Top Ten Mistakes.
TraderGio
Posts: 252
What are the Top Ten mistakes new collectors make?
What was your top mistake in the first few years as a collector?
What was your top mistake in the first few years as a collector?
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<< <i>top mistake, cleaning a 1909-S VDB, 1909-S and 2 1931-S lincolns in XF with jewel luster becuase I thought they looked better, 16 years ago and they still, well they are getting better. >>
I assumed from your other post that you were a teenage kid. Are you an adult?
I'll add a few to the list --
- Moving too fast; buying coins to fill holes rather than waiting for the particular examples that really fire your jets to come along
- Not having a focus; accumulating coins without a plan
- Buying what you can't confidently grade on your own
- Collecting what someone else thinks you should
- Overlooking the real opportunities that exist in collecting circulating coinage at face value
- Not working with a mentor of some sort
- Not having a focus; accumulating coins without a plan
- Buying what you can't confidently grade on your own
- Collecting what someone else thinks you should
- Overlooking the real opportunities that exist in collecting circulating coinage at face value
- Not working with a mentor of some sort
I like Mirabela's list better than DW's; I think it applies to a broader range of collectors.
hobby for years. Almost invariably they will learn that they are paying significantly
more than they thought they were. It's very easy to buy coins cheap but it's very
difficult to sell them above wholesale. Every collector should know enough about the
market to know what the real costs are.
<< <i>An error that most collectors make is to never sell a coin until they've been in the
hobby for years. Almost invariably they will learn that they are paying significantly
more than they thought they were. It's very easy to buy coins cheap but it's very
difficult to sell them above wholesale. Every collector should know enough about the
market to know what the real costs are. >>
True. I found that once I sold a few, I became more particular about what I paid for them.
1. Not buying the book before the coin
2. Buyng problem coins at high prices
3. Not buying the best grade you can afford
4. Buying a coin just to fill a hole without waiting for the right coin to come along
5. Buying coins from TV infomercials or hyped ads
6. Buying coins sight unseen
7. Buying certified coins from 3rd tier graders (Stick with PCGS,NGC or ANACS if you want certified coins)
8. Not learning how to detect counterfiets on key date coins that you are going to buy raw.
9. Not looking at more than just a few pieces before buying something.
10. Buying grab-bag type lots.
My biggest mistake when i was just starting out and even for a while was not buying higher grade coins --Indian head cents g-vg was good enough. i would buy say- 30 common date indian head cents g-vg for $15 rather then one BU. Back then i was just into filling my album. Now i wait for the right coin to come along. JMHO. Bob.
- not trusting the advice of longtime dealers and fellow collectors as if they are looking to gain an advantage over them
- seriously believing this market is truly different from all precedents
- compounding mistakes made
- not learning to grade coins themselves or never having sufficient confidence to challenge what is on a slab tag
- locking up too much percentage in grading fees of coins that don't belong in slabs and many that get rejected anyway
- buying the common dates and putting off perpetually for tomorrow the more challenging keys, missing the opportunities
- rushing toward completion and buying the first coin for the slot that is available instead waiting for the right one for the set
- using the red book, Trends or PCGS price guide for valuations
- buying from big retailers with full page ads on a regular basis
....and one mistake even advanced collectors make.....
- not finding a balance in life that puts coins in harmony with everything else
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* Buying whizzed and polished coins labeled as uncirculated
* Buying gold plated and reprocessed coins
* Buying from the Franklin MInt (that one dates me)
* Buying uncirculated coins and pushing them into a Whitman album (I really did that!)
Some more recent ones
* Buying problem coins, sometimes paying too much. Problems included holed and repaired, cleaned, dipped, questionable toning.
Some common newbie mistakes:
* Relying too much on the grading companies and not learning how to grade themselves.
* Same deal, but trusting their dealer too much.
* Believing the most dangerous cliche in the hobby "buy the best grade you can afford." Most dangerous for those who can't grade.
* Always shopping for the low price. Quality does count. A nice MS65 might sell for double what a marginal one in the same holder sells for.
