Coin Collection Tracker

What the tracker counts

Each series page on WePlayCoins has a table of every coin we list for that series, with a tick box on each row. The tracker counts your ticks per series and compares them with the number of rows in that table. The total includes circulation strikes, proofs and other collector issues and the major varieties we list, so a series shown at 60% may already be complete for the circulation coins you are actually collecting.

That is deliberate. Collectors set different goals for the same series and the tracker does not decide for you. If you collect only circulation strikes, tick those and treat the remainder as optional. If you want the proofs and varieties too, the full total is your target.

Choosing a collecting goal

A date set has one coin of every year in a series. A date and mint mark set has one of every year from every mint that struck the coin. For Lincoln wheat cents that means the 1909-S VDB and the 1914-D, which is why many collectors start with a later series. A type set has one example of each design, regardless of date. A year set has every coin issued in a single year, often a birth year. A short set covers a popular slice of a long series, such as Walking Liberty halves dated 1941 to 1947.

Modern series make good first projects because the coins still turn up in change. The 50 State quarters of 1999 to 2008 were struck for circulation at Philadelphia and Denver, which gives 100 circulation coins to find. The six DC and US Territories quarters of 2009 add twelve more. Jefferson nickels from 1938 and Roosevelt dimes from 1946 are also realistic date and mint sets without any great rarities in the circulation issues.

A worked example of tracking a set

Say you are building State quarters from change. Open the State quarter series page and tick the Delaware quarter from Philadelphia when you find it. Your tick is saved against that one coin. When you return to the tracker, the State quarters row shows one coin ticked and a progress bar against the full list. Tick the Denver Delaware quarter later and the count rises to two. Untick a box at any time if you sell or upgrade a coin. If you later buy a proof set, you can tick the S-mint proofs too and watch the bar move closer to the full total.

Keeping your list safe

The tracker saves your ticks in your browser's local storage on the device you are using. It never leaves that browser, which keeps it private, but it also means a few things can erase it. Clearing cookies and site data for this site removes it. A private or incognito window keeps nothing after it closes. A different browser, a different browser profile or a different device each starts with an empty list.

To protect a large list, take a screenshot of each series table now and then, or keep a simple written record alongside it. The tracker records only whether you own a coin. It does not store a grade, a purchase source or which holder the coin is in, so a notebook or spreadsheet is the right place for those details.

Mistakes that skew your progress

The most common slip is ticking the proof row when you own the circulation strike, or the reverse. Proofs have mirror fields and usually come from sets, while circulation coins come from change. The second is ticking a variety row, such as a doubled die or an overdate, for a normal coin of the same date. Only tick a variety after checking the diagnostics on its page, such as the doubled letters or the shape of an underlying digit. The third is misreading the mint mark. A coin with no mint mark from the 1960s or earlier is usually a Philadelphia coin, but coins dated 1965 to 1967 carry no mint mark from any mint.

Frequently asked questions