If you were young(er) and new to collecting, what would

Bochiman

you prefer?

A nice, specific and very targetted collection (say, just morgans, or just IHCs, or just Lincolns, etc), or a wide variety (ie....a hoard) of different coins to include most of the main series as well as some boxes (unopened) of moderns, etc?


For the premise, make a few assumptions (if you can't do these assumptions, then just look from the outside but let those that can make the assumptions answer ):

* You are anywhere from a YN to any age but you have never collected coins before.
* You were given, or inherited, the coins.....either the specific series, or the varied hoard.
* You don't have unlimited funds to just go out and buy buy buy
* You have a redbook for learning and can use the internet to do some searching, including finding this forum, but you have done it before.
* No one you know, personally, collects coins, so you are on your own.
* You do have an idea of value of the coins, as who gave them to you (or you inherited them from), had good accounting of the coin/grade/cost/value at the time.
* Coins can either be raw, TPGS graded, or a combination.
* For the sake of this discussion, you can't just sell what you have and turn around and buy something else. If you sell them, you are done with coin collecting.
* The value of the "hoard" and the targetted collection are equal. Difference is that one may have classics/moderns mixed and A LOT of coins, while the other can have anything from 1 coin to a few hundred (some morgan collectors of VAMs may have a lot of them, and many may not be worth that much...same for lincolns, though, to be targetted, most likely there is only 1 of each coin necessary in that series (including varieties if so inclined).


The reason I ask this is that it is something I have been thinking of for awhile. I (re)started collecting ~10 years ago. Before that, I had a few common coins that I had overpaid for when I was a YN, so didn't have much knowledge at all. I (re)started by buying misc items that I thought were cool, on ebay, and then the SAEs (pr and ms) raw, and some morgans, etc etc etc. Over time, I have hundreds of raw ikes (from the bank), all the mint sets from 1955-current, all the proof sets from 1956-current, binders of "fun" coins, unopened boxes of sacs/prezzies/lincolns/kennedys/etc, and a few hundred slabbed coins of different series.

I have also put together an almost complete (AU and under) 1/2cent set (need a handful more, but pretty particular of these).
Thanks to a generous boost from a forum member a few years ago, my son has a toned Roosie collection that we augment whenever we can find a nice hole filler for a good price.

So, I definitely have the varied hoard.

But........(there is always a but).....I consider most of "my" collection to be mine right now and my son's later in life. He does do coins with me, but isn't as "into it" as many folks...and I am not going to push him. If he continues to enjoy it, great. If not, well, they will get sold when I am gone and he will have a bit better life for it. So, when I am gone, and he inherits them, I don't know if a "fun" hoard to sift through would be better for him, and he could find coins to enjoy from a wide variety of looks (toned/untoned, MS/PR, etc), or if maybe he would like a very targetted series instead to enjoy/upgrade (say, the 1/2cents).

I know this is something that cannot just be answered, but I was wondering how others thought.

lcoopie

I think a variety may be more interesting than a series different by only a date

yosclimber

Targeting your collection to what your son might be interested in could lead to frustration, if he turns out to be not very interested.
The best advice I've heard is that you should collect what interests you, and plan to sell it yourself before you pass on.
If there is some core part of the collection that you really liked, and he might want to keep because of that, that's a bonus.
You wouldn't want to have your family try to sell off your collection after you pass, if they are not knowledgable - it would waste a lot of the estate value and their time.

Cameonut

This is a little like asking "what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Often, it is a hard question to answer.

So I'd be more inclined to work on a type set. If I ran across a particular series that I enjoyed, I'd probably collect that too.

BillyKingsley

Well...I'm 27, and have been collecting only since 2008. (May of 2008, at that!). I would much rather have a wide variety of things, any day of the week.

I have purposely chosen NOT to limit myself to any one thing...I have enough limits in my life that I'm not going to arbitrarily impose any more on myself. And how would you even decide on something to chase if you don't experience a wide range of subjects?

I've naturally found some favorites, and will give them a nod if I am trying to decide between two things to purchase, but I won't exclude anything else, either.

