Put some context and background into your coin collecting
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
Most of us forget that coins we collect were/are money. They were used by real people to buy necessities, luxuries, travel and other needs. However, we often ignore the context in which these coins were used, and the daily impact even the smallest denomination could have on the lives of ordinary people.
May I recommend that collectors spend a little of their hobby time viewing some of the following Public Broadcasting PBS), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and other high quality, non-commercial productions. These are based on historically accurate sources including large collections of private diaries and interdisciplinary historical studies. Some recommended productions include:
Texas Ranch House (1867)
Victorian Slum House (1870s)
PBS - Frontier House (1883 Montana)
The 1900 House
The 1940s House
All are available through Public Broadcasting Service archives or in current broadcasting series.
Comments
@RogerB In addition to what you say, I have purchased a few proof coins from the 1860s. When I look at these coins, I think of the collector who purchased it from the mint and try to envision his (or her) life. I also believe that while we are both products of our times, so that we'd likely disagree about many social issues, nonetheless we'd both have in common an intense interest in coins and so probably would be able to have an enjoyable conversation.
Hard to pin point anything specific. My taste in this hobby is eclectic. Gold and silver bullion, a few complete/incomplete Danscos. Slabs, snaps, Saflips, rolls, bags and a jar.
Absolutely no organization as it appears written but I know. 😎
Mmmmmm, shiny objects.
Me need shiny... Me want shiny... Me buy shiny...
(No, my collection isn't solely based on shiny. I have a lot of uncirculated coins as well.
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Great suggestion, Roger. Let's hope our younger generation find the same love for history and numismatics.
Some months ago a roll of 1883-no cents nickels showed up at auction. The coins were clearly pulled from circulation. Total investment was $2. Who assembled the roll? Why? $2 was a day's pay for a worker. Would any ordinary worker have kept the coins? A nickel paid for lunch or a bench to sleep on at a flop house. Would a small store owner put aside the coins in speculation that they would be "recalled" as touted in newspapers?
The coins we collect are more than shiny pieces of metal now trapped in impersonal plastic coffins. As we become further removed from the tactile aspects of the hobby, maybe we can come closer to the practical past of coinage, and the people who depended on it.
Well I'm still plugging holes with raw coins.
Coin collecting is FUN ...... part of my historical study along the way and building a little hoard to pass on to my future hydrants
I am highly aware of the value of each down to a penny.
One of my brothers lives in a country where our US $100 = 100.000.00........ making me thought about what would they possibly get when I shelled 2K on a single coin for example.
Well ..... decades from now I am hoping to see more knowledgeable YNs here as young experts ..... afraid to have only old historic threads to refer to and void of 'live interaction' type of discussions
I often look up big events and how life was in the years of many of my coins. For example, a $20 gold piece for 1908 likely represented a good week of pay for many folks.
It would be good to learn more about Everyman collectors. I mostly read about prominent collectors because there’s more published on them.
I often ponder what real money was worth back then also. Interesting when compared to yesteryear gold appears to be way overpriced and silver underpriced. Gold to silver value ratio was roughly 25 to 1 back then. Now its more like 100 to 1 ! Maybe one could compare today copper to zinc
I trade bad Federal Reserve currency for valuable precious metals
Menomonee Falls Wisconsin USA
http://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistr...dset.aspx?s=68269&ac=1">Musky 1861 Mint Set
I don’t watch any of those shows, but I do read a lot books. I just finished one on the House of Tudor and now “Capitalism in America” by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge.
The books are great, but sometimes it takes a good dramatization to bring the real dirt and poverty home.
I'm bringing some bums in to look at my coins.
To paraphrase your quote, $20 still is a weeks pay in many parts of the world.
A $20 gold coin is still great weekly pay for anyone the world over.
Even the people who read history/biography books or watch these shows/films are subject to what I will call "being trapped in our present time". This might be called something-centric, but I can't find the correct word for that something.
Especially we tend to think that the things that motivate us also motivated people in the past. This is true for some basic human needs and emotions, but our lives and our personas are probably more complex than someone who lived 150 years ago, or someone who lived 1,000 years ago. This greater modern-day complexity affects how we think.
We are used to much more wealth than most of our ancestors. We are used to exceedingly great technology, technology that has come very far in the six decades that I have been alive. Same thing with medicine. Same thing with air travel. Today, we can ignore the effects/impacts of weather about 90% of the time. We make many quick assumptions that very few persons would have been capable of in the past.
The other day, somebody here imagined the collectors of the 1860s flocking to the Royal Mint in London to secure each New Year's newly dated coins. I had to look a couple of times at that statement - I don't think that actually happened on any great scale. It might have been very rare. The nice coins of that era which we have today were more a factor of lucky chance. There were coin collectors in those days, of course, but their primary focus was elsewhere, not on what were then everyday modern coins/spending money.
I do think that people should know some history, and I think that people should study it. But we too are trapped in a slot in time, just like our forebearers. We rarely think of the likely way that our great-great grandchildren will live, and when we think about the past there are many things that we might know, but mostly do not. Trapped in the present.
I tend to have trouble keeping interested in historical texts (I'm attempting to read the Communist Manifesto for example right now), so watching a documentary is definitely more up my alley.
I do like to think about the people that used the coins I buy. I don't mind buying nice worn examples of things both because they are often more in my budget, but also because as you said, they were originally intended for everyday use through commerce. It's fun to have a nice worn example of something and wonder what its life was. Why does it have the marks it has. Did someone use it as a screwdriver at some point because they needed to pop something open and it was in their pocket? Why is it all worn down, how many counters did it slide across to purchase lunch? While I like the mint examples for showing what the coins fully looked like when new, they are somewhat boring to me from a historical stand point because they have essentially been kept in some random drawer or safe for decades or centuries. They never served their purpose.
Collector of randomness. Photographer at PCGS. Lover of Harry Potter.
I was just looking from the point of $20. $20 was $20 in 1908 regardless of
metal content or currency. Today $20 is still a good weeks pay in many parts
of the world. $20 gold piece would even be better ; roughly $1200 today.
It is called presentism: uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.
Thinking about how a coin was used is fun for ancients, too.
After learning to attribute Roman coins, I was curious and ended up reading some history on wiki and watching some battle videos.
ARCO = Word-of-the-day award !
For Roman coins, as series such as "I Claudius" (BBC & PBS) can provide both historical and dramatic context.
The books 'I Claudius' and 'Claudius the God', by Robert Graves, both eclipse the television series, although those shows are very good too. The books are easy reads, especially if you have read Suetonius' 'Twelve Caesars'.