* The corollary is paying too much for quality from high margin dealers (again if you can't grade, you can't tell quality from schlock). For very common generic coins it is very difficult to recover a high premium when selling.
* Buying raw coins for a lot of money. There are many decent raw coins out there, but again, until a collector learns how to grade, this can be dangerous.
* The corollary to the above is buying fake coins, especially Trade Dollars, but also small gold coins, and now Morgans are flooding into the country and some are being passed on Ebay to newbies.
The most recent firestorm involves:
* Buying dipped coins
* Buying questionable toning coins
Failed to put away rolls of BU Ikes when I could get them at banks.
Cut my 1960 and 1961 proof sets into singles because the red book value was higher for the parts than the whole set!
Did not more heavily pursue silver coins from circulation bybuying rolls to search in the early 70s
Cleaned metal detected coins with colgate and a toothbrush
Did not sell all my scrap silver when it was in the $40-$50 per ounce range
Did not buy much more gold when it was below $300
Bought a PCGS PR64 1954 Washington Quarter off E-bay thinking PCGS made that a good coin (it was cheap)
Another problem for new collectors is that they don't develop a coin budget. They spend small amounts of money on widgets that they will never be able to sell for upgrades rather than saving for a few months without a purchase to buy a more substantial coin.
This being said, during that two month time they better do some homework to know what they want, what it should look like and how much it should cost.
But perhaps the biggest mistakes are:
1. Lack of patience/control.
2. Not having a sense of humility and understanding their own limitations of knowledge in the new (to them) field of numismatics.
Connor Numismatics Website
Hook up with a mentor very early on. Keep testing the waters. Don't assume any one person knows it all or has all the right answers.
roadrunner
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
- not finding a balance in life that puts coins in harmony with everything else
,,,,,,That is some very sound advice Coxe ; probably the wisest thing i ever read
hear on these boards!
* Buying raw coins from major magazine ads for what look to be great prices. Often times the coins are overgraded, cleaned garbage. Same deal with a high percentage of raw coins on Ebay. Same deal with a good percentage of high value (over $100 in value) raw coins at a show. For coins over $500 in value, there is often a problem that keeps the coin out of a holder.
* The corollary is looking for Santa Claus (a gift from a dealer). The only gifts from a dealer are when the collector knows more than the dealer, such as spotting a rare variety.
* Buying blind "investment" lots on Ebay. There seem to be a ton of them these days, so some one must be buying.
* The corollary is buying into coin investment funds without knowing much about coins. Historically, these have often ended up in court, where the "investors" get maybe 10 cents on the dollar. Same deal with telemarketers. Anyone calling me at home on the phone trying to sell coins is not someone I would spend one minute talking to. The exception is if a collector has developed a close relationship with a dealer over the years, and said collector knows what he/she is doing.
The successful collector (success in terms of enjoying the hobby and financial gain) usually spends a lot of time looking at coins, has a talent for grading, has one or two areas of specialty where he/she knows as much as the dealers, and of course a true love of the hobby.
There was a recent thread about a collector buying his first Bust dollar. He bought the book on the subject. Spent hours looking at images online, and then shopped very carefully in person, before coming home with a "winning" no problem coin. Probably only 1% of new collectors follow this route. For brand new collectors it is not what I would suggest, unless he/she knows what area they are going to specialize in.
link to thread
<< <i>What are the Top Ten mistakes new collectors make? >>
Listening to and believing the stories so many dealers tell. Especially when the dealer takes control of the "conversation" and hardly let's a person get a word in. Then, of course, see my SIG line for how to handle this.
<< <i>The #1 mistake a new collector can make is believing the hype that coins are a good investment. >>
I believed the Ellesmere hype several years back. Ooops!
<< <i>
<< <i>The #1 mistake a new collector can make is believing the hype that coins are a good investment. >>
I believed the Ellesmere hype several years back. Ooops! >>
What was that about?
As a whole though, this fall under the category of lack of patience.
morris <><
** I would take a shack on the Rock over a castle in the sand !! **
Don't take life so seriously...nobody gets out alive.
