What is more desired errors or die varieties?

[liveandievarieties]

I think anything that can be priced in a price guide is more liquid, therefore more collectible, die varieties fit into this, errors do not. But you can have an error that most people would only pay $100 for and if you price it at $500 and someone else is equally impressed, it's worth that. You can't triple the price of a '72 DDO and expect to sell it.

We know of $100,000+ error coins and there are a few die varieties I could list off the top of my head that would reach that price range too.

So again, each has it's upside. Probably not a question that can be definitively answered.

BUT, if I were going to sell one or the other for the rest of my life, I'd put my money on die varieties. The field has grown more than a tenfold in the last decade. Not certain I could say that about errors.

[GrumpyEd]

I think that most "errors" that people find are very minor, chips and cracks and things that are quality issues that were still within the tolerance of what the mint considered normal. They might sell on ebay but if you had a hoard of them it won't be an easy sell.
The in between stuff like nice greasers or CUDs get a better premium but not a huge premium and they're harder to find. To get big money, you need to find an off metal or cap or off center or something extreme and those don't come easy from searching. To find those takes investing in unsearched bags or they come from coin rolling companies.

With that in mind, it's tough to compare the prices of the big errors that you can't normally find in the wild with some of the varieties that you can find in the wild without investing in unsearched bags or having an in with the coin rolling companies.
I mean how often do people here find a high dollar error coin in the wild? Then compare that to how often people find a high dollar variety, I think the varieties are more findable in the wild and more likely that you'll find a $200+ variety than a $200+ error. (just my opinion).

The prices of errors are wild because there's no such thing as a complete set or real price guide based on date/condition/error and quantifying the magnitude of each unique coin is difficult. It only comes from an actual sale.

Error sales are more random, the reason is they can look extreme, so a non collector that sees some tiny variety sell for a lot comes across an auction for a wild off center coin and jumps in the bidding. It makes for anomalies in pricing but still, if you have a hoard of them you are more likely to get the normal value for them.

Varieties are easier to define, people might focus on the CPG listed doubled dies or RPMs listed in the guides.
Errors have no bounds, where do you start, when do you have a complete set?

The two things are very different, I think there's no right answer.
Everyone should collect what interests them.

It's two different things, hard to compare.

[coppercoins]

And what GrumpyEd says is precisely the most prevalent reason why errors do not interest me at all. First, the only errors any of us are likely to find range from very common and not worth anything in the marketplace to those which are relatively easy to find with some persistence and worth less than a tank of gas. Furthermore, nobody knows what consists a 'set' because nobody knows exactly what is out there and they cannot be finitely cataloged and categorized.

Die varieties are very simple. All of them (within reason) are candidates for location in very simple and inexpensive methods. I know a person who found a 1955 DDO in a jar of wheat cents purchased at an outdoor flea market for $10. And yes, it was authenticated. Although we are certain that not all of them have been indexed and cataloged by any one source, we do know what constitutes (currently) a 'complete' set, and we know which ones are missing from our collections. We also know when we have a duplicate which we do not need to keep and can be sold or traded for something we do need. If a buyer and a seller use the same identification system, both can easily agree on which ones the buyer needs and which ones the seller has. more exciting, we also know when one is found that is not yet listed in any given system. They can easily be forensically identified.

I suppose I need 'order' to collect, and errors simply do not provide this for me.

It's all a matter of how your brain works to categorize items, whether having a nearly infinite group of items to choose from appeals to you more than knowing the goal, and where your interests lie. I once thought about collecting a full set of clipped planchet Lincoln cents, and quickly decided against it because I had no idea whether a 1918D clipped planchet even existed. I was done with that idea before I ever started. I MUST know whether the goal is obtainable before I start.

What fascinates me the most is the people who like and collect both. It's sort of like writing with both hands at the same time, one backward and one forward. I see it as a nearly impossible feat to do anything so mutually exclusive from one another...but that's just me.

[coppercoins]

To add, the only place where I see the two 'cross' is in die errors. Because the error is on the die (CUDs, BIE errors, etc), they can be cataloged, and anyone with enough time and energy can even use markers from the error to identify coins minted by the same die before the error occurred, and by the same token, they can follow the error through die retirement in progression.

That I find interesting, however the time I spend in die varieties precludes my involvement in die errors partly because I have resigned to the fact that I will likely never be able to finish my goal (which is fine, because I at least know my goal) with the time given in a lifetime, and partly because I have far less interest in die errors than in die varieties and would view them as a diversion from that goal which I will already likely not accomplish. No sense wasting time on a half-interest when the primary interest will already take more time than I likely have.

[jallengomez]

I think that most "errors" that people find are very minor, chips and cracks and things that are quality issues that were still within the tolerance of what the mint considered normal. They might sell on ebay but if you had a hoard of them it won't be an easy sell.

The problem I have with this is that in the first sentence you can substitute "varieties" for errors, split-serifs for "chips", and Class VI doubled dies for "cracks" and the conclusion is still the same. I'll even go so far as to say it's just as easy to find them.

[GrumpyEd]

On the west coast I can search bags of mostly D mint cents and find many minor errors/quality control stuff but finding a variety is much tougher. I'd need to look at a lot more coins to find a list-able RPM or doubled die. If I only consider wheat cents, I do find a lot of class 6 DDRs and stuff but I'd need to buy the wheats to search them.

In any case, I don't search based on value of stuff. It's more based on that I like being able to look up the info about the variety or something like that and it's for fun. (I'm not really sure LOL) I don't care for extremely minor stuff, maybe the top 1000 varieties.

If the question is what to save in the hope of making money I think it's not either. Varieties and errors make a fun hobby or someone can make money selling finds if they search a lot. For an investment, I have no reason to think holding a hoard of either will do better than other investments.