What are the biggest lesson(s) you learned in collecting this year?
AnkurJ
Posts: 11,370 ✭✭✭✭
Looking back, I learned many things. Here are my top few:
1. Just because someone is a board member, doesn't mean they are trustworthy. I am out about $600 from trying to buy from board members this year. Chalk it up to a loss, but it still stings.
2. Altered/puttied gold can be in problem free slabs! I never realized how coin doctors can alter the surfaces of gold coins. Thankfully I didnt learn this by making a mistake.
3. Yesterdays problem free coins, can be a problem coin today.
How about you?
1. Just because someone is a board member, doesn't mean they are trustworthy. I am out about $600 from trying to buy from board members this year. Chalk it up to a loss, but it still stings.
2. Altered/puttied gold can be in problem free slabs! I never realized how coin doctors can alter the surfaces of gold coins. Thankfully I didnt learn this by making a mistake.
3. Yesterdays problem free coins, can be a problem coin today.
How about you?
All coins kept in bank vaults.
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
0
Comments
Drunner
With respect to numismatics I have learned I'm much happier/satisfied with 2-3 really nice coins versus a collection per se and
that I derive most of my numismatic pleasure from reading about coins and collecting a few special edition coin books.
When you think you just gotta have it, relax, it'll pass.
I also learned that a "market" may consist of 15 or less individuals and when that "market" is satisfied, it dies.
The name is LEE!
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<< <i>That a 70cm x 70cm Hermès Très Kelly silk scarf is not practical as a pocket handkerchief...but that's another forum.
With respect to numismatics I have learned I'm much happier/satisfied with 2-3 really nice coins versus a collection per se and
that I derive most of my numismatic pleasure from reading about coins and collecting a few special edition coin books. >>
except for the first sentence
Trust me Realone; I've tried...the 70cm Hermès scarves are too bulky for a suit/jacket breast pocket...better to stay with
the Hermès 16" by 16" silk handkerchiefs...
<< <i>Biggest lesson learned this year was USPS insurance is useless >>
Do tell!
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
Positive BST Transactions: kalshacon
It does not have to be investment grade to bring
Maximum enjoyment
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>That a 70cm x 70cm Hermès Très Kelly silk scarf is not practical as a pocket handkerchief...but that's another forum. With respect to numismatics I have learned I'm much happier/satisfied with 2-3 really nice coins versus a collection per se and that I derive most of my numismatic pleasure from reading about coins and collecting a few special edition coin books. >>
except for the first sentence
Trust me Realone; I've tried...the 70cm Hermès scarves are too bulky for a suit/jacket breast pocket...better to stay with the Hermès 16" by 16" silk handkerchiefs...
Are you a Lord or a Duke, or both?
Picking up Eric's book and joining this forum have expanded my knowledge by leaps and bounds.
Completing and finishing a set are not the same thing.
Widgets are a distraction
Auctions are a collectors best friend
Trust your instincts
Sell a mistake as soon as possible and do not look back
buy from coin shops and people i know
never lose interest in collecting
2003-Present
2) Building a set from circulation will always be more fun than buying one
3) And, for a relative novice like myself, sticking to bullion-based coins is a good idea
I also agree with the advice to give myself time to "cool off" when I get overly-excited about a new coin or series.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
<< <i>I've learned how to give up on perfectly good coins. >>
Care to explain Andy?
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
.....................................................
Care to explain Andy?
Before this year, I would very rarely give up on a coin that hadn't yet graded as I expected. I would resubmit until it worked or until someone paid me "shot money" (an in-between price) for the coin. This year, it became so easy to buy and so difficult to get a proper grade that I had to change my ways. Now, I'm much quicker to shrug my shoulders at a bad grade and dump the coin.
Along the same lines, I used to buy lots of esoteric coins with thin markets, and I would hold them until they sold for what I thought was a decent price. Now, the market for good coins is even thinner than it was, and I find myself much quicker to dump a good coin at a cheap price just because I've had it too long. I'd almost rather buy junk now, because people understand junk and it sells fast.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
2. I like finding Lincoln Memorial Cents with Full Steps.
3. CherryPicking your own collection is almost too much fun.
4. Making your first discovery coin is also almost too much fun.
5. Also Finding two second known specimen's in the same evening is cool too.
Ken
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
<< <i>When the bullion market gives you the chance to unload some material you were buried in ... do so quickly ... and don't look back. >>
This is good advice and could be expanded to include if you have the chance to get out of any undesirable coin take it.
