A Question To Specialized Collectors

When I was a youngster I was given a partial set of common date IHC in G-VG grades. I was fascinated by them and thought they were the most beautiful coins. I put these coins aside for 50 years while I went to college, raised a family, and had a career. Now that I am retired I decided, in my remaining years, I want to complete and upgrade my IHC collection. It will be a fairly expensive adventure but I have to spend my retirement money on something other spoiling grandchildren. IHC are the only coins that I am presently collecting. I have no plans in selling this collection and will probably spend many years attempting to assemble the complete set. I may never get there, but I will enjoy every minute of it. I think the adage 'its not the destination but the adventure in getting there' applies to my philosophy of coin collecting. I guess I am just addicted to IHC.

Like beaglebaily, my passion in Federal coinage, are IHC's without a doubt.
It's all about what YOU like ;-)

I started collecting any unusual coins as a child, then my dad bought a tin of old pennies and half pennies for £5 that a friend was selling (when I was about 10) after that in my teens they withdrew the 1 shilling coins which were in circulation so I noodled as many as I could and tried to put get all the years, same with the 2 shilling coins. Every year when we went on holiday I would scrounge the lose change...

At 15 my dad unearthed his fathers collection of coins that he picked up during the war and bought me some albums and a book on world coinage.

By 20 I had started ordering the odd piece and making date collections whenever I travelled (France, USA, Australia, Carribean, Mexico) and buying gold coins whenever I could get at scrap prices.

By now I separated my coins into 4 albums (British, Australian, USA and the rest of the world) and my notes into 3 albums (British, USA and rest of the world) and also I had a collection of boxes containing proofs, silver proofs, gold coins capsulated coins and those too large to be put in albums)

Any coins or notes I had two of I kept the best and outed the spares, I always try to fill in missing dates or missing note types. Every year I tried to collect circulation coinage and every new signatury on the notes I tried to aquire one.

At this stage I am still missing a few types for my notes, these should not be a problem to aquire in the next year or so my notes will be complete... then maybe I will upgrade the condition of a few or aquire a few more exotic/expensive pieces.

The coins I realise my US collection is rather valueless all from circulation and I havent had access to noodle through $1000's of dollars in change hunting for all the dates. Though I like the American coins I don't think it would be wise for me to invest too much into those unless I can do trades for what I require.

I realise that large coins like crowns dont interest me too much, and that I dont have many coins in super condition from earlier than about 1800. Nor do I have many hammered coins. If I look at my collection I have completed farthing and half penny and the non-silver 3 pences and have a good collection of silver 6 pences. So my natural inclination would be towards adding to the silver 6 pences and silver 3 pences.

I guess my specializion would be English note signatures (I have nearly all types of English note with each signatury since ww1 I think I am missing only a handful some of which arent expensive and some of which will take time to aquire because of price.

At the same time I am working on filling some gaps in my US notes (trying to get all denominations with every colour seal and each type)

The reason I say all that is to demonstrate that for many the process of collecting is organic, it depends on which oppertunities are presented to you and then as your collection grows it can lead you in different directions. Perhaps those who try to collect a certain series just started in a similar less guided way and were particularly proud of one area of their collection so started diverting funds towards developing that section of it.

I started to collect War Mercs and Roosevelt Silver Dimes for a couple reasons. One was to slow down my bullion buying after my initial 100 oz goal. Two was because they still contained silver. I have finished both of those sets and still have the Franklins to work on. After the Franklins are done, I'll probably start a Peace dollar set. To me all of these sets have a couple things going for them. They all have silver in them and they are all closed sets.

I've been doing all of these sets in high AU to low MS. I would love to work on a full Merc set but I don't know that I will be able to pony up for a couple of the keys. I would have to settle for a much lower grade.

I have yet to specialize in any particular coin or series, but I have always said that when I grow up, I want to specialize in the Eisenhower dollar.

Yes, it is currently my favourite, but I am hardly a real expert with the series.

My goal is (after I have finished all of my other sets) to build a second Eisenhower dollar collection (I will never upgrade or replace the first one). I want it to be a high grade set and include all of the attributed varieties.

Eg just upgrade as you go along if you have interests in other sets. It can be hard to actively find upgrades without overpaying but if you want to build other sets as well work on those and if the right upgrade comes along for an old set go for it.