I have been spending more time on this forum lately checking old threads. I have noticed a large amount of collectors collect coins from as many countries as possible, within budget, to reach that 300 club. They also collect their country of heritage, themed, coins of certain values, metal contents. Then you have those that collect all KM numbers of countries per a Krause catalogue and then their is date sets, that is how I collect. Just curious how people collect as I always been told collect what you like and how you like. <*{{{>< Randy
Of course it's your collection, you just collect what you want.
Most collectors will go through a progression, start by collecting anything and everything and then refine their collections once they've found an area that interests them the most.
I haven't been collecting much lately since we're doing some renovations and I'm trying to save my cash in case we over-run on the construction costs, but my collection at the moment is just New Zealand tradesman tokens from the 1800s. They were halfpenny and penny tokens minted by business owners to meet the shortage of official small denomination currency in the country at the time.
When I started collecting I collected every KM# date and mint but after time my collection grew to be too big. I downsized to only 1 per KM# now and I’m sure eventually I will downsize again. I would recommend when you first start collecting to have the broadest parameters because you can always downsize but you may never be able to get that one coin you needed down the road that you passed up on in the beginning. I agree with Neil collect what you like but it never hurts to have a few extra things. Worst case down the road you can always trade what you no longer want for what you need.
I began collecting mostly US coins, then expanded to any world coin I didn't have by KM#. I have scaled back on that a bit, although I still buy the occasional US coin and will trade for world coins I don't have, but most of my purchasing has progressed to medieval coinage, some Roman coins, and coins from countries/issuers that I do not have yet (which happens to be mostly medieval and older coins). The medieval coins are absolutely fascinating to me. Collect what you like!
