I have (too?) long been a regular subscriber customer with the Finnish mint. Back in the early 90's, when commems were still more the exception than the rule, I worked to acquire and maintain a complete set of Finnish commems. That meant buying each year's issue(s) along with getting the older issues. With a couple of exceptions this was fairly easy. In 1994 the mint added proof coins to their regular offering, in addition to issuing multiple commems each year. For silver commems, for example, this now means 4 coins each year. That might not come off so bad, but their pricing is becoming IMO beyond reasonable. What gets me most is that as a long time regular subscriber, I never receive any discounts or any other type of "loyalty" recognition. I have even been charged postage on 3 individual shipments that I received within the same week. €5 on each shipment quickly adds up.

Anyhow, I have long continued to buy whatever they strike just for the sake of my complete set. At the same time I have longed after the real silver crowns that I cannot afford to buy because much of my funds have gone to automatically buying the mint's output.

Even as many here in Finland have ranted against the commem assembly line here, I have swallowed the mint's hefty bill to keep my complete set intact. Well, I have finally decided to put a closing date (SLAM) on my complete set of commems, mint and proof sets and give up on supporiting the mint's growing bottom line and move on to other coins that I have actually wanted. This is not to say that I'll never pick one up here or there if I can get it at a considerable discount. I just will not buy a coin at a retail price that already contains a major markup just because the mint issues it.

Now this literally frees up more than €350+ each year. I can finally go after some of the more scarce coins in the general circulation series of Finn coins.

I'm liberated!

I think the closest I come to collecting a lot of commems from one country is Netherlands from which I collect the circulating €5 and €10 coins. I only do the face values. I rarely ever buy anything from the US mint, to much markup, lousy designs, lousy packaging etc. The only commem I have bought in years was last years SF mint commem, nice coin, lousy packaging.

Guess that was a tough decision, after many years of aiming at (and coming closer to) a complete collection ... But in my opinion you did the right thing. If the only reason for buying a coin is "well, the mint issued it, so I must have it", collecting coins is not really fun any more. Especially so if the issue price of a coin is so much higher than its face value.


And back here, posting again ... Dare I say "welcome back"?

Christian

Congratulations!


Jose

If you stop buying the commemoratives now, that still means you can try to obtain a complete commem set untill now. I think that is already an achievement.
Personally I still miss the 100 markkaa Schjerfbeck and Kivi (if we forget the gold 1000 and 2000 markkaa modern coins.) I never really started to collect the euro commemoratives. It is a bit of a shame that they started issueing that many coins. The regular issueing of 1 or 2 100 markkaa coins was far less expensive to keep up with.

I stopped buying from the Dutch mint a few years ago. I still buy the silver 5 and 10 Eurocoins but except the first two issues never bought any gold commemoratives. Two or three a year is way too expensive next to all the other coins I buy on a regular basis.

Congratulations on you decision! It takes courage to let go....

That is exactly what I plan on doing. I am almost there. I have the two you mention below. I am missing only 2 coins for the entire silver commems (1951-->) and they are the key pieces. Now I may actually be able to save to buy them!





Thank you for your comment and support! And welcome!

I know exactly how you feel as I quit playing the Mint game years ago. Now I target coins I WANT to add to my world collection and let all the mint hype slide by. It is just too costly to keep up and I, like ScottishMoney, count on European collectors to help me fill my silver commemorative dreams as long as they are purchased a face value as the dealer markup, by the time they get over here, is tremendous. I am still having fun, building a collection, and learning a little history.