WHY do you collect what you collect?
BillyKingsley
Posts: 2,661 ✭✭✭✭
In This Recent Thread FilthyBroke asks what we collect. It turned out that we have a wide variety of collecting interests that visit this board.
I'm wondering, WHY is you collect what you collect?
For me, I collect what I like. I happen to like it all, so I collect whatever I can, whenever I can! I do however favor American, Canadian, Italian, German, British and French coinage. Partly because I enjoy their coinages, partly because that is some of my heritage (the majority, but not everything)
How about you?
(PS if this has been covered before, my apologies)
I'm wondering, WHY is you collect what you collect?
For me, I collect what I like. I happen to like it all, so I collect whatever I can, whenever I can! I do however favor American, Canadian, Italian, German, British and French coinage. Partly because I enjoy their coinages, partly because that is some of my heritage (the majority, but not everything)
How about you?
(PS if this has been covered before, my apologies)
Billy Kingsley ANA R-3146356 Cardboard History // Numismatic History
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Gary
FOR SALE Items
I think I've got that too. Lol. Luckily my wife doesn't mind but I do tend to get really obsessed or focused on one thing and for the past so many years it has been coins. I even loose track of time when I'm researching etc. or looking at coins.
My collecting interest has changed over the years but currently I collect world gold coins, I like the fact that there are so many nice designs to choose from plus my grandmother always used to buy gold with her money, I guess she was old school like that and didn't trust paper. Some of her philosophy rubbed off on me.
I am also collecting British fractional farthings. I like the designs and I think its an area that is under valued and collected. Most of them are low mintage and quite a challenge to find in high grade
I buy any nice coins in genera, so I don't really rule anything out. Although I try to stay focused if I see something I like....
I have stopped collecting Canadian, Australian, and other Darkside coins because I wanted to establish some kind of focus with my collections and not be so random. Although I am going to keep one little piece of French gold "just because"
My OmniCoin Collection
My BankNoteBank Collection
Tom, formerly in Albuquerque, NM.
I collect artistry and history in coinage. I guess that my collecting habit satisfies my OCD and is an incentive for further learning.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Actually, for me, it's history first then art.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
World Collection
British Collection
German States Collection
Jim
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
Philippine Coins - because I love the Philippines and my pinaka maganda asawa babae
I have acquired 41 different 8 Reales minted in Mexico (mostly XF or better) as well as some other interesting chunks of silver and copper from other various parts of the planet. I guess if it catches my eye it may end up in my accumulation, but Germany is the only country I actively seek out and collect anymore.
Rick
1836 Capped Liberty
dime. My oldest US
detecting find so far.
I dig almost every
signal I get for the most
part. Go figure...
Historical significance of the various countries/rulers and gold coinage throughout the ages;the beautiful and unique artistic designs available
and finally price/value vs US gold
stainless
History, design and connection to family and past. The order does not indicate primary purchasing factor.
World coins mainly by birthyears of family members, but there are certain countries and/or designs I seek as I find the (in my eyes) designs to be of superior artistic quality.
When a coin clearly conveys either a statement, feeling or depicts the personality of the person portrayed I am all the more attracted to those pieces.
There are also some coins that carry a sense of history about them more so than others. Not a quantifiable quality, and is no doubt subjective.
Hard to define but coins can be like a pretty face, and like a pretty face if there is nothing of substances behind it a long term relationship is unlikely.
Probably the art and history aspects.
On the other end, I really enjoy collecting from circulation, and have probably enjoyed my U.S. and Canadian nickel collections as much as any other.
Thanks so much for asking this question.
Years later, the collection came out of storage and was largely destroyed by the PVC in the coin album. Luckily, the only UNC piece I had was a blackened 1901 farthing, and thanks to its surface, appeared to survive the PVC carnage. I still own that piece to this day. The rest of the old collection was junk box material but did include a lot of 1920-1946 silver, which no one bothered to segregate out.
Years later still, I found myself in a coin shop for the first time in many years, and the old bug bit me again. Only this time, the hobby got a bit more expensive. My initial goal of collecting 1838-1970 minors in UNC by date has been significantly lowered to just a few denominations.
A few of my reasons...
1. They are indeed US Coinage, as the Philippine Islands were part of the United States during that time, just as Puerto Rica was (and still is) part of the United States.
2. My wife is a Filipina, so my marriage is mirrored by the coinage displaying "United States of America" on one side and "Filipinas" (Spanish for Philippines) on the other.
3. They are the only bi-lingual coinage ever produced for circulation in a US Territory.
4. They are the only US coinage not denominated in Dollars and Cents (Pesos and Centavos), and which were officially exchanged 2 Pesos to 1 Dollar.
5. They form the only category of US coinage where one can theoretically complete a collection of all dates, mintmarks and denominations without winning the lottery.
