Is this a reasonable starter collection?

I've been collecting for years and am only starting to take my collection very seriously now.

My collection is over 700 pins but I rarely buy from legit sellers so the majority are scrappers. I'm going to start going for quality over quantity now.

I like how most of you have a collection of a particular type of pin or character/movie/etc. and want to start my own. So, I've been brainstorming what I want to collect over the weekend. Donald is one of my favourite characters, so he seemed like the obvious choice, but then I started thinking, there aren't many variants to his pins and I would get bored of collecting them pretty quickly. I also considered Pixar but after a look on DPP, I realised there many Pixar pins that I really like. That lead me to villains. Oh those pins are so pretty :anxious:... But the prices for buying all the best looking ones are not so appealing :cry:

UK Pins! Perfect! So much variation and I live in Ireland so they are easy to obtain.. But that makes it harder for me to trade in the US and Canada (and hopefully I'll be living in Canada in a few years!), because a lot less people will have them. Ok, not so perfect!

So I looked through my collection and started to try to work out what I really like. I realised most of my favourites are LEs so then I started considering collecting LEs. They obviously have a huge variation and are great quality.

I was surprised when sorting through my collection to see that I have quite a few already. My LE collection so far:

http://disneypinforum.com/showthread.php?44800-My-LEs-D-*picture-heavy*

So basically I'm just wondering if this collection is possible on a budget. I know I will NEVER be a completest with this collection, but I should be able to collect small sets within the collection and there are so many pretty LE pins.

It sounds perfect but I'm a student so it could get difficult. I would love to double my LEs within a year, but I'm a student AND saving for a holiday that I can't really afford...

Opinions? (Or other collection suggestions)

Any collection is possible on a budget. What you need to think about is pace. Do you buy 100 pins per month and bankrupt yourself, or do you limit yourself to 2 or 3 (or however many you budget for) and be content with that? You may never have all of them, but that's not really the point. Trading and having fun is.

LE's can be very pricey. Think of how many low number LE's come out of the DSF every month. That is not to say you shouldn't collect them, but why limit yourself to just LE's? There are many open edition pins that can look as nice or better then some LE's. I have a friend who at one time only collected LE 100's. That got very pricey.

Besides having one of the most obscure collections in all Disney pindom, I find that something that helps me along is focusing on defined sets. For example, part of my collection is a five pin set that has Mickey and Co. as characters from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That gave me a definite and finite goal. For you, maybe you want to collect Villains, and focus on individual Villain sets rather than every Villain pin ever made. I also set up narrow parametres, like they have to (for the most part) have Disney characters on them (like that five-pin set I mentioned) and aren't just logos or whatever random pin comes out. So again for you, it could be something like only collecting pins of Donald where he's angry. Narrowly focusing what I collect helped me out a lot (in fact, I'm about two pins away from pretty much finishing my one main collection).

I guess the real question is, do you feel you have to be a "completionist (sp?)?" I know I would never be able to with my collections because a) it would cost a ton of money and b) everyday I find new pins I want that I didn't know existed. I have also come to realize that I don't like every pin that fits in my collection category that is out there but have targeted a specific sub-catgories to focus on.

No I don't feel like I need to be a completest, but I do want to complete sub-catagories

I don't intend to limit myself. I will focus more on those pins, but if I see another pin I like I will trade/buy it