The half eagle is the very first gold coin to be struck at the United States mint. This denomination was struck without interruption from 1795 to 1929, and it is the only U.S. gold issue to be produced at all eight United States mints. It is very popular with collectors, but the seemingly endless duration makes it very hard to collect by date. Because of this fact, it is an ideal set to collect by type.   
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In 2010, you will see a new slogan on the homepage of my website (www.raregoldcoins.com). Besides being catchy, “Coins with Character” represents a philosophy that guides me as a buyer and which I try to impart to collectors. Let me explain what, in my opinion, this expression means. Before the recent November Baltimore coin show, I sat down and made a list of the sort of coins I wanted to make an extra effort to purchase.   
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While I am personally still a fan of collecting gold coins by sets, I understand that this method is not for everyone. Some individuals find set collecting monotonous; others lack the patience to assemble anything but a short set. And other collectors simply do not have the financial resources available to work on a set that might not only have a long duration but may contain many expensive coins as well.   
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This has been one of the “driest” times in the coin market that I can recall in terms of availability. While I have bought and sold some pretty remarkable coins so far in 2009, it has been a source of wonderment to me how few choice, interesting pieces have been available this year. And I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Why is this? I’m not certain that there is a “right” answer to this question.   
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Of course everyone would like to not think twice about buying all sorts of cool, expensive gold coins. But most of us have a coin collecting budget that we have to hold to. Is it possible for the collector of average means to seriously collect US gold? I would contend that even with a reasonably small budget, a collector can have lots of fun in this area of the market and over the course of time put together a pretty neat collection.   
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I often (OK, not “often” but at least “occasionally…”) get asked the question “what kind of coins do you collect?” I don’t currently collect coins because I think that, as a dealer, being a collector is an inherent conflict; I don’t ever want to have an internal debate with myself about whether or not I should sell a coin that I buy. But I do have a pretty good idea about what I would collect if I were actually collecting.   
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