6. Extreme bargains can still be found by diligent collectors.
7. Conditional Scarcities/Rarities abound and are the norm due to a hot-humid-ocean climate, extensive circulation, lack of an early collector base, two world wars, multiple historic silver melts and rampant "cleaning" by the early collector base (which did not form in significant numbers until just after WW2).
8. The coins are artistic and aesthetically pleasing.
9. They include the only coins ever minted at the US Mint in Manila, and so a collection of coins from all US Mints cannot be completed without at least one example.
10. History, history and more history.
Edited for spelling.
<< <i>I grew up in England, thanks to my dad's job in the oil industry. ... >>
Cool story! What a coin adventure you had as a kid! I never even thought to look in rolls when I was a young numismatist, but I also had many coins destroyed by PVC.
<< <i>WHY do you collect what you collect? >>
My wife says because I am a touch insane.
WNC Coins, LLC
1987-C Hendersonville Road
Asheville, NC 28803
wnccoins.com
Coins can create this "historic link" better than most other artefacts, for two reasons. First, because they're relatively cheap and common, and second, because they are one of the few ancient inventions whose appearance and function has changed very little over the past 2,500 years: to an ancient Greek, a mediaeval Crusader or a modern office worker, a coin is a small round piece of metal issued by the government that you can use to buy things with. To me, my coins vividly demonstrate the continuum of human civilization.
Coins are plentiful enough that you can buy as many as you can afford, yet they are still very distinctive and characteristic of the time and place that issued them. Each coin also has it's own unique history and provenance.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
<< <i>WHY do you collect what you collect? >>
For the best of all possible reasons - I enjoy it!
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
Wonder how many YN's took this perspective and applied it to the State Quarters program.
I've collected Latvian state and city currency since college. Perhaps one of the dumbest collecting rationales, but I actually remember going thru the Pick catalogue in my back yard one summer looking for a country with relatively few notes that seemed easy to complete. This interest has run hot and cold over the years, but at this point I'm only missing one significant variety (the 1919 25R serial block A) in the state notes and less than a dozen varieties of the 1915-1920 city notes (per the Werag specialized cats). Got real lucky in the 1990s when eastern Europe opened up, the $ was still king and the market was flooded with cheap but really good material including specimens, Paraugs, etc.
My vatican/papal interest is related to my late wife's Italian heritage. Over the years I've really become intrigued with a coinage that spans over to a thousand years. A lot of the same themes reappear - often depicted differently which is fun - and there's all kinds of themes you can develop (e.g., biblical references, the life of Christ, jubilee issues, lateran issues, buildings, contemporary events, etc etc etc). The baroque coinage (~1650 to the early 1700s) are probably the most lovely coins ever produced (in my not so HO) anywhere and anytime altho some of the more recent medals are real stunners.
My US currency interests relates to my 2 "home towns" and to try and document/understand the history of the local national banks. It was triggered by a job change when I was in banking in STL.
For a long time I specialized in roman folles of RIC 6 and still buy interesting varieties when the opportunity comes up. An interesting series that provides a vast number of interesting varieties and potential collecting themes (eg, emperors and titles, reverse types, mints and mint varieties, bust types, etc etc).
edited to add: Looking over this again, I guess I've been drawn to series that can be approached in a variety of ways so that there's alway the opportunity to have something new to discover.
It seems to me that while not the only reasons, historical significance and ties to personal history are the two main factors across the board.
Thanks for all the responces!
I collect Romans - collection here:
A new favorite:
www.rfrajola.com
also for my time. While this era may have horrible faults and wide chasms in
opportunity as well as being one of the most wasteful the #1 way of present-
ing our best face is in assuring the survival of the best we have to offer. Our
coins have enough problems without presenting only things like defaced and
bent aluminum coins to the future.
People will be interested in coins even after they consider the 2700 years they
were made to be a mere blink in history.
I hope!
When I was a kid (late 50's early 60's) and during one of my visits to my Grandfather, he showed me a box
of Morgan's.
I was totally fascinated...I would imagine who might have held these pieces of art, and wondered about the stories
that these coins could tell if they could talk.
Eventually I was plugging Whitman folders with circulated Lincolns, Jefferson's, and Mercs...
I never got attached to the Roosies and just recently came to actually dislike them/him. (thats another story)
I collected the circulating Walkers and Franklins later because they were to expensive for me at first.
Every time I would visit him, I would beg and plead for him to show me his Morgan's. One day he gave them to me.
He said "You will never stop pestering me about these so you might as well have them.
I still have all of them and to this day, they are my most prized coins.
When I could save up a few bucks, I would buy MS Morgans for $3. He couldn't understand why you would pay
$3 for $1. I didn't know why either, it just felt right.