Rare coins into Type sets?

GOLDSAINT

You know how you develop those little fears when building a coin collection? Well, I had a great one today. My wife and I live in a small town and we are going to the big city tomorrow. I made a list this afternoon to take to town to look for some Bust halves, 45 to be exact. This past week I was out bid on a good AU over date, and when I went to look at the buyers purchase list it was obvious he was a type collector. Then it hit me , there are too many of these rare dates and mint errors in this set going into type books just because they are nice coins. Naturally the type collector does not care that he has an over-date, or a SQ base in his set. I did manage to grab this one out of the hands of the type collectors this week a nice Double profile!

razorface1027

Nice acquisition! You should've caught me about 3 months ago, I dumped 34 or 35 CBHs, all were high xf to au...

Veridicus

Very Nice! Bust halves have always been one of my favorites.

Elcontador

As a type collector, I must respectfully disagree with you. I just bought an 1804 Plain 4 No Stem Half Cent in 5 BN. Either this, or the Chapman Hoard 1806 are the most "moderately priced" dates in this grade re Draped Bust Half Cents.

For high grade type, the keys simply are not affordable for most of us. Another example is the No Motto Seated $ in MS 63. If you don't purchase a 59 O or 60 O (attractive coins in that grade for these dates are still scarce) and go for something more expensive, I might have to sell a family member to get one.

shirohniichan

Another example is the No Motto Seated $ in MS 63. If you don't purchase a 59 O or 60 O (attractive coins in that grade for these dates are still scarce) and go for something more expensive, I might have to sell a family member to get one.

If you were to look through high grade type sets assembled before the big Treasury release of silver dollars in the early 1960's, you may have found "choice BU" No Motto dollars besides the '59-O and '60-O's. Until then the now "common" New Orleans coins were considered as scarce as the other dates.

Then again, fat chance of finding type sets put together back in the 1950's or before.

Baley

Actually, some type collectors do prefer a better date coin and know full well what they're buying, because a better date coin in a type slot is the best of both worlds, it's a nice example of the type as well as a scarcer date for the series. Several of my type set coins are not the most common example.

this philosophy works well in the middle era (say 1850 to 1950) as ElContador's example shows, the earlier key dates are going to be too expensive for me and will buy a common one, and later than 1950, all dates are so common that it just doesn't matter