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1.) Buying at Red Book prices, and
2.) Selling to dealers without researching what I really had before selling (got screwed a lot back then and walked away from the hobby for quite a long time), and
3.) Selling about $60,000.00 worth of my collection and dumping the cash into the stock market in 2000. OOOUUUUUCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Jim
- Getting so caught up with registry madness that you ignore a coin's problems and buy it for the lable. The classic example was the famous 1963 cent that was graded PR-70, ultra cameo despite the fact that it had spots and toning.
- Not having a focus; accumulating coins without a plan
- Buying what you can't confidently grade on your own
- Collecting what someone else thinks you should
- Overlooking the real opportunities that exist in collecting circulating coinage at face value
- Not working with a mentor of some sort
Sounds exactly like ho wi started
3) I bought over a thousand dollars worth of overgraded crap from a national dealer. I later sold it at a rather deep lose. I did keep the oldest coin from the lot, a 1794 Cap Large cent in a porous AG. Ironicly, that one is worth about double what I paid for it now.
2) I put a ANACS VF30 1877 indian on the top of my truck so I could open the door for my sweetheart. I closed the door, got in the truck, and drove off... with the coin still on top of the cab. It slid off into the road. This was my first "big" coin purchase and it tore me up something fierce. I came really close to quiting coin collecting because of this.
1) I bought a ACUGRADE XF45 1922 Plain cent, strong rev off of Yahoo auctions. It turned out to be a G4 shadow D in the holder. I was very new to the slab game and had no clue that there were TPG services that were worth about as much as a warm bucket of snot.
David
<< <i>When I got back into collecting, my first significant mistake was buying a coin in an ACG slab. Fortunately, it was not too expensive and it was only a bit overgraded. >>
D'oh!
My list would be,
1-10 Buying raw on eBay! (Before discovering forum sellers of course)
Joe
I got into the hobby because I thought it was kind of neat that they used to make coins out of gold and silver and had all these fancy designs. (I'm only 26 years old). So I started out young and thought it would be neat to have one of every coin in circulation. My goal is not to make a profit or sell my collection. I collect things because I want to have them, not because I want to make money off of them. If I'm strapped for cash I'll think of everything possible to come up with money before I start selling ANY part of ANY of my collections.
One of my first mistakes that hasn't been listed. At shows, asking the dealer for prices before asking to look at the coin. (I didn't want to waste his time if the price was too high) Once I started looking at the coin first then I could determine a ballpark of what the coin was worth to me then I could see if what the dealer was asking for was reasonable. Also if it is not too busy you can look at some coins out of your range just to learn and appreaciate the quality.
The more coins you look at and hold the more you learn and train your eye.
<< <i>Wow, this is a really good list. I need to summarize and use as a reference.
One of my first mistakes that hasn't been listed. At shows, asking the dealer for prices before asking to look at the coin. (I didn't want to waste his time if the price was too high) Once I started looking at the coin first then I could determine a ballpark of what the coin was worth to me then I could see if what the dealer was asking for was reasonable. Also if it is not too busy you can look at some coins out of your range just to learn and appreaciate the quality.
The more coins you look at and hold the more you learn and train your eye. >>
Yep, but always try to get them to pitch a price first. That gives you the negotiating upper hand. You would hate to propose a price above his intended asking price. The guy might then just go up on that and get you to settle even higher.
NSDR - Life Member
SSDC - Life Member
ANA - Pay As I Go Member
I have aslo learned that if you see a coin early in the show and ask the dealer for a price then return later in the day (if the coin still hasn't sold) and you take a second look and ask for the price again magically is has decreased.
Here were some of my mistakes.
Dipped a GEM BU 1945-P toned mercury to get the the "color" off of it -- Ouch.
Bought polished coins thinking they were in uncirculated.
Put my fingers all over my BU coins when I put them in the book.
Sold what was probably an ms69fb 1939-d merc for 50 bucks to a dealer thinking I got a good deal.
I knew what I was doing because I had a "coin" price guide from a magazine. Of course, they only showed
up to ms65 and I did'nt even know there was anything higher.
That was the best looking merc I have seen ever - then or since.
It had an increadable "halo" around the face and a marble like look on the reverse like glass.