For twenty-five years I have collected liberty seated dollars, for ten years Washington colonials and for about two draped bust half dollars.  My collection is not huge, nor is it fantastically valuable, but it certainly is a source of aesthetic pleasure. If you are just beginning in some area of classic US type coins, such as my collecting interests, I offer these words of advice (after twenty years of experience, some costly) for you to think about as you pursue your collecting dreams.

1)  If you are not an expert in grading, then be certain to BUY COINS THAT ARE CERTIFIED BY ONE OF THE MAJORS -- PCGS and NGC are probably the ones I trust most but ICG, ANACS, SEGS and PCI are solid as well.  You must use ANACS, SEGS, NCS or PCI if you want to have "problem" collector coins certified.  These grading services are certainly not perceived as being equal in the market place so do your homework.

1.a.) Know that there is typically a premium for the first two--NGC and PCGS. In my experience PCGS is the tightest on grading liberty seated dollars.  But that is a general idea and for any particular coin you have to judge by the coin and not the grading service.  I once busted out an ANACS dollar in XF40 and sent it to PCGS who graded it AU50. A Washington colonial in  a PCI  holder as VF35 came back from PCGS  as AU53.

1.b.) If you collect classic coins such as liberty seated dollars the market is flooded with COUNTERFEITS AND FAKES so buying the major certifieds protects you from the truly catastrophic and costly mistake of acquiring a fake coin. Make sure that the slab itself is not a fake!

2)  If you are collecting a series, BUY THE RAREST AND MOST EXPENSIVE COIN THAT YOU CAN AFFORD FIRST.  It has been my experience, that those coins for which I went the extra mile in my budget, because they were the costliest and rarest, have performed the best.  I believe you will be better off in the long run purchasing two high level coins per year rather than eight more ordinary and less expensive pieces.  Do your homework on scarcity. 

3) BUY THE HIGHEST GRADE THAT YOU CAN REASONABLY AFFORD. One of the chief factors in rarity is condition and there are always buyers out there for my very best conditioned coins.  They are the same coins I am most reluctant to part with because they are so hard to replace. 

4) Most importantly, BUY THE MOST ATTRACTIVE COIN THAT YOU CAN FIND.  If you follow the major auctions and look at their items you will find that sometimes two liberty seated dollars of the same date in PCGS slabs with the same grade will bring vastly different amounts.  Some of this is due to high-end and low-end coins in the same grade, and some has to do with little scratches, rim bumps or blemishes (by the way, they never go away and they are always the first thing you see when you go back to view your coins), but most of it has to do with a simple factor -- attractiveness.  If I had it to do over I would never buy a coin because it was in a slab and had marked a technical grade.  I would only buy coins that are pretty and if they were outstandingly so, I would certainly pay the premium that dealers ask. 

So, in summary, as a bit of collector's advice, BUY CERTIFIED, RARE & EXPENSIVE, HIGHEST GRADE YOU CAN AFFORD, and most importantly BEAUTIFUL COINS.  When coin professionals advise that you look for quality, I think that they are advising you to do these things.  Of course you need to be careful, do your homework in the market, pricing, honesty, etc. because dealers, after all, are making their living by selling you their coins.  These are just things that I have learned for myself and I offer them to you to take or to leave as you wish.  In some instances I wish that I had received (or heard) this advice twenty-five years ago.