I’m losing interest in collecting coins .
bidask
Posts: 14,017 ✭✭✭✭✭
I cannot explain this . My health is just fine.
I haven’t followed any recent auctions for the last 3 months. I throw away my world coin news and the numismatist without reading them .
I have no urge to buy anything and the includes my core collection .
What gives ?
All I think about is how to sell my collection .
Oh my !😥
I manage money. I earn money. I save money .
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
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Happens to everyone, Dan. Maybe just give it a few more months and see if your feelings change?
Latin American Collection
Wishing you the best hope you get your passion back!!!
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Take a year long sabbatical. Don’t even touch a coin. See how you feel in a year, maybe two.
I was kinda forced out of the hobby for at least five years, during that time I didn’t think terribly much about it, but occasionally an email or Instagram post would come in and I’d be like “if I still collected coins, that one would be a smart buy…”
I mostly don’t collect what I did before, I found more interesting coins with a world wide scope. Most of the US coins that are really interesting are quite expensive.
My advice, don’t sell until after you take a long break.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
Is there something else that you would rather explore with your time and resources?
Seems the sabbatical concept is reasonable… I am overdue for that myself
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Think carefully about why you are losing interest. What has changed to turn you from enthusiastic to disinterested?
Don't buy or sell anything until you know the answer(s) to the above questions.
Say it ain’t so! I miss your enthusiasm.
Having said that seems like some good advice above. Or maybe you prune the collection and focus on a slightly different direction.
My current "Box of 20"
Prune and refocus! Maybe you need a new challenge.
Everyone is providing valued advice. I'll just tell you that I rushed headlong into it in the early/mid 90s, then fell away for three entire decades, then suddenly picked up the bug again in retirement. To borrow the title of Connery's last 007 film... never say never again.
"Brother, can you spare a dime?" (Especially a 1975 no S proof?)
Perhaps you’re subconsciously thinking the market is going to soften?
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I've taken two sabbaticals. The 1st lasted 12 years, the 2nd was for 3 years. I put everything (coins, library, supplies) in crates and tucked them in a closet. After the 1st one, I decided to sell all my US coins but kept the library. After the 2nd one, I sold just about all of my non Canadian.
I agree with others that said to step away for awhile and let your mind subconsciously sort it out.
Best wishes to you which ever way you go.
Life member #369 of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association
Member of Canadian Association of Token Collectors
Collector of:
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Darkside proof/mint sets dated 1960
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I’ve left the hobby for a few years, several times in the past.
I would not sell anything, I would pack everything away and just forget about it for a while, and I’ll bet you’ll come back to it in due time…
Regardless, I wish you the best in whatever you decide.
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Dan - hope you stay in it! I can understand the ups and downs (I too experience it) but its net (very) positive!
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As a human being, I realize there is an ebb and flow to wants and desires. Above advice to take a figurative big breath and refocus.....Or
How bout we come over and do a good old fashion exorcism or trephination? 🤕 Peace Roy
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Mmmmm, I think of my coin collecting as an aberration of my normal behavior. The desire to collect otherwise worthless coins in plastic cases would be the thing I would question, not my lack of desire to do so ....
I, would miss you Dan.
I hope it's just a momentary feeling.
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As long as there are other things you are still excited about, Dan. If you're not interested in buying anymore, you can always spend some time cataloging your collection. Even if you decide to sell instead of coming back to it, having done all this work of documenting will not be time wasted. And who knows? Perhaps as you get a better grasp on where you within each of the mints, dates, etc on your journey to the complete Cap'n'Rays collection - you'll want to refocus on completing a certain subset.
I hope it's just winter blues. I would miss you a lot if you left coins altogether!
8 Reales Madness Collection
I would like to log, if you do sell, I want a Dan curated mintmark set of Cap and Ray to always have in my collection as a homage to a great collector.
Latin American Collection
Me too!
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
Great thing about coin collecting is that you can start and stop over and over for an entire lifetime. I feel as you do for US coins. I look at them. I like them but I nolonger have a deep desire to make a purchase.
Just because the passion is gone doesn't mean you have to get a divorce.
I could be wrong (not sure if there is any ''right'' solution) but just a piece of advice...
You may decide to get away from it completely for a while but if I were you I would still look at what is coming up for auction that way you know what coins you are missing out on that way you have the chance to buy them before that starts factoring into you want to leave even more once you decide to come back (if you do stay). As you know some pieces simply cannot be missed and if you miss to many maybe just maybe that will break your passion to get back in. At least try and get the rarer ones while on ''break''.
