Are There Series You Prefer To Collect Circulated Rather Than Mint State?

I agree with you about Morgan dollars. I find a nice honest circulated VF to EF specimen usually looks nicer than a low MS one that has lots of lustre but also lots of marks on Miss Liberty's cheek.

If money was no object I would like to have everything in Mint State but that is not realistic money wise, so majority of my collection is circulated.

I was going to try to do my 7070 in AU but that even that became costly.

The only sets I have all in MS are moderns, the ASE from 1986 to 2021 and the innovation dollars.

I prefer coins that look new.

MS coins are pretty, but I prefer coins that have wear and show that they have done the job they were intended to do.

Really comes down to the series, and two deciding obvious factors.
1. Which do I prefer aesthetically
2. Which is more cost efficient.

Bust half's wear well and I'll take a nice mid grade circ cam any day over MS.
Morgan's I prefer the same OR MS64 on up (unless it's just a good deal). Not a fan of a huge price jump for an overly baggy MS62 when a nice AU has more eye appeal and sometimes half the price or more.

Pre '64 Washington quarters on the other hand, gorgeous is MS and easily obtainable cost wise, yet hideous IMHO below XF.

And of course, Buffalo nickels, great in any grade you can read a date

Collect what you'll enjoy and stay in your budget. There's plenty of options!

Circulated coins are my favorite, my complete circulated Walking Liberty half set would have cost be more then 10 times what it did. I am also interested in the Philippine Peso coins that were minted in the USA, I am struggling to find a checklist of them, do you have one?

It doesn't look complete though. I know they minted earlier dates.

In general most of my collections consist of coins from all grades from Poor up to higher Uncirculated pieces.

But to be honest, I don't really like collecting UNC or better unless its a common modern coin or a late date for my NZ/Australia/GB predecimal coins (Like 1965, 1967 etc). Most of the time I find it hard to tell differences between AU and UNC and even nicer EF ones at times.

Plus I can see here especially with you American coin collectors, basic UNC/MS is nothing to many of you all - its gradations of MS that count, amny of you want MS65 or more and would not look at 60 and 61 for many coins, especially more common ones. I find that too hard.

I am not a huge fan of really worn coins either. In general for the expensive and rare stuff (Like pre 1887 UK and pre 1934 Australia) - VG is about as low as I wanna go except for the rare stuff like 1932 Aussie Florins and 1905 Halfcrowns of the UK. Mostly my coins from this era are Fine or so, but especially with the British coins, I have quite a few, VF, EF and even AU specimens now!

All this leads to my favourite conditions for collecting and that is basically VF and EF, with a few coins either side thrown in (Good Fine and AU, along with UNC for common stuff). Example, all my NZ Predecimal started off as average (VG or so) and I have upgraded 95% of it to the VF - EF level with a few better pieces and couple of bare VF's and good Fines.




The usual grade of coins I like, circulated but not much, these two are low EF examples.

Generally coins like this, still look very nice overall and have a lot of detail, but are worn enough to prove they are truly circulated pieces, and there is no doubt they have done the job they were meant too. I also prefer clean problem free coins too, but living in a humid warm climate and with people who loved agressively cleaning coins in the 80s and 90s - its not that easy.

Plus here and with UK and Aussie coins, there is always a massive price differential between VF and EF and most coins are in between.

I also mean British VF and EF which is American VF30 to AU58.