How to make an accumulation a collection

FMF recently asked about collecting and it reminded me of an article I read in one my coin magazines.

Like FMF and many of the other commenters on his post, I have some coins.  Having coins — even a lot of coins — doesn't by itself make someone a coin collector, though.

It's relatively easy to buy more coins than most people own by bidding on someone else's coins on eBay.  The person selling them might be a collector or might be selling on behalf of a collector, but the buyer doesn't instantly become a coin collector just because she plopped down $10,000 to buy a collection from someone's estate.  She's definitely a coin accumulator, but not necessarily a collector.

Collections are generally more valuable than accumulations.  Picture a jar with a few hundred Lincoln cents and Indian head cents.  Take these same coins, put them in 2×2 cards, write the year and mint on the cards, organize them, and catalog them, and instantly the coins will be more valuable.  Why?  Because a collector knows what she has far better than an accumulator of the same item.  The accumulator has a jar full of coins worth a few bucks and might sell it for $10.  The collector would buy the jar for $10, knowing that they're might be a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent tucked in there that is worth $100 or more.  And that's just one of the coins!

This isn't to say that accumulating something (coins or otherwise) that can be more carefully collected is worthless.  Many coins, particularly pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, are mostly silver and will carry a melt value regardless of its condition or rarity.  Many coins, frankly, aren't worth more than their melt value.  But some coins are worth many, many times their melt value — even millions of times their melt value.

I've taken a few steps to turn some of them into a collection.  If you have a bunch of something — buttons, campaign materials, old documents, bottle caps, whatever — these suggestions will help you to turn that pile into a collection.  I'll use coins as an example, but these are generally applicable to just about anything.

• Assemble what you have.  Get everything in front of you so that you can look at it all at once.
• Sort what you have.  This might mean gathering the coins by denomination, then by year and mint mark.
• Organize and store what you have.  A bunch of plastic bags with sorted coins is a start, but carded coins organized by date and stored upright in a box is better.
• Catalog what you have.  Organizing the coins makes cataloging them much easier.  Cataloging can be done with software or with a notebook.
• Learn about what you have.  It takes a bit of knowledge just to organize the coins and to know some of the differences, but would you know a key date if you had it in your hand?  Would you know a doubled die?  Would you be able to tell an XF from an AU?  This special knowledge is what sets apart a collector from an accumulator, and it can consume a lifetime to learn.
• Choose what you have.  Once you know a bit about what coins you own, and which ones are valuable, then you're in a position to choose your purchases in order to move the collection in the direction you want it to go.  Having a goal for your collection might mean trading or selling the (lesser-quality) duplicates in order to fill in the gaps.   (Right now about the only thing that will entice me to pay much above a fair markup to melt value is whether I have one or not.  I might eventually want to collect a full set of something, but for now I'm content just to get varied, neat-looking coins.)
• Protect what you have.  By this point the collection is valuable and probably extremely difficult to replace should it be lost, stolen, or damaged.  The more valuable the collection, the more it must be protected from damage and theft.  Coins might be stored in a fireproof safe.  The high-grade or rare coins might be slabbed (certified and encased hermetically in plastic) and appraised or registered.
• Enjoy what you have.  A well-organized, lovingly-assembled, well-understood, and carefully-protected collection is a joy.  It's a conversation piece, and it's a source of wealth not only for the items themselves but for your knowledge of what those items are.