Quality Or Quantity?

I said it depends.

For much of my collecting career I have been completing date-mint sets in Dansco albums. This might look like a "quantity" thing in the eyes of a type collector (all those "duplicates" in a collection). Given my budget I preferred having filled holes to higher quality, at least in general. My Dansco 7070 has not been immune to the "fill the hole cheap" mentality.

When I started my PCGS Ike set four years ago, I went in thinking quality over quantity. I took my time and got the best coins as my budget allowed for them.

Once the Dansco albums are finally filled (six holes left), I may focus on quality for future sets. Might be fun to build a slabbed version of the 7070.

The hundreds of junk halves I bought less than a year ago have all doubled in value.

Edit: whoops I didn't mean to say junk

For me it depends on what I am after. For some collections, it just means filling holes with undamaged coins with decent detail. For series I specialize in, the quality is important. My Kennedys are all MS being from mint sets or (many, many hours of) fun roll searching and upgrading.

I might eventually think of upgrading some walkers, but for now I just want to hold a complete set of (full rim and date) these historic beauties in my hand (not there yet!).

I don't care about FSB, FS etc. b/c the majority of circulated coins were not made this well, and almost all of my collection is from circulation. I also know I never will have enough money to own a set of, let's say, FSB Mercs, so I would always feel as if I was not "done" with the set.

I voted it depends.

I don't and have never attached value to a numerical grade, and I fail to understand the point of paying an order of magnitude for "the best" when only an expert can distinguish between them, and two experts might disagree.

I also don't collect problem coins if I can afford problem-free.

Generally speaking, 99.7% of my collection is raw, and I gravitate toward high XF, AU, or MS, whichever has better eye appeal. I also try to buy just below the point where the price/grade curve goes exponential.

When researching a coin to buy, I often adopt the OCG strategy, this can apply across the whole of numismatics.

I'm in the minority here, but I would much rather have a big bag of free-floating well-worn coins than a few fine specimens. Much more interesting, there is great variety in colors, toning, wear patterns, pondering the path they have traveled. No slabs, no worries about new dings, just reach in & toss them around.

Also in the minority, I don't care about owning rare dates at all. So one year the mint went screwy and they just made a few, but the thing looks identical the year before & after .. the history may be interesting, but I don't want to own it more (now, rare TYPES, well that's a different story). Also stuff like the S VDB doesn't tempt me at all, it's just a monument to B's vanity. Give me a nice big bag w/ several full type sets clunking around in AG-F and I'm happy as a clam.

All IMHO of course!

quality. some day you probably will want or need to sell them. quality will always outvalue over the long haul. its much more difficult to recover money spent on lower quality coins if at all. in my type set I want the best coin I can find in my budget to fill that hole. if you just want to complete a collection then I would pick a grade range for the set and stick to that but dont expect them to increase in value much unless they are they keys