<< <i>Looking back, I learned many things. Here are my top few:
1. Just because someone is a board member, doesn't mean they are trustworthy. I am out about $600 from trying to buy from board members this year. Chalk it up to a loss, but it still stings. >>
What happened here? I would be a lil angry. In fact, Im a lil angry for you!...lol
Proud recipient of Y.S. Award on 07/26/08.
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
<< <i>In 2010, I learned that markets can be made solely in the PCGS Coin Forum.
I also learned that a "market" may consist of 15 or less individuals and when that "market" is satisfied, it dies. >>
19Lyds, I totally agree with your comments. First collected Jeffersons and was amazed that in two years I had met most of the
top registry set participants at shows.
Much smaller world than I believed.
Now into Lincolns, much larger audience. Still have grown to know most of the top players and I am not one of them. Shag
Just kidding....
<< <i>
<< <i>Looking back, I learned many things. Here are my top few:
1. Just because someone is a board member, doesn't mean they are trustworthy. I am out about $600 from trying to buy from board members this year. Chalk it up to a loss, but it still stings. >>
What happened here? I would be a lil angry. In fact, Im a lil angry for you!...lol >>
See my sigline. PM me for details, way too long to post here!
PCGS Registries
Box of 20
SeaEagleCoins: 11/14/54-4/5/12. Miss you Larry!
Rarity trumps all
When one of my customers bought a digital microscope after seeing a demonstration in my shop, he returned with renewed vigor to buy wheat cents and mercury dimes to search. He doesn't spend a lot, but he said he's like a kid in a candy store all over again. That's a huge lesson in "enjoyment". A bag of wheaties do not have to have much of an anomaly to get him "re-charged". The fun is finding. He could not see my varieties on coins with a loupe any more. With that digital microscope, he's got new eyes.
Isn't that cool ? Watching an old man beam ?
Lessons are many. I talk too much.
Progress now requires fluidity in pluses, minuses, cacronyms, secures, etc.
roadrunner
<< <i>In 2010, I learned that markets can be made solely in the PCGS Coin Forum.
I also learned that a "market" may consist of 15 or less individuals and when that "market" is satisfied, it dies. >>
2) Sooooo true, and sometimes many fewer players at that
1)
Incisive analysis
2) Sooooo true, and sometimes many fewer players at that
The corollary, of course, is that sometimes it only takes a few players to bring a dead market to life.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I have learned that a lot of people on here will take small comments out of context and ignore the plot or overall intentions to judge people.
I have also learned that here on CU - there are those who will turn your listings into eBay for not having pictures of both sides of a slab, in spite of listing photos that show microscopic coin details and cert #'s and that you can finally reorganize your listings into a manner that you like since your first stab at it was exactly that, a stab in the dark.
Thanks!
<< <i> ....The corollary, of course, is that sometimes it only takes a few players to bring a dead market to life. >>
Logical, but it usually takes years for a market segment to recover after it craters because of psychological issues about price momentum downward (self-fulfilling prophecy) and accumulated over-supply.
<< <i>I have learned - that you should not give information to coin dealers when asking for more pics. That they are a paranoid lot and think everyone who asks questions is out to make their life miserable. >>
Maybe on Ebay or small-time dealers, but any dealer worth his salt will try to make potential customers happy. And the questions may initiate a richer dialogue. You can always look at the pictures after asking the question and have new questions.
Of course the less expensive the coin the less service you will get, at least until you have established yourself as a worthwhile customer. It's a two-way street. You must put aside your reservations and cover your risks at the same time, but a bit of frustration is not the same thing as getting ripped off.
And remember, all generalizations are bad.
<< <i>
<< <i>I have learned - that you should not give information to coin dealers when asking for more pics. That they are a paranoid lot and think everyone who asks questions is out to make their life miserable. >>
Maybe on Ebay or small-time dealers, but any dealer worth his salt will try to make potential customers happy. And the questions may initiate a richer dialogue. You can always look at the pictures after asking the question and have new questions.
Of course the less expensive the coin the less service you will get, at least until you have established yourself as a worthwhile customer. It's a two-way street. You must put aside your reservations and cover your risks at the same time, but a bit of frustration is not the same thing as getting ripped off.
And remember, all generalizations are bad. >>
Thank you! that is sage advice and I concur. I was being sarcastic and snide. It was in relation to a lengthy Christmas Day Thread I created asking for insight on why I was blocked for asking for better pictures of 2 CAC's 65RD coins that were being sold together. By the end of the thread some were posting that anyone who deals in coins here will have now put me on their blocked list.