The 'scary place'

adamlaneus

Today, I was contemplating my disdain for 2009 zinc cents. Trying to pin down why I feel it is silly to buy them; paying a premium for a zinc shadow of it's former self.

Instead of resolving that problem...

...I went to a scary place, mentally; I didn't mean to. I have paid a premium for copper, silver and gold. How is that different than paying a premium for zinc.

It's sort of worse than Gecko's "it's only worth the metal value" threads. I am wondering about the value of the metal itself too.

In a sense, it is all junk. Obsolete stuff of tenuous value.

Now, i'm scared to do much more thinking.


How do you cope with thoughts that are on the 'brink' with respect to coin collecting?


Maybe it's just because I watched a good baseball game yesterday?


I'm not really serious about making a change in my collecting habits. I know that if I wait a bit and come back to my collection later...it'll be a feeling of Sweet Relief.
But i'm not going to deny that every once in a while, I question the whole thing. I figured i'd post my thoughts here to see if i'm the only one that occasionally gets this particular form of the 'creeps'.

1Mike1

I get similar thoughts when I work all week and they hand me a piece of paper with a number on it or when I hand over paper (cash) to a bank that represents thousands of dollars of my worth and they hand me back a piece of printer paper telling me how much i just gave them. I wouldn't feel any better if it was rare metals being exchanged. Just so they keep score and don't forget MY score.

tahoe98

........sounds like it's time for a few of these...

RyGuy

I venture that that place sometimes as well. I find myself wondering a lot if 10, 20, heck, 50 years from now if anyone is going to find what I invested my time and money into interesting, valuable, etc.

rgCoinGuy

You are not alone.

ctf_error_coins

<< <i>I venture that that place sometimes as well. I find myself wondering a lot if 10, 20, heck, 50 years from now if anyone is going to find what I invested my time and money into interesting, valuable, etc. >>



I have absolutely no worries about the future of My collection. It can only Increase in value.

When you have many one-of-a-kinds, then you have something others will WANT.

The mint really cracked down on errors so the supply is limited.

When I look at my collection, I only have good thoughts.

SeaEagleCoins

Reminds me of a show several years ago... I had a short lull of activity at my table and was able to just watch... folks prowling the aisles... deals going on... all the "action"... and I had no emotions involved... just a casual observer...

And suddenly...the whole scene just looked absurd to me... people with money in cases being sold to other folks for other money... and knowing that if push came to shove... no one could eat any of it... it was just metal and paper except for the fact that a bunch of folks had decided it was worth more than that...

I started chuckling...and said outloud to no one in particular... "Gotta love this country... we have so much affluence that we actually pay money to buy money" and then laughed a little louder... some folks nearby heard me and looked at me like I was carrying the plague or something... another person just smiled... and the dealer across from me hasn't talked to me ever since that day...

yellowkid

The whole collecting scene is a bit absurd, but it has been going on forever and will probably continue to do so. My collecting interests end however, with the end of "real" money, 1964, to me, the rest of this stuff may as well be plastic. If you like it fine, I won't knock you, just not for me.

Baley

this line of thinking leads, when taken to extremes, leads to absurd conclusions....

A computer or television is a few dollars worth of raw materials, if you ignore it's utility

a human being is just a few dollars worth of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, plus some trace elements.

There are potent anti-cancer drugs that cost tens of thousands of dollars for a course of treatment, yet are "merely" a few CENTS worth of raw materials..

and yes, there are 6 figure cons with 3 cents worth of copper in them, and expensive stamps and paper money "worth" a fraction of a cent as elements.

but so what? unless society completely breaks down (get out your tinfoil hats and head out to your mountain cabins, now...) such thoughts are mere musings.

Objects of utility or desire are going to continue to be subject to the laws of supply and demand

BillyKingsley

I collect coins, not metal. I don't care what they are made out of.

MPLunatic

When you get that feeling, you gotta think about why you started collecting in the first place. To me coins symbolize history and the struggles of ordinary people and are much more valuble than the metal value, well maybe not a 2009 lincoln, but give it a 100 years and check back. The point is pretty much everything we pay money for is worthless in the end, but its the enjoyment you get out of it that has the most value

tjc2120

<< <i>Today, I was contemplating my disdain for 2009 zinc cents. Trying to pin down why I feel it is silly to buy them; paying a premium for a zinc shadow of it's former self.

Instead of resolving that problem...

...I went to a scary place, mentally; I didn't mean to. I have paid a premium for copper, silver and gold. How is that different than paying a premium for zinc.

