In terms of what's spent, I haven't changed my coin
buying habits any, but in terms of what I'm getting, I have. Nothing I've gotten has been fabulously expensive, though. I'm a lot more apt to look for early to mid-Byzantine Solidi, even if they're common, though, before gold goes up even more and/or fears of the dollar's worth.
I recently got back into
Byzantines, and the
Byzantine bronze market seems to be down, so I picked up some relative bargains in that
field.
I found that between better coins, one can
still keep ones' interests up with sub-$50 coins. One can get decent grade ones of stuff like
Gallienus or Diocletianic-era Folles. They're fun for study, and fun to collect different
types; for example
bust types of
Probus.
I briefly tried my hand at uncleaneds, just for the fun of it, a few years ago. It took me forever to clean them and I wasn't
very good at it. Also, it was mostly AE3s, and low-grade ones at that. I quickly gave up on those.
The best deal on
bulk coins I ever got was for $1.50 each for 2nd century
Asses and
Dupondii and 2nd-3rd century
provincials. They weren't at all bad for the
money - almost none were below VG, and most were pushing
Fine . I bought a few hundred of those. I don't think I'll ever get deals like that again, though. That being said, I usually don't buy low-grade
bulk coins.