Missing out on great coins will not be easy to accept once you decide to come back if that ever is your route in time. Kinda like a married couple going to therapy vs a complete break. That therapy may just save your ''marriage'' aka adding at least the rarer coins.
Ex: 1287 error Cap & Ray error coin....missing such coins as you know may mean you will never own one in your life. These are the type of coins to maybe continue picking up when available.
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There is little value beyond the joy it gives you.
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"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
I was at a national stamp show not so long ago an an aged dealer told me he cannot buy anymore he has to just sell now.
I now know the feeling after 50+ years to let my registry hunt to improve it go, and transition to a sell mode.
Last coin show I had a box of raw nice xf /au circ material some quite scarce . Offered it up to an aged dealer who mostly sold raw coins and he sorted thru it ( I had them priced at 1/3 to 1/2 retail) . Then all of sudden he pushed the sorted piles back at me and with anger said he had no time for this as he must just sell now. Basically Same response as the stamp dealer.
Several hours later I offered the box to much younger collector who could not get his money out fast enough.
And bought 2/3s of the box. He knew he could not find such coins priced the way I had them on the bourse floor.
Myself , the stamp dealer ,and the coin dealer are all in the same place. Time has caught up with us!
" LET IT GO" words of wisdom
There are natural transition points, such as retirement from the workforce and focusing on making your nest egg support you for the rest of your life -- a point I reached just this year. I have no heirs that will want to continue my collection so preparing for selling it over time is where I'm at now.
Another thing that happens when you have a fairly narrow collecting focus is that you peruse auction listings and find that you already have equal or better examples so eventually you stop looking at them. I branched out to just looking for interesting early world crowns from as many different countries as possible and that kept me interested for another decade.
Take a break buddy and don’t do anything. It happened to me and I sold my coins to you. I have no regrets because the enjoyment they gave you but it’s always like a piece of me is gone. That’s why I started collecting minors of the same series. Don’t do anything for awhile and take some time off. My fire came back and I suspect yours will too. You are a great guy and have a great collection….but the collection is secondary to you being a great guy!
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Jim Elliot
Is this not normal? I've run hot and cold ever since I started collecting at 8 years old, sometimes taking month away from my collection. I thought everyone took breaks from time to time.
Oops, meant to say "taking months away ..."
If I quit collecting today, I'd still have a much better collection than I could have ever imagined in the mid-70s when I started as YN. I didn't even know most of the coins I own now existed.
I've taken three breaks in collecting and didn't resume permanently until 1998. Still, if I did that now with what I now collect, I'd probably miss out on coins I might not be able to locate later.
Your coin collecting virus may just be going into a latent stage temporarily.
I have had it too, I have it a bit now, my solution was to pivot towards gold nugget collection. I say try to pivot something new that interests you or take a break. Maybe the interest will come back after awhile👍
I hadn't looked at an auction or bought a coin in over a year. Hadn't posted to any related forums.
Got a medal on the way now.
Sometimes a break is good.
I'd wait a year or so before selling. The excitement may come back.
When I feel the need to take a break from actual collecting, I tend to write about coins. Keeps my mind in the hobby without the competitive impulses to spend money.
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I'm in the same boat as "bosox". I no longer buy, but pass around knowledge, help folks with writing, and join in coin site discussions. Haven't bought in 4-5 years.
When I first "met" Dan online and read his first posts at the Darkside, I assumed that he had already dealt with US coins, got bored and started all over, cherry-picking world gems, most often crown sized , without a specific goal of building X set from Y country. Clearly, the country that had minted each of his new purchases was not a primary concern and I loved that.
Then, slowly but steadily, he turned to Latin America and with a little help from other collectors of similar coins, the entire Darkside seemed and still does, as a forum primarily devoted to Latin American coins and more specifically Mexico, CAR etc, to the extent that most posts were about 8 reales pieces and to a much lesser degree, gold escudos etc.
IMHO, Dan is the victim of the competition that the registry sets create, and all the commotion over a single +, or a very rare date or overdate or whatever other kind of oddities the set dictated. As such, he fell again in the same trap that had forced him to quit the US coins.
What he gained in deepening his overall knowledge of the series and the accumulation of an exciting Cap and Rays or other 8 reales set, was counterbalanced by his loss of the (short) period of total freedom to choose whatever he truly liked.
