Why do you collect?
ajyas
Posts: 43 ✭✭✭
It feels really cool to me to hold a piece of history that has probably changed hands from many different people, as well as many coins have such attractive designs, my favorite probably being the mercury dime and a lot of the new national parks quarters are just breathtaking to look at (2019 San Antonio), even if practically worthless. Most of all, I just like shiny things.
Why do you collect?
</> Everybody wants to get the bread, but no one wants to eat the crust. </>
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Comments
Knowledge and learning. Relaxation and stress reduction. Personal pleasure (including appreciation of beauty, and pride of ownership) Social interaction with fellow collectors and others.
peacockcoins
Agreed, I've been searching rolls to fill out some albums lately and it's very good to decompress after work. Always good for the mind to keep your hands busy.
</> Everybody wants to get the bread, but no one wants to eat the crust. </>
It's just an amazing paradox of awareness in art and craftsmanship without the office politics, seating, drama or deadlines.
Growing up, this was my cread... First go for the money. Next few years, a little older, go for the knowledge.
The last phase, realized, as "some people should not have power", lets call it ... environment.
Stress ? Tis the season of holly in this hobby and I have school age kids who believe in tradition, so don't bother father, see mom and wait for dads taxi service.
This omission should have been done in cursive. LoL.
Gobble, Gobble.
For me, coins, token and medals provide tangible representations of past events and issues. Reading about the past is fun, but holding something that was there when the events happened is better.
I was going to welcome you to the Forum as this is your second comment, but you've been here for a year and a half already!!! Where have you been?? Busy collecting no doubt!!!! I collect because it's basically fun and there is a personal historical angle as well. Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to the Forum!!!
I have collected since I was a kid, I guess it was just a thing I did. Even before I studied the history, I liked the idea of collecting different years of coins and old coins that weren’t common anymore.
I guess collecting is in my DNA. I think many collectors will say something similar, that they started at a young age, either because someone mentored them as a kid or because they had an inclination to collect that lasts a lifetime.
When I started my “adult” collection I took a more history focused approach, which led me to an area outside of US coins.
My wife would say that I collect to aggravate her😂
Lafayette Grading Set
I get nervous posting so I mainly just lurk. I got some coins I want to show but I'm bad at taking pictures. Thanks for the welcome!
</> Everybody wants to get the bread, but no one wants to eat the crust. </>
OCD
Like many others, at the age of 8, my father gave me a Whitman Lincoln cent folder back in 64. I still have it. Priceless. Been collecting ever since. History, love the look of a completed album or a box of high grade slabs , stress relief, priority changed later in life to having something of value to leave to my sons and grandchildren when I'm gone even though they have no interest in coins.
My collection takes me away from the daily grind. I use it to relax me every chance I get.
Donato
Donato's Complete US Type Set ---- Donato's Dansco 7070 Modified Type Set ---- Donato's Basic U.S. Coin Design Set
Successful transactions: Shrub68 (Jim), MWallace (Mike)
Beat me to it.
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero. Voltaire. Ebay coinbowlllc
Mental illness, clearly.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
I think it is the same reason hoarders hoard stuff, only it’s channelled into something that is actually considered to be valuable to other people rather than what hoarders collect which is only valuable to them in their mind. Because it’s not dangerous or a threat to health, coin collecting isn’t a mental illness like hoarding is though. But I think it satisfies a similar mental need.
A combination of a desire to obtain things, organize things and keep them in your possession. Probably evolved in people similar to why squirrels instinctively gather and bury acorns. It has/had survival value.
Mr_Spud
Multiple reasons, most of which are constructive, none of which are destructive.
Holding coins (which I consider works of art) in your hands and seeing same with your eyes that are decades, hundreds and even thousands of years old is very gratifying.
In addition to the direct sensory input you experience, your mind takes a journey back in time to when the coins were made. You then move forward to the present. While on that journey you speculate about where the coins have been and who has handled them, until you get to the point where you have direct knowledge of the history of the coins themselves (including the history that involves you).
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Jump in there, and take a pic holding the coin or slab in your hand or on a flat surface, with decent lighting. We all like to see new material and I doubt anyone will give you grief over your pics. So they’re maybe not perfect, but neither are mine and no one has yet to dump on one of my coins. Well, @DeplorableDan did but that was a PM and he just thought it was dull.😂 But he didn’t see the best pics I had and even Dan can be wrong, from time to time, maybe?😉
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Why I collect?
