Building a Headless CMS for Niche Collectors: A Technical Deep Dive

Let’s talk about the future of content management. It’s headless, yes — but more importantly, it’s built for speed, flexibility, and real-world use. I recently built a headless CMS for a community of coin collectors, the kind who obsess over PCGS slabbed type sets down to the tiniest die variety. If you’re a developer, technical founder, or CTO trying to serve a niche audience with complex, media-rich content, you’re in the right place.

Why Go Headless for a Collector’s Platform?

Sure, WordPress works for blogs. But when your users are uploading high-res coin images, tracking PCGS grades, and building curated sets with metadata, traditional CMSs hit a wall. They’re slow, rigid, and struggle with custom content types.

A headless CMS fixes that. For collectors, it means:

• Performance: Static site generation and CDN caching cut load times.
• Flexibility: Build your frontend with React, Vue, or whatever fits your team.

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• Scalability: Scale on AWS, Vercel, or any cloud setup without breaking a sweat.
• Content Reusability: One coin entry appears on the web, in the app, and in a future NFT marketplace.

Choosing the Right Headless CMS

We tested the top players for our coin platform. Here’s what stood out:

• Contentful: Fully managed, strong API, great for modeling structured content like coin sets and user profiles. If you want a tool that just works, this is it.
• Strapi: Open-source, self-hosted, and fully customizable. Love if your team wants to tweak the admin panel or add custom logic.
• Sanity.io: Real-time editing, GROQ queries, and flexible content modeling. Great if your content has complex relationships — like coins, varieties, and provenance.

We picked **Contentful**. Why? Our data was clean and predictable: coins, sets, grades, images, and user profiles. No need for over-engineering. Contentful let us model it fast and scale efficiently.

We set up:

• Collection sets with nested coin entries
• Each coin with year, mint, PCGS/NGC grade, die variety (think LM-4), and image gallery
• Multiple high-res images per coin
• User profiles with bios and owned sets
• Threaded comments on each coin

Structuring Content for a Coin Collecting Platform

Good content modeling is the backbone of any headless CMS. Don’t treat it like a database — think like a collector.

We built content types that mirror real behavior:

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• Set: A curated list of coins. Think “1916–1930 Standing Liberty Quarters.”

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• Coin: One specific piece with year, mint, grade (MS-64, AU-55), certification, die variety, and images.
• Image Gallery: Multiple shots — obverse, reverse, slab front, slab back — with descriptive alt text for SEO and accessibility.
• User: Collector profile, interests, and their owned sets.
• Comment: Discussions on coin quality, rarity, or market value.

Here’s a peek at our Contentful model in JSON:

{
"contentTypes": [
{
"name": "Coin",
"fields": [
{ "id": "year", "name": "Year", "type": "Number" },
{ "id": "mint", "name": "Mint", "type": "Symbol" },
{ "id": "grade", "name": "Grade", "type": "Symbol" },
{ "id": "certification", "name": "Certification", "type": "Symbol" },
{ "id": "images", "name": "Images", "type": "Array", "items": { "type": "Link", "linkType": "Asset" } },
{ "id": "dieVariety", "name": "Die Variety", "type": "Symbol" }
]
},
{
"name": "Set",
"fields": [
{ "id": "name", "name": "Name", "type": "Symbol" },
{ "id": "coins", "name": "Coins", "type": "Array", "items": { "type": "Link", "linkType": "Entry" } }
]
}
]
}

Building the Frontend with Jamstack and Static Site Generators

Fast sites get more engagement. For us, that meant Jamstack — pre-rendered, CDN-hosted, and CDN-cached.

We tested two popular static site generators:

• Next.js: React-based, supports static generation (SSG) and server-side rendering (SSR). Perfect for mostly static content (coin details) with some dynamic features (comments).
• Gatsby: Also React, great for pure static sites with GraphQL data layer. But we needed flexibility for user signups and live comments.

We went with **Next.js**. It let us pre-render coin and set pages during build, while handling real-time comments via API routes.

Fetching Content from Contentful

We use getStaticProps to pull coin and set data at build time. getStaticPaths generates individual pages for each set and coin.

For comments, we load them client-side using the Contentful Delivery API. No need to rebuild the whole site for every new comment.

// pages/sets/[slug].js
export async function getStaticProps({ params }) {
const data = await client.getEntries({
content_type: 'set',
'fields.slug': params.slug
});
return { props: { set: data.items[0] } };
}

export async function getStaticPaths() {
const data = await client.getEntries({ content_type: 'set' });
const paths = data.items.map((set) => ({
params: { slug: set.fields.slug },
}));
return { paths, fallback: false };
}

Result? Every coin set loads instantly. No waiting. No flickering.

Handling Media: Image Optimization and Delivery

For collectors, images are everything. A poorly cropped or blurry shot can kill trust — and engagement.

We use Contentful’s image API to serve the right image, every time:

<img src="https://images.ctfassets.net/.../coin.jpg?w=800&h=800&fit=fill&f=face" alt="PCGS MS-64 1916 Standing Liberty Quarter" />

• Responsive images: Serve 300px on mobile, 800px on desktop.
• Lazy loading: Don’t load images until they’re in view.
• Format optimization: WebP when supported, JPEG fallback.

We also let users upload multiple images per coin. That way, they can show both sides of a slab, or compare two coins side-by-side — a huge win for serious collectors.

Engaging the Community: Comments and User-Generated Content

A platform isn’t just content — it’s conversation. Collectors want to debate grades, share stories, and ask questions.

We built a comment system using Contentful’s REST API. Here’s how it works:

1. User types a comment. Client-side validation checks for spam or empty text.
2. Comment sent to a Next.js API route.
3. Route creates a new entry in Contentful, linked to the coin and user.
4. Real-time update via WebSockets (Pusher) pushes the comment to everyone viewing that coin.

// pages/api/comments.js
export default async function handler(req, res) {
const { coinId, text, userId } = req.body;
const entry = await client.createEntry('comment', {
fields: {
coin: { 'en-US': { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: coinId } } },
text: { 'en-US': text },
user: { 'en-US': { sys: { type: 'Link', linkType: 'Entry', id: userId } } },
},
});
// Push to all viewers
pusher.trigger('comments', 'new-comment', entry);
res.status(201).json(entry);
}

No page refresh. No lag. Just instant community.

Performance Optimization: Caching, CDN, and Lazy Loading

Speed keeps users engaged. We focused on three key areas:

• CDN Caching: Static pages and images served from Vercel’s edge network.
• Stale-While-Revalidate: For coin details that rarely change, we serve cached content while updating in the background.
• Image Lazy Loading: Only load images as users scroll.
• Code Splitting: Break JS into per-route bundles. Faster first load.

Result? Average page load under 1 second. Even on mobile.

Key Takeaways for Building a Headless CMS

Building for niche communities isn’t about flashy features. It’s about solving real problems — fast loading, flexible content, and authentic engagement.

Here’s what worked for us:

• Pick the right CMS: Contentful for low-maintenance, Strapi for control, Sanity for real-time.
• Model content like a user: Think “coin set,” not “database table.”
• Use Jamstack: Next.js or Gatsby for speed and simplicity.
• Optimize images hard: Responsive, lazy, WebP — every byte counts.
• Build community features early: Comments, profiles, and real-time updates keep users coming back.
• Cache everything: CDNs aren’t optional. They’re essential.

The tools are out there. With the right setup, you can build a platform that collectors love — one where they don’t just view content, they live in it. Just like those sharing their PCGS slabbed sets, one coin at a time.

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