When Your Collection Reaches A Stage, What Do You Do Next?

I find myself enjoying the research now. For example, I did this with what are called No FG Kennedy halves. The discrepancies opened up a whole new world of understanding for me that led to finding out what TPGs actually produce. It became fun to look for more.
See the essay in my signature.

My vote... "Keep going, interest ebbs and flows"


I agree. It is how you keep going.

In the mid 2000s I hit a spot where most of what remained on my list was getting expensive (before my income was ready). Simply acquiring each new year's (US) coins was not enough to keep me excited and I felt those remaining holes might never get filled.

But then I found CCF, expanded into modern US Mint products beyond the annual sets to fill my album holes, and discovered it was okay to build a second "higher grade" set of Ikes.

Now I am just four coins away from finishing that "core collection" that began over forty years ago. What comes next? My options seem boundless.

I vote for expanding your goals. Don't sell the collection; put it aside and then next show or store you go to, look at other offerings and see if anything catches your eye: foreign coins, ancients, medals, tokens, etc. Dabble a bit, do some research, ask questions.

It's a tough question to answer. I'm sure there is something out there that will catch your attention. Do some research and look into other series. Maybe you'll be fascinating by the designs, the history, or the ability to put together a set that you'll gravitate towards something else. As long as it makes you happy, you can't go wrong with what you do.

since youre not wanting for money, give them away, 10 coins apiece, to all the children you can find. young enough to think theyre valuable. at least some will keep them and new cllectors will be born.

Thanks for thoughts and ideas everyone, it is greatly appreciated and will help guide my thinking and taking a break is a good idea to think before doing anything, maybe sell off some of the duplicates.

- The type set of rarest issues sounds like fun (except the 1921's ).
- Been debating on branching out to a US dansco type set, but didn't find an album at a price I liked.
- Unsure on the kids and nephews, all still pretty young, but they may take an interest.
- Variety/error/die pair bug has not hit me yet, I still keep them aside as I come across them, especially things like Arnprior, NSF/SF Mules, bar/cross bow-tie, LB/SB, SD/LD, dots, etc... maybe time will change me on that, so many passionate collectors on here, can be infectious
- Mine started as a tribute to grandma, then quickly went from Large Cent/Small Cent and a Silver Dollar Type set to the whole enchilada.
- Paper is a tough one, not a huge number to collect, comparatively speaking, but average price point is quite high, especially as you get into the dominion stuff and bank issues.
- I wouldn't say I am not wanting for money, more that my thoughts on selling are not guided by any pressing need for cash at the moment. Though if I continue on the same path of collecting, it will be a different story one day.

I always think of some of the posts I have read over the years where people have said they sold their collection for a down payment/emergency/life/etc... and regretted it a few years later, I've spent a ton of hours on this and not sure if I am ready to give it all up. Thanks again for all your thoughts, always appreciate the folks on here.

A lot of the answer comes down to how much you want to spend annually on coins I think. If your budget is $1000/yr then you won't be getting into any high end specimens or PL coins for sure. If it's mulitples of that though you can easily start collecting the more common years of PL coins (think 1960's silver ones) and come up with some decently high grade sets without breaking the bank. If you insist on an all or nothing approach though then you will need a lot larger budget to really get into it. Or if you only want to pick up top pop's. 1960's PL coins in 66's and even 67's can be pretty reasonable. Get's more expensive the more cameo they have though so keep that in mind. Specimens are an interesting one. There are some older sets (like 1937) where you can pick up 65's and 66's pretty reasonably priced, and complete a set. You don't always have to pick up every set all at the same time. Start small and work your way up. :)

I voted "keep going".
In my case, I started out attempting to assemble a 19th century US Type set until I found out it would quickly become cost-prohibitive for me. At the same time however I was also collecting Gulden coins from my home country The Netherlands.
After some back and forth discussion on CCF, I decided to sell my partially assembled US Type set and instead focus on the modern version (20-21st century) while expanding my collection of Guldens into a complete Dutch Type set (1815-2001).
My US Modern Type Set was recently completed while I am still working on my Dutch Type set. Since it is slow going finding high quality key date Dutch coins, I decided to start a "side project" which is collecting commemorative coins of composers (music).
In short, I prefer to stay busy but don't want to do too many projects at once. About two simultaneously (with one of the two going very slowly) seems to be the best option to me.