I especially like coin either before or during the Civi War. That was a tumultuous time for this Country, going through major growing pains. I like to have something to hold that takes me back to this period. I make exceptions and go back to Early stuff or some Reconstruction Period stuff as well but I especially like coins around the CW period.
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Edited to correct all the typos I made for some reason!
Seems to be in my DNA since I was young. Not in my families DNA. I would find life extremely boring if I was not a collector. I love other things like animals and learning history but collecting is a huge part of who I am.
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
Looks like I fit right in with my border line hording...collector / investment tendencys.
Not that it's a bad thing...well sometimes without consulting my wallet.
& FOMO
This question would have several answers for me.
The first reason is because coin collecting gives me tons of material for mental grist. You don't have to be in the military to face a lot of hurry up and wait. I would be quite insane today if I didn't have my preoccupation with coins.
The second reason , sort of part of the first, is that I have spent almost my entire life with other people very dependent on me. This is not a complaint, we all make choices in life, I made mine. On the one hand I have had 3 vacations in 45 years. On the other I have had more time and funds for something I truly enjoy, collecting.
The last is that my grandmother was a coin collector of sorts and she had a great deal of influence on me. James
I love the design and artistic work on coins!
Positive BST as a seller: Namvet69, Lordmarcovan, Bigjpst, Soldi, mustanggt, CoinHoader, moursund, SufinxHi, al410, JWP
I don't collect anything, I'm just here for all the drama in the VaultBox and CAC threads.
Sorry I couldn't resist. In all seriousness, and as others have said, I love history. That's also why I collect old/rare slabs (I consider them a part of numismatic history), even though some would look down on that. I say collect what you like and enjoy it, whatever it is. This is a hobby and should be fun. If it is not you are definitely doing it wrong.
Philippians 4:4-7
In 1952 it was just filling coin boards. I don't remember whether I had Whitman albums at the time. My mother was an assistant to a dentist, V. G. Rich, in Fullerton, California . He gave me a couple of Roman denarii - Septimus Severus and the like. Joined the Orange County Coin Club in 1954; we met monthly at some sort of Women's Club I Brea, California. Some of the members there later had "name" auctions: Herb Bergen, Charles Ruby.
Much later my course through collecting is completely different. I don't care about sets or albums. I look only for unrecognized rarities, one coin at a time. I don't want to compete with the big money people in popular series. Is there anyone new who can hope to build a great collection of $10 eagles? Not with Hansen and Tyrant in the way. Find an area where competition is low; you'll have a much better chance at success.
I never collected until 3 years ago when I inherited a lot of coins, since I have found I am enjoying it more and learning a lot from these sites, I have also learned to like certain coins, to get the rest of these that at first excited me into someone else's collections, I am finding it's not so much about how many as it is what can I find that is truly unique, I have so much to learn, I am just beginning to explore what I really like.
To get away from the wife/girlfriend.....nah not married (no girlfriend either) but I am married to my hobbies!!! I preferred my hobbies and peace!!!
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
History and I like gold and silver.
One of the things I like about coin collecting is that it is not only historic, but that this numismatic history is an unbroken continuum, from the time of the invention of coinage right through to the present. Coins are one of the few ancient inventions that we still use, and as such are one of our few remaining links with the deep past.
If you were to travel back in time to ancient Rome, kidnap a random Roman citizen, and bring them forward to the present day, they would be utterly confused by pretty much everything they saw around them - the technology, the fashion, the environment, the language, the culture - but if you showed them a coin, they would know immediately what it was, and how you were supposed to use it.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
Thank you, tomorrow I'll try and figure out how to put some pictures up. I got a couple really cool civil war era coins recently
</> Everybody wants to get the bread, but no one wants to eat the crust. </>
Right now my purchases seem to fall into "Mid-Century Modern Muted MultiColor Mid-priced marvels".....I wonder if I can get that on a slab label 😉
That's a loaded question for me at the moment. One I've been asking versions of that myself over and over the past few days.
I collect apparently because I like a lot of stress of converting thousands of half dollars into one half dollar. I should have taken up woodworking but here I am, sitting here stressing.
Seriously, I collect because of I liked their almost endless variety (country, denomination, type, date, mm, die marriage, die state) and intrinsic value, and later on for their beauty and the variety of detail. For some reason that only God knows, I'm a very large person who's fascinated by natures' minutiae and have made a living identifying and discovering teeny-tiny things. Why wouldn't I get into coin collecting and eventually DM collecting? I also collected stamps briefly, but there was something about the intrinsic value of coins and their accessibility through roll hunting and checking change that appealed to me over stamps. When I was a kid, roll hunting was fun and satisfying because felt like you were "getting ahead" in life finding a dozen pre-34 Lincoln cents. Fortunately, I also collected silver as well, and the coins secured way back then are being used now for a purchase.
