coins. I would recommend you buy books on coins and if you are doing world coins to buy Krause's world coin catalogs (I call these my bibles). there is a lot of fun looking through the catalogs to see which coins interest you most. when I first started collecting I was all over the place collecting wise. Now I am much more focused on which coins I am hunting for. If you are doing U.S. coins and will become bored quickly... do a type set. know how much you want to spend on a coin. sometimes a rare coin you have been wanting comes up on the market only so often and you want it. I see no problem spending over market value for it. I did this on my avatar pic coin. never regretted it for a moment. it is the king of my collection. a lot of people will say buy what you can afford. I say no to that because down the road you will not be happy with low grades. thee only way I see that being ok is if you are buying key dates in a series and you are trying to complete a set.

 

Thank you for the replies so far.
Spirityoda;
I was asking more on Bills paper money but thanks for your input. I suppose that would work both ways.
BTM

 

I think collection philosophy applies equally to coins, bills, stamps, etc. They will all generally have the same issues you bring up.

Personally I started out collecting way too ambitiously and ended up realizing that if I focused my collection more, I'd have more money to buy better examples of what I loved the most.

I started out with a US type set, realized that I didn't care about the vast majority of the types, and then backed off to generally type collecting US quarters. I expanded that into an uncirculated Washington quarter mint/date set (dansco), and a small capped bust quarter die marriage set (slabbed). So the theme of the vast majority of my US collection is the quarter denomination.

For world, I started out with a Hungarian currency type set and that expanded into an uncirculated classic Hungarian coin type set 1867-1922. When that got down to only missing a few types that would be challenging to find I expanded in both directions to encompass 1851-1946. Just as with the quarters, I ended up working on date/mint sets for a couple denominations that I really liked, including restrikes. I also got into Habsburg coronation jetons and medals through this set. The underlying theme of all my Hungarian sets are the depiction of the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen, and/or the types of Franz Joseph I.

So I have both denomination and thematic sets. I have die marriage sets, type sets, and date/mint sets. There is a lot of overlap. I collect what I ended up liking the most.

 

@BunkerTrapMan , are you asking about U.S. Paper currency or World notes ?

 

"Knowledge is power" key words as you embark on a collecting focus! Read and by all means participate with threads on the forum. Won't take you too long and you will find 'something' that really strikes your fancy--then learn MORE about it. You will soon be on your way to a collecting future. Of course as time passes you will increase your wants/needs for a particular issue or theme. Budgets are most important and be careful if/when you become an auction bidder--set your limit and NEVER exceed it. Good luck and good hunting.

 

As was already mentioned, collecting is an extremely personal endeavor, obsession, hobby or whatever you want to call it... For me, I never thought of my currency collection as an investment because unless you buy two of everything, you can't sell it AND have it... On the plus side, at least you're not spending money on depreciating assets...

I personally only like to get one of each, or get a good example of a certain type of note and try not to get notes that are similar in design... I like variety in the designs, I don't want a pile of the same note where the only difference is one digit in the date.

A very personal hobby which is one of the aspects that makes it so great, there's no right or wrong way to do it.

 

opps sorry.

 

Yes, US money. No way am I ready to take on World money that I know nothing about.
As mentioned before growing up I liked Trains and thought I might look at that theme, do you know where I might look?
BTM

 

Spirityoda
Don't worry at all. From what I am reading the principals cross over, so thank you.
BTM

 

Well, the world of U.S. Obsolete currency is replete with train vignettes.
Federal currency: Fr 911, 1914 $10 reverse; Fr 971, 1914 $20 reverse; just a couple examples.
World currency: too many to list but China, Costa Rica, Canada come to mind:
= Mexico

== China TWO trains on one note

== Mississpippi obsolete note

== and LOTS of bank checks have trains


So, if you want trains -- it's ALL ABOARD !

 

Many Obsolete notes featured trains.http://www.worksandwords.com/trains/trains.htm

One of my purchases this year also featured trains.

 

Thanks all.
I have my eye on my first purchase, I'm nervous.
If I get it I will put it here to share.
Thanks.
BTM

 

Yes, indeed do share. We all like to share our treasures.