Take the Milestone Coins Challenge
Dentuck
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TAKE THE MILESTONE COINS CHALLENGE
(From the April 2008 Whitman Review)
Recently I sat next to a fellow coin collector as we traveled by plane to a national show. The long flight gave us time to talk about our collections, numismatic books and publishing, the U.S. Mint, and other hobby topics.
I was surprised by a certain world-weariness in the conversation with this very knowledgeable collector. He had reached an advanced point where his collections of U.S. coins included many of the finest known, the highest graded, the most expensive, the most rare. So why the weariness? Lack of intellectual curiosity was not the problem, and neither was drive; he was simply out of “holes” to fill in his collection. He’d reached all his goals, conquered all his challenges, and—to put it bluntly—he was getting bored.
Once you have all the dates and mintmarks in a coin series, how do you keep up your interest? Most collectors in that position
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(From the April 2008 Whitman Review)
Recently I sat next to a fellow coin collector as we traveled by plane to a national show. The long flight gave us time to talk about our collections, numismatic books and publishing, the U.S. Mint, and other hobby topics.
I was surprised by a certain world-weariness in the conversation with this very knowledgeable collector. He had reached an advanced point where his collections of U.S. coins included many of the finest known, the highest graded, the most expensive, the most rare. So why the weariness? Lack of intellectual curiosity was not the problem, and neither was drive; he was simply out of “holes” to fill in his collection. He’d reached all his goals, conquered all his challenges, and—to put it bluntly—he was getting bored.
Once you have all the dates and mintmarks in a coin series, how do you keep up your interest? Most collectors in that position
<... continue reading ... >
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Unless you limit your Darkside endeavors very tightly, you're not likely to live long enough to "complete" the collection.
<< <i>How long do you think it would take a knowledgeable Darkside collector --- of moderate means; a regular subscriber to hobby publications, who attends at least one national show per year, and who has a favorite dealer or two --- how long do you think it would take such a collector to gather one each of Bressett's 110 "Milestone Coins"? >>
Of moderate means? a while.. I see some fairly big coins on that list.. Ides of March Denrai is a pretty big hole to fill. (oh wait.. now I am not sure if it is or isn't.. hmmm.. guess I need the book)
from the list..
28. Beware the Ides of March (Rome, silver denarius)...........................................
(I take that to mean the Ides of March Denarius???)
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<< <i>How long do you think it would take a knowledgeable Darkside collector --- of moderate means; a regular subscriber to hobby publications, who attends at least one national show per year, and who has a favorite dealer or two --- how long do you think it would take such a collector to gather one each of Bressett's 110 "Milestone Coins"? >>
Not being familar with the book it's hard to answer that question. But I would ask how you define "of moderate means" - that may well have a much larger bearing on the answer.
For example, I used to collect world gold and in particular ducats. I was trying to assemble a date set of the Netherlands ducat - something that to my knowledge had never before been accomplished. And I rather doubt it ever will be. That said, I used to consider myself a collector of moderate means and it certainly wasn't easy trying to collect the coins I did. It often took every spare cent of money I had. And that was with the most expensive ducat I owned costing just under $600 and the cheapest being $65 and with the majority being in the $300 range. But with the set being over 400 coins, that is still a lot of money.
Anyway, I rather think that everyone's definition of the phrase " of moderate means " would vary greatly.