BETTER DATES - What's important to collectors?

daltex

@Pedzola said:
People seem to have a lot of objections on my thought experiment at the end of my post. It was meant to be "extreme" - I'm not asking if people would take the rarer coin in the same grade. But perhaps I could have been more descriptive than "clunker."

For example, if I need a $5 indian for my type set, and I am going to get a nice-for-the-grade CAC coin, the CAC price guide is....

1909-D in 64 for $3060
1916-S in 62 for $3460
1909-O in 30 for $7500 (the lowest cac example closest in price)

And of course there are other dates and price variations, but to explain my "clunker" remark.... An MS64 coin is clearly a nicer type example than a VF30 of the same design, cac or not. The same holds for a 62 vs a 64, though they obviously should be much closer.

So do you value rarity or preservation? I am not saying that a VF30 coin can't be nice for the grade or eye appealing. But it's certainly a trade-off.

So to clarify, when I said "clunkers" I just meant much lower graded coins of increased rarity for ostensibly the same or higher cost than higher graded more common coins.

Would you take the "better date" 16-S, the "key" 09-O, or stick with the readily available 09-D?

Well, assuming they're all attractive for the grade, I'd take the '09-O, but the real question is would I take the '09-O over two '16-S. That's a ton harder.

divecchia

I think it really depends on your collecting goal(s). For me my most important goal is to get the best strike possible on a coin and get it in the highest grade. This makes it impossible for me to do a U.S. Type set that I could afford if I was trying to do this with just rare date coins. If I did that I'd have only a handful of pieces in my collection. Finding common date coins with great strikes and in high grade allows me to have the biggest bang for my buck.

Donato