What goals do you set for yourself in collecting?

Hey Numista. I wanted to make a post to ask you all about the goals you set for yourselves as collectors and some examples of some of yours.

I still consider myself a new collector and the main goal I've set for myself is to get a coin from as many countries as I can. I'm interested in setting more goals for myself so I suppose I was looking for some ideas and inspiration from other collectors!

Thanks everyone. Any advice is appreciated.

Now, i want to get as many countries i can, but also i have just a bit left of the full series of UK common coins that are not rare or very expensive.
Also i really wanna get all 50 State Quarters and Național Parks.

A little bit expensive is to get the Commemorative coins from Russia.

Looks interesting for me to gather coins with strange shapes.
For moment i have: Square, Round with hole, Hexagonal, 12-Sidex

Enjoyment of coin collecting is always number one.
Whether you are buying or exchanging, enjoyment has to come first.
Secondly, do not set goals to high, as they it will always seem a long way away and it will dishearten you.
If you keep them sensible, you can always move the goal post again.
I have actually hardly ever set myself goals, but a few times when I want to complete a set of coins that were issued to commemorate something.
Enjoyment is also just admiring the coins you have, organising them into a system YOU create.
I have now collected for over 50 years, and enjoyment has never diminished, if anything, it just gets better.

I have many goals: Collecting a coin from every/most countries, collecting weird denomination euro coins (1.5, 2.5, 3, 5, 7, 7.5, 8...), collecting every coin of my home country (Finland) except all the gold coins and coins that cost more than 80€, also I am trying to collect coins with unusual materials (Niobium, platinum, lead...).

Quote: "COINMAN1"​Enjoyment of coin collecting is always number one.
​Whether you are buying or exchanging, enjoyment has to come first.
​Secondly, do not set goals to high, as they it will always seem a long way away and it will dishearten you.
​If you keep them sensible, you can always move the goal post again.
​I have actually hardly ever set myself goals, but a few times when I want to complete a set of coins that were issued to commemorate something.
​Enjoyment is also just admiring the coins you have, organising them into a system YOU create.
​I have now collected for over 50 years, and enjoyment has never diminished, if anything, it just gets better.
​

​Thanks everybody for all your responses.

Coinman1, I only started collected two months ago and I've had fun so far. Coin roll hunting is cool but none of the banks I have offer coin counting machines anymore, which leaves me to use Coinstar and either lose out on a percentage (which honestly makes CRH not worth it) or be forced into Amazon credit if I know I'll be buying something there.

I have had a great time cataloging my coins here, throwing them in 2x2 flips, and organizing them by countries, then down by year. Buying foreign coins by the pound was fun but now it feels like a bit of a grind for a lot of base metal coins from common countries.

The goals I have so far are: collecting as many countries and issuers as I can, all the 1909-58 US wheat pennies, all 1920-26 Canadian pennies. I think I might want to try collecting all the proof Ike dollars and maybe all the US quarter series.

Quote: "gridironshowcase"​

Quote: "COINMAN1"​Enjoyment of coin collecting is always number one.
​​Whether you are buying or exchanging, enjoyment has to come first.
​​Secondly, do not set goals to high, as they it will always seem a long way away and it will dishearten you.
​​If you keep them sensible, you can always move the goal post again.
​​I have actually hardly ever set myself goals, but a few times when I want to complete a set of coins that were issued to commemorate something.
​​Enjoyment is also just admiring the coins you have, organising them into a system YOU create.
​​I have now collected for over 50 years, and enjoyment has never diminished, if anything, it just gets better.
​​
​
​

​​Thanks everybody for all your responses.
​
​Coinman1, I only started collected two months ago and I've had fun so far. Coin roll hunting is cool but none of the banks I have offer coin counting machines anymore, which leaves me to use Coinstar and either lose out on a percentage (which honestly makes CRH not worth it) or be forced into Amazon credit if I know I'll be buying something there.
​
​I have had a great time cataloging my coins here, throwing them in 2x2 flips, and organizing them by countries, then down by year. Buying foreign coins by the pound was fun but now it feels like a bit of a grind for a lot of base metal coins from common countries.
​
​The goals I have so far are: collecting as many countries and issuers as I can, all the 1909-58 US wheat pennies, all 1920-26 Canadian pennies. I think I might want to try collecting all the proof Ike dollars and maybe all the US quarter series.

​Be proud you can CRH cause USA has a loooooooot of circulating commemorative coins and old series still in circulation.