Pardon me while a get emotional.
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Hmmmph? And here I was thinking my problem was an addiction ... to "crack".
But now it's clearer. I'm masochistic. I enjoy the pain of converting thousands of half dollars into one half dollar
Thank you for helping me see that Brother @Barberian
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I've been thinking about this since I first saw the OP last night.
I think I collect because of my appreciation of what the coins represent, both historically, and for the physical sense of their artistry and how they were made. This has drawn me more and more to earlier coins due in part to their more hand-made manufacture.
And then, the part of me understands all of this in a greater context, appreciates the opportunity to be the caretaker of these small inanimate objects that have been entrusted to me, today.
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
So my wife doesn’t spend all of our money on Amazon garbage.
I know this is not exactly coin related but I just found out from my librarian daughter that a new book is coming out about the life of General Longstreet. I learned about 20 "New" things just from the intro description. Anyone who collects coins from the civil war/ construction era should want this.
I would stress out as a coin collector, big time!
It seems counterintuitive, but as a dealer, I have Zero stress and my "collection" is 15 times more valuable and much higher quality than when I was a collector.
Sure is fun
Collecting stuff in general taps into some kind of primative evolutionary need, storing stuff up in case of famine, displaying abundance to a potential mate, that kind of thing. Of all the things to collect, old rare coins are the best because they are small but "dense" in value, they are interesting w/ a high cool-factor, and time-tested for holding their value. Might not return the same as the S&P but more enjoyable than slightly higher digits in an account, and if SHTF you can always cash em in.
It is a solitary hobby. It keeps me studying. It is a "Prison of Change".
That's why I'm here, to learn why. Haven't figured it out yet. 😉
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
I truly enjoy the hunt.
... > @ctf_error_coins said:
How do you feel when a $500 coin gets lost in the mail. The hobby isn't the problem. It's postal delivery these days.
OCD
Empty Nest Collection
Matt’s Mattes
Got "Bit by the bug" when I was younger and never found the cure.....
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
I have always collected things, gathering them in, putting them in order and noting what has been added to the collection/hoard/stash. I started collecting coins in 1955 and was the terror of every household in the neighborhood as I would appear at their door, politely ask if I could look through their change jar and then ask if I could have any of the coins I needed for my Library of Coins Cent albums.
I also collected/hoarded and still do, world coins, US coins, baseball cards, non-sports cards, model trains, comic books, guns, black powder cannons (1/2 inch up to the size that shoots golf balls), model rockets, drones, telescopes, Ham radio, depression glass, old china, rocks, books, autographs, etc. It seems if I see something and I like it I add it to the "collection". It satisfies an urge within me.
I wish my star wars collection would attract a mate, but i think it does the opposite : (
</> Everybody wants to get the bread, but no one wants to eat the crust. </>
I’ve always been a collector of coins, from the times I can remember. When my parents emigrated from Portugal to NJ, I took it hard I lived 3 km from the beach and my grandmother owned several acres. We moved to a 2 bedroom apartment in an urban area. It was tough as a 7 year old. A fellow neighbor asked how I was doing and when my mom said I was having a tough time the neighbor put together a small collection of coins including a mercury dime, a walker, a bison nickel and a few others. That started me on the US collection. I collected on and off for decades even finishing the Lincoln cent, but I wasn’t doing it constantly. About 10 years ago, I wanted to add some precious metals to my investments and started picking up a few ASE or 1/10 AGE. But classic coins would always call me, first doing the Indian Head Cents, then mercury dimes, peace and a few others. I got into slabbed coins late, mostly as I was buying more and more expensive coins. Albums are still my favorites but I have a pretty nice collection from paper .
to bullion
To modern
My current registry sets:
20th Century Type Set
Virtual DANSCO 7070
Slabbed IHC set - Missing the Anacs Slabbed coins
The history, the aesthetics, and a nice way to have a store of value…
And one of the main things, the friends and camaraderie. 👍
My YouTube Channel
I love ...
The hunt, research, having coins that are not often seen, having coins compel me to learn more about history, reading historical fiction urges me acquire more coins, sharing with other collectors.
I "is" obsessed!