Type Collection Of 20th Century Dollars

THERE ARE about as many different ways to collect coins as there are collectors. Often, the method employed by a new collector is to pick a series, often Lincoln cents, and then try to acquire at least one of each date/mintmark combination. This is not a bad approach if you're collecting Lincoln cents, as there are only a few such combinations that are problematic in terms of cost. These are the series keys: 1909-S, 1909-S VDB, 1914-D, and 1931-S.

With 19th century U.S. coins, cost becomes more of a factor, as many pieces in a series are likely to be both scarce and pricy. If the collector focuses on early half dollars, for example, he or she will find that the number of rarities makes set completion difficult or impossible, depending on the collector's budget.

Another approach often taken to avoid the rarities is to collect by design type. That is, instead of trying to get each example