Do You Have a Salmagundi Coin Collection?

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Some collectors have pieces like these octagonal Lesher Dollars, which may not necessarily fit in many collectors’ more conventional sets but in fact could be the first piece in an incredibly exciting PCGS Registry Set of its own. Click image to enlarge.   

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a little corner of my collection containing pieces that don’t really fit as a group in any single category. There’s a term I like to use to describe that collection: a salmagundi collection. After all, Merriam-Webster defines salmagundi as a “heterogenous mixture,” and that really works as a fine catch-all term for my loose assemblage of miscellaneous pieces – coins that don’t really fit in any set, assorted tokens and medals, and other odds and ends I want to keep but just don’t know where else to park.

No known data tells us how many coin collectors have such a subset of miscellanea in their collections, nor can I cite a percentage of numismatists who have such holdings. But a major plurality of collectors have items that don’t neatly fit into any specific set. And that’s where the importance of a salmagundi collection comes into play. The salmagundi set becomes something of a collection of its own – a hodgepodge of pieces that, together, might help tell a story about you as a collector, your interests, or where your life has taken you.

But there’s something else about salmagundi collections worth noting. They can provide you with a wellspring of potential opportunities to begin building new sets, new avenues for your collection. Perhaps there are one or two pieces among those so-called “odds and ends” that might just intrigue you enough that you decide to use them as the cornerstone for a brand new formal set. And with thousands of categories available, the PCGS Set Registry offers a plethora of exciting opportunities to turn those oddments into the next chapters of your numismatic journey.