It's sort of worse than Gecko's "it's only worth the metal value" threads. I am wondering about the value of the metal itself too.

In a sense, it is all junk. Obsolete stuff of tenuous value.

Now, i'm scared to do much more thinking.


How do you cope with thoughts that are on the 'brink' with respect to coin collecting?


Maybe it's just because I watched a good baseball game yesterday?


I'm not really serious about making a change in my collecting habits. I know that if I wait a bit and come back to my collection later...it'll be a feeling of Sweet Relief.
But i'm not going to deny that every once in a while, I question the whole thing. I figured i'd post my thoughts here to see if i'm the only one that occasionally gets this particular form of the 'creeps'. >>




I get those creeps too. To me, the process paying for something that has very little useful value (ie paying for symbolic or percieved value like a rare coin verses useful value like a loaf of bread) is an act that celebrates the event that I have escaped the burden of only striving to achieve the basic needs of useful value like food or shelter. I can now exchange the percieved value I bring to society (money I get paid for work) for things I enjoy rather than only for things I need to survive.

Just keep it all in moderation and don't think accumulating coins (or anything) is the be-all and end-all.

19Lyds

It sounds as if you have lost the true definition and foundation of coin collecting and have bastardized it with coin "investing" whereby the thinking is that all coins must be manufactured from a "precious metal" before one would consider collecting it so that at the very minimum, you always have the value of what the coin was made from to fall back on.

I think a good collector doesn't give a hoot for the metallic content of a particular coin or coin series as long as it fits within his/her mental desire to have 1 of each one made. This is the true foundation of collecting.

Too often, especially on these boards, the monetary value of a specific piece overshadows the collectible appeal of the piece. This is especially true of modern coinage and can quickly skew one's collecting habits.

In my mind, having the ability to fill a collection from pocket change or bank finds is the true mark of a non-biased, uncontaminated collector especially if he/she concentrates of the highest quality coin available to them.

I've got lots of scary places I visit of which the scariest happens to be all those friggin grading fee's I've wasted due to my own inability to just say NO and the inability to give up a common graded coin for less than what I paid to have it graded! I've got lots of those and its really scary!

adamlaneus

No, it's well past the precious metal value thing. Metals don't really have value outside of their industrial use.

Hoarding:
The acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions.

A 'good collector' may well be mentally defective. Once this hoarding behavior starts to interfere with daily life, you now have a Pathological Hoarding disorder. "interfere with daily life?" That is a grey area. Right now, i'm taking a break from work to type this. In a sense, coins are interfering with my daily life.


Now, I know that if I go and look at my Leopold 'hogmouth' thaler, this exquisite, large coin will make me imagine a strange time when our political leaders were inbred and deformed (and quite powerful).

Or if I go and look at a Jacques Wiener Cathedral Medal under a loupe, I will be in awe of the detail.

Just to be around a few of the ancient coins from the time of the 12 Caesars is humbling.

Or if I ponder a gold coin and it's circulation, I start to wonder how on earth gold-as-money could ever work economically in the long term.


There are times when I decompose the whole collecting thing down to the point of absurdity and 'feel that I may have the wrong focus in life'. I suppose many folks here have posted such a thread.


The last few times i've spent money on a 'rare coin', i've had this feeling that perhaps I should have instead just saved that money away. And yet, that is, in a sense, what I am already doing. I'm so confused and it is not getting better. I guess i'll have to get some beer tonite.


I'm sure this is all part of the process of introspection and keeping myself honest to my goals.

yellowkid

I've collected "things" all my life, I long ago stopped thinking about what weird psychological need or niche they they filled, I enjoy it, enough said. The problem I see in collectors, I include myself, is when it becomes their whole world, their raison de etre if you will. These objects we accumulate are neat things, sometimes very expensive things, but they are just things. A question I've aways liked to ask collectors is do they own their collection, or do the collections own them?

GrumpyEd

<< <i>I'm sure this is all part of the process of introspection and keeping myself honest to my goals. >>



I think it's a good thing on your part.
Sort of like taking a step out of the forest to see the trees.

MrSpud

The money that you pay for a coin is only worth the value of the paper........

garsmith

<< <i>........sounds like it's time for a few of these... >>



It's always time for a few of those

TheNoost

I read in a Numismatist article from the 50's or 60's about gum money that circulated during a war. Chewed gum was pressed between the thumb and forefinger to leave a fingerprint on it and used as money. Whenever I start to go to the scary place, I think of that.

DUIGUY

<< <i>I'm not really serious about making a change in my collecting habits. >>




I tell myelf that exact same thing often!