What Is Your Numismatic Goal For 2014?

I think for me it's going to be a continuation of looking for coins in better than average condition. Ideally to upgrade, which will be coupled with trying to sell some of the coins I no longer enjoy.

But it has to be said, it's been a tough year for the sorts of coins I collect. Material has been thin on the ground and when coins have come up for sale the prices have been at the top or over my budget!

So I need to maximise when I sell on and try to build up some reserves just in case!

I have also started to buy auction catalogues to try to track down any provenance for coins I already have. It's fun and useful, but it does eat into the coin buying budget too!

Oddly (to me) I actually bought eight coins last year. (2012 it was only 6) Not that I have a target number. The main criteria is that they look nice, so we'll just have to see what comes up!

I mentioned this earlier in a different thread, but my goal this year is to pick up a few higher ticket items. Basically, I'm thinking about some nice, investment-grade coins with serious eye-appeal that have been professionally graded. Nothing ridiculously expensive, but stuff in the $1000-$2000 range. Perhaps a really nice 1909S VDB Lincoln Cent, a proof Indian Head cent, a 1932D Washington quarter, etc. Stuff that I can take out of the safe and drool over every now and then, you know?

Work on Morgan set, and get back into roll searching.

I gave up on coin collecting goals a number of years back. I even had a written hunt list at one time. In my field of interest goals are now counter productive. I am so dependant on what appears in the market that havign goals can Detune my eye and see me miss unique and rare coins.
2012 and 2013 turned out, for my collection, to be watershed years. I managed to obtain coins that, I had always assumed, were made of "unobtainium"

My Goal is to add to my research materials and find the time to do more writing. I'd like to work more toward organizing a colonial coin group based in the south jersey/philadelphia area. As to the collections, I'm keeping my hopes up that a nice Vermont Ryder 30 Backwards C comes on the market.

Colles,
MS70s often cost more than PR70s, probably due to the care taken when producing proofs and the fact that proofs tend not to get circulated, the surviving MS70 population is much lower and therefore rarer.

I see that in the marketplace but I don't subscribe to it, I would prefer to pay $50 for a PR70 than pay $500 for an MS70. In any case, there are probably many series where MS70 doesn't exist.

That's important when deciding your numismatic goals. All the advice I read in books is to buy the best you can afford.
I think that's misleading. That's fine for investment but not for collecting. If I had followed that advice when I started, I would have bought 1 coin every 2 years.
Instead, I chose to collect more coins at lower grades, expecting that if I got rich I could afford to replace coins with better grades.

As it is, that's never happened, and I still prefer to collect coins at pocket money prices.

My goal is to finish my set of cameo proof franklins.
3 to go, but they're the big ones.

Colles,
I meant what I wrote, MS70 or even lower grades are priced higher than PR70.

For example,
The Susan B. Anthony dollar 1980S is priced at $206 in MS67

see http://www.ngccoin.com/poplookup/Ce...DCoins=19576

and the PR70 is priced at $91.25

see http://www.ngccoin.com/poplookup/Ce...DCoins=67621