How about a REAL world series of coin trading? Workingman's rules:

mirabela

Did you read about the guy who started out with a paperclip and bet someone that within a year's time he could, by trading up, parlay the paperclip into a house? He succeeded.

What I propose goes something like this: everybody starts out with something of minimal value & of an interchangeable nature -- I'm thinking something like a white NGC common date Morgan, but I'm totally open to suggestions. It can be a BU South Dakota quarter. Maybe we all start with fifty bucks. I don't really care. You get one year, and you see what you can turn it into either by straight-across trades, or by selling it and buying something else with not one cent more than what you realized on the sale.

How about it? I think this might be a whale of a lot more fun than tracking the progress of imaginary money on an imaginary price sheet, and as for the mechanics of it, I get the feeling it's what a lot of us are twadling along doing anyway!

Let's get a head count by, say, January 10 & then we can establish a set of rules. Post your interest and/or your suggestions here.

So -- who's in?

clackamas

I like the idea but it sounds like quite a bit of work

p8nt

I agree it does sound like fun. However, documenting trades would be difficult and would therefore be on the basis of trust.


I do see something that should be addressed. Can I trade with myself?

mirabela

Yes, it is a bunch of work. I would not recommend embarking on this if it is not the kind of thing you enjoy doing anyway. Obviously, if you do really well, you get the reward of having substantially bettered your situation.

Yes, of course it will be on the basis of trust. There is not much incentive to lie, as I had not envisioned a prize other than bragging rights plus whatever success one happens to achieve.

As for the "trading with oneself" question -- I totally see the logic there, and I am of two minds. Being realistic about how us penny-ante collector/traders work, that's what we actually do. On the other hand, to keep the contest clean and fair, I tend to think we should disallow it. So, how about we say "no."

IGWT

Sounds like a good idea to me!

Bikingnut

Sounds like fun, but a lot of work.

Dennis

jdimmick

Intresting idea on real world dealing.

First of all, let me congratulate the winners of the world series of coin trading. I personally did not enter this time becuase with running my regular job duties as well as getting the coin business started, I didnt really have the time to devote. However, if I am correct on how the trading worked for this contrest you could basically buy and sell as long as the coins were available, and at any time for the listed prices in the price guide. In the real world its not that easy, you have to actually have wiling buyers to sell too a $x or be able to locate certain pieces that you want to buy at a listed price and obtain them prior to price run ups.

jim

STONE

This sounds like something I did this year.

Early January of this year, I bet my dad that I could turn a $50 investment of wheat cents into a coin worth $200 or more. So, I went to a dealer I know that carries a large supply of wheats w/ a nice mix of dates and MM's and so on for 4 cents each. Now I had 1,250 wheaties to search through.

I found a 1909, 10-S, 14-S, 15-D, 15-S, 21-S, and 23-S as my higtlights. I found a total of 82 teens, twenties, thirties, and (S)-MMed coins from the 40's and 50's. Not bad for this trial run. Most of the early ones were AG/G but some were as high as VF. I also searched all the MM-ed coins for OMM's and D/S's and such. I found something like 7 or 8 of those, I'm pretty sure it was 8.

So, now I had 90 decent coins and 1160 common ones. I went to my local coin club and tried to sell my common coins. I was able to sell all of these at 3.5 cents each advertised as 40's and 50's. That gave me $40.60. I also sold all my early dated ones and semi-keys to parents who were starting their kids on wheat books. From these early dates, I got another $36. I still had the 8 other OMM's.

Recap, $40.60+$36.00 = $76.60. Not bad for the first month. PLus I still had the 8 error coins left.

In February, I was able to buy a cull 1798/7 Bust dime off ebay for $49.65. I would call it cull just because it was only IDable from the reverse stars; awefully worn sucker!!! I sold this one at my coin club for $65.
$76.60-49.65 = $26.95 Left. $26.95+65.00 = $91.95. I was off to a great start.

Through many other trades throughout the year, I was able to buy an 1843 (F-12) Seated Dollar for $175, from a forum member, at the end of August; CW Trends lists it for $300.


In all, it's possible to grow a small investment into wealth in a very short time. I plan on doing it again this year, but with $100 in wheats and hope to get a coin worth $500.

I would be happy to help plan out what goes on with all of this.

STONE

Oh, and the bet was that my dad would front me the $50 and I would have to repay him it at the end of the year if I couldn't get a coin worth $200 or more.

I probably should have kept going with this game through the end of the year to see what better coin I could get. But I'm very pleased with the Seated Dollar I got.

mirabela

excellent demo, Stone!

Pentimento

I am going to play this game for sure this year. *BUT* I don't think this would work with the typical message board structure. I can't see a year-long thread working out with 25+ people posting constant updates of all their flips/sales/buys.

It might work if people format their new posts to include a little bit of the backstory every time they make a big move (like Stone did) ... And it would be helpful if the game had a name, so people could ignore posts with Real World Series or RWS or whatever in the subject line.

I think $50 is a reasonable start amount.