A proposal for recognizing rarity, cost, demand, etc., across wildly different collecting spectrums -

(This is in reply to Captain Clipon's post, but I thought a new registry proposal merited its own journal entry. Please read his message board thread, found at the end of this journal.)

We modern MS collectors, we know we're niche collectors, in a minority at that. It's comparably cheap to buy a top-pop for us (say, $2000 on the open market, $1000 in live auction, or $400 on EBay $.01 starting bid), but it's near impossible to assemble a collection, because stuff is either not available, or it takes legwork and luck (roll- and mint set-searching!) to find the raw stuff.

I propose a 3-tier points system:

A. Points for all classic coinage.

B. Points for all modern proof and commemorative coinage (including all bullion).

C. Points for all modern business strikes.

These 3 sets of points could be tracked separately, like baseball statistics, and combined in various ways to portray a collection's cost, rarity, completeness (like type sets), etc.

I think all coins would benefit from this system. The only type to fall through the cracks, I see, would be the 2005-2010 SMS. They're readily available, like proofs, but expensive and rarely sold, like MS; and the top-pop's are deceptively less available than one might think.

Posting this as a journal entry, too, instead of response to board thread here:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=4946911#Post4946911