What Do You Do When The Next Completed Sets Are Too Out Of Your Budget?

Guys,

I just want to clarify, I have a few things I want to pick up, but my set collections (all years/all mint marks) seem to be winding down. When I really got back into collecting, I had a few things I wanted to complete and those are pretty much almost done, so unlike the previous sets, I have no new coins calling me.

Squirrel,

The large cents was crazy in what I found locally. I went to the LCS and asked if they had large cents, he shows me a box that wasn't touched in 20,30 or maybe 40 years. I opened it up and he had most of the coins other than the 1858 and a few I got from Gidgit. When I say the prices were good, they were. He had coins that cost 4-10X on ebay. I picked up the vast majority for $50. That one to me was an easy set (well Gidjit also really helped). That set would have taken me much longer if I had to buy the coins on ebay. From speaking to the owner, no one had any interest in large cents until me... sometimes you get lucky.

I don't know if upgrading an existing set would be something you would be interested in? My Lincoln set started as a basic circulated set and then I started working my way back upgrading to uncirculated. Firs the memorials, then the wheats back to 1940, then back to 34, then back to 29 and eventually all the way back (haven't done the 14-D in uncirculated and may not). It did require me to save up for multiple months sometimes to buy a coin.

I've upgraded a few coins in my 7070 as well. Like you, I can't really find a "new" set that is calling me so I am treading water a little...

Consider a world set of your birth year.
If you're my age (78) there will still be some coins out of your price range.
BUT
You should be able to find ~95% of the coins struck the year you were born.
It's a fun collection.
I've been working on it for years and I don't worry about accepting lower grade items.

The hard ones to find are the ones that have very little collector value.
You may have to buy a small collection just to get the one date that you want.
The rest you can relist to maybe get your money back.

How about a genealogy collection?

Get the birth years of your parents. Then your grandparents. Continue as far back as you wish. Extend the family, aunts/uncles, cousins, grandaunts/ uncles, etc., as far as you wish. Do the collection in the coinage of each person's birth country.

So many options.

I got into Exonumia and having a lot of fun in that area of collecting.

I almost hate to say it hfjacinto ..... you could come over to the dark side and get into notes. Maybe fractional currency.

I just read a story about a woman who collects the stickers on bananas, and has for a number of years. She has quite the collection now. So while not quite numismatics, it is something to think about (?)