When I first started out in the coin business, I assumed I was going to sell everything; Morgan Dollars, Barber Dimes, St. Gaudens double eagles and Charlotte gold, I’d handle it all. But I quickly learned that it would be difficult–and costly–to be an expert in so many areas of the market. I then decided that I’d become really good at just a few things and leave the rest to other people.   
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Is the age of collecting by date or variety over? Have coins become so expensive and collecting so complex that it is inevitable that new collectors will focus solely on type coins?   
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I’ve recently had the opportunity to sell some high grade No Motto half eagles and this got me thinking about the rarity of this series in higher grade. I thought it would be interesting to look at the populations of the No Motto half eagle series and to give them a bit of statistical analysis. I also thought it would be interesting to take the No Motto eagle series and compare these numbers as the two series offer a good contrast.   
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Even though I am a dealer who has a reputation as being very pro-collector, I hadn’t actually collected anything numismatic (with the exception of 19th century books and catalogs) for a number of years. Being a dealer and a collector simultaneously is very difficult and I certainly did not ever want to find myself in a situation where I was debating whether to sell a new purchase or to keep it for my collection.   
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In June 2000, I wrote an article entitled “The Ten Coolest United States Coins.” Let’s say you were a true Douglas Winter Numismatics cultist and you had decided to follow my advice to the letter. How would your seven year investment have performed? Are there any coins I would have deleted from this list? Some analysis and random thoughts regarding these ten coins follows.   
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Is it possible to build an interesting collection of desirable United States gold without having a large per coin budget? I think the answer to this question is a resounding “yes.” There are plenty of extremely interesting pieces that are within the average collector’s price range and this includes a number of coins that are both scarce and in comparably high grades.   
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