Edit to touch on some of your bullet points:
- I got started collecting when finding my late father's stash. It covered several different topics, but mostly was composed of wheat cents and bicentennial quarters.
- Unlimited funds is just something I can dream about. Heck, ANY funds for the hobby is something I have to dream about most of the time.
- I actually learned about the Redbook via this forum, I was lucky to find it early in my collecting days
- I don't know anybody in person who collects. I'm not the kind of person that goes out much, so I basically know a limited number of people. I have met people from the board but would not have known them without the board.
-"value" means nothing to me, I don't know, I don't care to know. The majority of my collection has been pulled from circulation, and I like it that way.
- I have a combinaiton of both raw and graded, although raw outnumbers slabbed by a wide, wide margin. I prefer my coins raw, the way they were made to be.
- I've never sold anything out of my collection, and I was even unsuccessfull in selling my duplicates. Nobody wants what I have to offer.
- The majority of my collection is from the 1990s and 2000s. I have coins ranging a couple of thousand years, but anything pre-WWII is kind of rare for me to have. I have more coins dated 2002 than any other year- oddly enough, the same year we lost my dad. Even though I've build a Philadelphia mint set of Lincolns covering, uninterrupted, 1933-current from circulation, I'm still thrilled to pull something older than the 70s. Provided they aren't scuzzy or otherwise unpleasent, I save them. I get around one a month, on average, from the 1960s in change.

lasvegasteddy

matters of father n son are always best left to that...he has all your answers just waiting for you to ask...

erickso1

As a 31 yr old collector with 3 years under my belt, I started collecting things that I liked, or learned about on here. So I picked up Peace dollars, some IHC's, Lincolns, rolls, proof sets, Merc dimes, a couple Franklins. I quickly came to realize that I knew very little about all of them. Just enough to get me in trouble. Then last spring I picked up my first commem, an Iowa from Broadstruck. I picked it up because my wife and I met in Iowa, and I purchased her an Iowa a year prior. Upon getting it in hand I realized I really liked it, and liked the classic commems in general. I purchased some books instead of coins, sold some material and have been focused on commems since (with an occasional VDB or Peace dollar thrown in for variety).

I view it like a kid in a candy shop. You want to try everything, all at once, eat til you are sick, wake up a couple days later and realize you liked the Jelly Belly you had, so you proceed to try every flavor (except buttered popcorn. Bleh!)

Just my take. But I think these boards and books are crucial tools for whichever path you take.

Mission16

I would hope I would stumble across a 7070 (or any type set album) If I had a Redbook, I would be intriged by all the different designs rather than a single series.

Unknown

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RedTiger

If it were, me variety and quantity tend to be more interesting.

As for the son, I wouldn't give it much thought. Like Yellowkid, I think the best plan is to sell before you go, because most heirs are much more interested in the money than a coin collection. Only 1% or perhaps 0.05% of folks are serious coin collectors. The son may go that way, but it will show well before you pass and then you can talk to him about it. There are a million things to take care of when a person passes. Selling a valuable coin collection is one more, and can be a daunting task, even for those in the hobby. For novices and outsiders it usually ends up as a fire sale to a local dealer for very little money. Who wants to pass along all that stress and a big pay day for a local dealer?

For a numismatic legacy, I suggest a small group of coins with mostly sentimental value, preferably with stories, letters, photos. If they are of nominal value, they are much more likely to be passed down to future generations, than if they are worth a lot of money.

jmski52

I think you have to grow as a collector, just like you have to grow as an individual.

crazyhounddog

<< <i>matters of father n son are always best left to that...he has all your answers just waiting for you to ask... >>



Well said....

Bochiman

<< <i>Targeting your collection to what your son might be interested in could lead to frustration, if he turns out to be not very interested.
The best advice I've heard is that you should collect what interests you, and plan to sell it yourself before you pass on.
If there is some core part of the collection that you really liked, and he might want to keep because of that, that's a bonus.
You wouldn't want to have your family try to sell off your collection after you pass, if they are not knowledgable - it would waste a lot of the estate value and their time. >>



You have misunderstood.
I never said I was tailoring it for him. I said that thinking of him got me thinking of this.

The question is the question itself......which would YOU prefer if you were new to collecting? A targetted collection in a series or a varied hoard of coins?

RedTiger

Another point to consider is that people that take care of themselves, might live to age 100 or more. With some luck, the son may be 80 years old or older when he inherits dad's collection. By that time there may be three or four more generations in the family line or none. Hopefully one or two in the extended family will be serious coin collectors, but even the odds in a large extended family are not that great because the tribe of serious coin collectors is a small one in terms of percentage of the population.

yosclimber

Sorry I misunderstood. Your second to last paragraph implied that the suitability to your son was a factor.
It was difficult for me to understand, reading the list of "rules" without seeing the underlying motivation,
so apparently I guessed (wrong).

> which would YOU prefer if you were new to collecting?

Very hard to answer, because it's been a long time since I was new to collecting.
I think my collecting interests were formed by having a red book around (actually blue book) at age 7 - seeing the black and white
photos of coins that I'd never seen before. And having a 1941-date Lincoln cent book that my sister also had and competing to fill ours in.
And seeing my dad's coin board with Indian cents from his boyhood collection.
So I think the essence of collecting to me is exploring - finding things you have never seen before.
And also as a child, dreaming of having resources some day to buy the expensive items.

I can't really ignore that motivation and try to imagine myself without it and invent a reason or theme for collecting coins.