It is important to note here, that Dan's purchases during his entirely free transition to world coins, were coins that could have been the crown jewels of many other collections or sets. Quality and eye appeal were most likely the only criteria for him to buy the coins, along perhaps with a few top pops or nearby as an added bonus.
I've read carefully the entire thread and I found that the advice given was mostly very positive, along with a couple of terrible replies that I will not name. After all , this is a very personal matter and the advice were given in good faith, according to each collector's experience.
Roman's advice to catalogue the collection seeems the most suitable to me, as it will demand a certain amount of time that will allow him to figure out exactly what he's after. MrEureka's comment, despite sounding rather sarcastic, might also be a direction that Dan chooses , because it is a very legitimate dilemma: do I stop now, catalogue and sell during the current boom market, and come out on top, while at the same time I get back my freedom from the registry "chains"?
The opponents of the free cherry picking of world gems , even if each of them is worth 4,5 digit sums, are usually despising such an accumulation of gems, not even calling it a collection. For the purist, the end goal of completing a set with some coins that show up once in a generation is all the thrill.
I personally couldn't care less and made my peace with it.
It is up to Dan and only Dan, first to figure out exactly the reasons of this loss of interest , which I assume that it might not be his first time and some symptoms may remind him of previous situations, and then decide what to do. Sell partially, switching focus, sell entirely... . Given the right distance and tine, everything gets into perspective.
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PS: Not that I didn't get that MrEureka's post was from humorous to mildly sarcastic. I even edited the appropriate paragraph above. Still, it's legit. Life is too long for one core set.
It has been my experience, that excessive psychological attachment by collectors with their coins, makes said collectors bad traders and difficult to deal with. So it is useful to remember that entire collections that can never be assembled again sell and have always been sold, dispersed around the world to find new places in new collections.
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"Sometimes a person with dementia may seem to lose interest in doing things they used to enjoy." my man
So, like, dumping on people is your thing?
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
"Autistic individuals may struggle with pragmatic language skills, including understanding the social rules and expectations surrounding sarcasm" my man
Is your previous username “You”?
Claiming “Sarcasm” doesn’t make your comments funny, or excuse unkindness.
“I shouldn’t be in prison, that bank robbery was done sarcastically!”
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
No.
I'm already cancelled?
You should be soon enough. I have reported you as others should do as well. This is a serious topic created by a respected long term member and collector. Time for you to move on. Bidask deserves respect!!!
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whatever you do, don't visit coin forums on reddit, you'll be quite busy.
Just go away we do not need members like you here.
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
We both agree here, 4-5 posts a day on a "world coin forum", I'll stick to reddit and discord. Have a nice day sir.
Wow, I feel like I could have written this post. Only it's been over a year (probably hampered by a 3 month stint with double vision after surgery, since resolved, but that really put a damper on a lot of things). I've bought only a couple medals after someone has directly pointed them out to me (Numismagram has gotten what little I've spent) and one coin I bought for my husband to give me for Christmas figuring it might light a spark. But instead of obsessively checking tons of auctions, I've barely glanced at most.
This was a very interesting (mostly) thread to read. And maybe something will spark soon. Though I'm guessing if Dan decides to release something Japanese into the wild I might bite
But as @jgenn notes, shifting from a working life to a more retired status does change the mindset a bit too. Particularly when no potential heir has a whit of interest.
I have no amazingly inspirational thoughts to add here other than second every other post here. Chatting with like-minded coin friends or not-like minded and learning something new can help keep interest fresh. ( @Stork hint hint)
If you're interested and able, going to shows to meet with friends or going to a new/different show might help spark something also. Maybe combine non-coin travel with coin related outings (DisneyWorld & FUN, Tokyo & Ginza Coins, etc)
sometimes one has to step back and look at things from all angles then see what is the best idea
happens to many not just in this hobby but in many other area of life
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I must admit, that at times I wonder if I've lost my way! I'm kinda' dinging back and forth like an old numismatic pinball machine. Many of the suggestions have a sound personal component derived from their experiences. Their voices give light to the depth of the knowledge on this forum. I only hope to meet some of you in person. It's that shared human interaction with a hobby that can bring joy if you let it, or sadness when it becomes defined by all that detracts.
Please keep discussions and comments on the topic, WORLD & ANCIENT COINS.