Best Strategy = Certified "Sleeper" AU Vs Common MS Gold?

I vote for the "sleepers" as opposed to the common high grade gold. Just my 2 cents.

bherring1964 makes a good point. I don't think much of it since the majority of my collection is long term. If liquidity is of primary concern in the near term, then common stuff would be the way to go.

With the gold coins I am collecting for my type set I look for those sleeper coins in AU-58 mainly. These coins can also be available for the same money in the same grade as coins with mintages several times as high. For example, I purchased my 1901 Liberty Head Quarter eagle (mintage 91,100 for less than $250 NGC certified.) The same grade for a 1907 (mintage 336,294) can be had for the same price but is 3X more common based on mintage.

Another example is with half eagles. My liberty 1878 half eagle in AU58 (mintage 131,720)can be had for the same price as a 1881 piece in the same condition for the same price, but the 1881 mintage = 5,708,802. So the 1878 is over 52x less common than the 1878.

What is nice about picking sleepers is that they are just that, sleepers. No one is valuing their low mintage's right now, but some day they may and the pricing catalogs will reflect that change. While paying the same price I feel like it is a win, win. You get a lower mintage coin for common price, if the price goes up you win, if it doesn't go up very much you still win.