How Much Of Your Collection Is Excess Material And Duplicates?

In terms of value, my duplicates are certainly less than 10%. In terms of quantity, it is probably more like 25% or so. These items are largely older or interesting low value coins that are anywhere from uncommon to virtually impossible to find in circulation today. Saving these for my kids, nephews and nieces to hopefully get them interested in collecting.

Since no one has objected, I have moved this to the main forum for more attention.

My system of coin collecting is to get a coin for an Album. Then look for a better one and when I get one, the one in the Album goes into a 2x2 flip. As the amount of coins in flips grows large, I get another Album and start that one with coins from the flips. Eventually I get even better ones and the process starts over again. In other words I never get rid of a coin from my collections. For example I am now up to 12 Albums for Mercury dimes, 10 for Lincoln Cents, etc. I just never get rid of a coin.

I have many nice value coins, but the duplicates are always fun.
I guess I need a pile of coins to play with, mostly New Zealand 1947 - 2006 and plenty of British and American change.

I think I am halfway between a hoarder and a collector in that I have quite a few duplicates that I don't feel a pressing need to liquidate. As long as the coin is pleasing, it doesn't bother me greatly if I have another one of that date. As I've slowly upgraded some of my sets, I usually keep the new upgraded example and the one that it replaced.

Most of it, but mostly because I hang on to any low value international coin that I find.

I went with 10-40% by value. If I had to guess, probably 20% of the value are coins that are just stashed and not part of a "collection" (which I define as anything that I haven't even considered organizing into binders.)

By volume, it's probably 80-90%. I try not to think about it because I at least have it compactly stored in shoe and/or tackle boxes. Offhand, I know I have:
- Probably $40-50 face in LMC's and LSC's
- At least 600 wheat cents
- $30-40 face in nickels (mostly 40's or 50's, plus nicer grade later coins)
- More State, Territory, and ATB Quarters than I want to think about. At least $150 face?
- Several hundred half dollars (which I have finally gotten around to organizing and putting into binders!)
- At least a couple thousand world coins bought from bulk lots that have negligible value (Tried selling a full bag of coins that I figured would fetch at least $30-40 and it hammered for $3 on ebay, so that's a no go!)
- A couple hundred miscellaneous world coins that are worth ballpark $1-10 each
- About 1-2 pounds of mixed world silver that I plan to sell when silver hits at least $30 again.

I spent from 2008-2011 roll hunting and compulsively hoarding all of the "cool" things I found as a cashier, and I went from about early 2015 to late 2016 buying things on ebay that seemed cheap and cool without really thinking about how it might fit into a collection that I would want to take the time to assemble, display, and enjoy. I only really got serious about planned, deliberate purchases in the past three years.