In romania We have only a Commemorative coin per year (1.000.000 mintage) and you cant find coin Rolls with circulated coins.
So..only thing you can do is to Wait to Find in change or to go at weekend sales Where i go every weekend and Find 10-20 coins per week for approximatively 0.25$ unless is Silver.

that s Why i have so many coins. And a lot of rare or interesting ones

Gridironshowcase,
I cannot find coin rolls in the UK very often and only have one roll, which is of 1971 1/2 pennies.
I wish you all the best in your quest (goal) of collecting the coins by date, and any other goal you set yourself.
I only collect by type, so do not have this type of goal.
Since my first message on this subject, I realise that I do have one goal, but it is a continuous goal.
This is to own all USA silver commemoratives, minted since 1983. At the moment, I am five short of the existing coins, but three of these will be delivered to me as part of an exchange with a collector in the USA. He is also continuing his search for the other two.
As the USA mint two new coins every year, as I stated above, my goal is continuous.

My goal is to have one nice coin for each roman emperor (at least the ones it is possible to find a coin)... That's not so easy because some are really rare or/and expensive in good condition, but i'm student so i have the time for that... I try to buy/trade only one coin an emperor, with the nicest face as possible. I started with unexpensive 3rd and 4th century emperors. My most "expensive" roman coin is a VF denarius from Maximinus (i bought it for 25€ so about 30$, that was a good deal i think). I also have a very nice Nero dupondius that my father had when he was young.

Apart from roman coins i'm trying to have one coin for each type for some countries i like for their history, their culture or the look of their coins...
Also as many coins as possible (by year) from my country, Belgium !

I wish you good luck in your goals gridironshowcase!

Sometimes, mini goals are useful. I like collecting crown coins , which are commemorative and come in small sets of 4 or 6 or 8 from countries like Gibraltar or Isle of Man, which are achievable as well as the overall target of collecting all from one country.

You don’t reroll your coins and take them back? Some coin star will give you grocery store gift cards at no loss. Plus I always check coin star for silver or rejected foreign coins, have you found anything in the reject trey?

Quote: "redsmithstudios"​You don’t reroll your coins and take them back? Some coin star will give you grocery store gift cards at no loss. Plus I always check coin star for silver or rejected foreign coins, have you found anything in the reject trey?

​I don't reroll them since it takes quite a bit of time to do by hand for a few thousand pennies. The Coinstar near me doesn't give any gift cards I would use normally. I haven't found anything exciting yet when I pass by them at Walmart!

Hi All

I set myself Goals for all parts of my life, every year. I find it gives me more meaning to life. That said, I do indeed set Goals for my coin collecting as well.

1. I also try to get at least 1 coin from countries where I do not have any from, 5 new for a year
   
2. I buy South African commomorative and Proof sets to fill gaps I have in my SA collection, 20 new in a year
   
3. In swaps I always look for new countries first, then new types, then new date, this way I increase the number of types I have. Here I set concrete Goals at to the number of countires, coins and types I want to reach by the end of the year.
   
4. All though this is not a defined Goal, my swaps are aimed at increasing the coins per date I have from firstly the County of origin of my swap partner, followed in no real order by the Soviet Union, Russia, Poland, Great Britain, Germany and some others to complete a Country as far as possible
   
5. German-Notgeld: Increase to 350 Cities
   
6. At least 60 swaps in the year
   

So I set challenging Goals, but not unachievable.

Quote: "COINMAN1"​Enjoyment of coin collecting is always number one.
​Whether you are buying or exchanging, enjoyment has to come first.
​Secondly, do not set goals to high, as they it will always seem a long way away and it will dishearten you.
​If you keep them sensible, you can always move the goal post again.​

​ I found I enjoy it more since I've straightened up my collecting and set goals, it's great when you finally cross something off a list
And I know some of my goals will be very hard to reach, but I like having a direction and something to go towards.

As for some of my goals: completing countries that emitted only a few coins, completing a specific ruler, and more "individual" goals (nice-looking coins, coins with historic significance, ...).

To get to the 200 country mark on my numista home page! I am at 198! It has been a year of fun! Once I get to 200 I'll slow down and start looking for coins just for fun and whatever is "pretty" or old. I wanted as many unique countries as reasonably possible on my very conservative budget. I've probably splurged 3-5 times and spent almost 20 for once single piece but mostly try to spent no more than a few bucks a coin. I am starting to get into the "incredibly hard to find" "or ridiculously expensive" (for me anyway) section on the country list.
When I get to 1000 coins in general I'll start trading more or selling. Don't want a stock pile of them or anything. That will probably be the next goal. 1000 coins that I really like. That's what I love about this hobby versus many others that I threw tons of cash away on and had nothing to show for it (like video games and dolls) You don't have to be rich to have a beautiful collection and it is easy to build with estate lots and coin shops. It is a great investment because the value or certain things is going to go up as time goes on and a nice thing to leave to someone one day. Though my family would probably pawn all of it.... I've begged them not to if anything ever happens to me lol. I need to find someone to promise it to because it is awfully special to me because it is really a snap shot into a bit of who I am. =D