Competitive registry sets?

I don’t collect slabbed coins but people tell me that there is a lot of fun in “competitive sets”.  For those who haven’t seen “sets”, NGC and PCGS display a list of the top collections, by completeness and grade, of coin types.  Some of the sets are thematic, such as “Chopmarked Coins of the World”, but often the sets correspond to a single Numista type.

For example, here are the sets of Edward VII farthings:

https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/british-copper-bronze/british-farthings/british-edward-vii-farthing-date-set-circulation-strikes-1902-1910/1501

https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive/united-kingdom/great-britain-pre-decimal/1059/

Users of the above sites can see who has most complete and highest grade collection for a type.  Clicking on a top-ranked user leads to a page with the for each slot.

It occurs to me that Numista already has the data needed to produce “Numista Registry Sets” for each N#, and to display individual coins in winning sets.

Of course, to fully capture what PCGS and NGC are doing you’d need to support a run of N#s.  For example, an “all Victoria Farthings set” could be N#s 5501, 5500, 1013, and 6640.  I don’t think multi-N# sets are mandatory; I would be happy merely to see the top sets for each N#.

PCGS and NGC’s competitive sets are “opt-in”.  Requiring per-set registration seems tedious; for Numista it might be sufficient to automatically enable sets for any user who allows their inventory to be shown.

Seems like a pissing contest for money bags. Sorry, not for me.

You may be right for PCGS and NGC, but perhaps things will be different here?

I’ve been trying to collect circulating coinage from The Cooperative Republic of Guyana.  Take cents, N# 4763.  I am missing 1972, 1983, and 1991.  According to NGC’s price guide I can complete the set and get all three of these in MS 65 for just US$0.90.  Yet I have been struggling to get examples in any grade.

https://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/guyana-cent-km-31-1967-1992-cuid-1122332-duid-1333246

I’ve seen photos of the 1972 online..  The 1991 might exist — someone even has one for swap — but the one offered for swap can’t be located.  No photos of the 1983 exist, even though the claimed mintage is 12,000,000.

A competitive set for N#4763 would let me see who else is collecting the type by slot.  I would see what they are struggling with.  It might give some insight beyond bragging rights.

I don't see this as a “pissing contest” but a valid suggestion since that's what some collectors do. 

Here's a similar thread on Coin Sets just recently bumped by Brismike.  

esnible

 The 1991 might exist — someone even has one for swap — but the one offered for swap can’t be located.  

I would support this idea overall if it is doable.

And regarding your comment about 1991 Guyana cent. Don't pay attention to Numista pages for rare years. There are SO many people who just randomly select any year line and don't care, or simply select it by mistake. In most cases they just select the first year line, that is why when the first line is rare, it shows that a lot of people have it. But it happens with all the lines.

Hello,

PCGS and NGC are able to organize this kind of competition because they can control whether you actually own the coin, using the slab number. At least that's what I understood. On Numista, there is no control over which coins members add to their collection. I fear this would make any collection competition irrelevant.

Good points, Xavier.

I don't know how the slab companies verify you own the slab.  Perhaps this is why I see slabs for sale on eBay with the serial numbers blacked out – to keep people from claiming they own those slabs?

If we see something we think is impossible, for example a user claims to have a coin in UNC where the finest known is an XF, we can message the user and ask them to add their photo.  Numista can also "score" higher if the user supplies a picture, rather than just selecting a grade, to encourage this.  An UNC with a picture would score higher than an UNC.

We don't see people offering to swap coins they don't have.  I suspect people would also not enter competitions with coins they don't have.  I could enter a N#145598 for swap today, a $250,000 coin, and refuse all swaps.  People would soon stop believing anything I said.