At what age did you become a numismatist?

stevepk

At what age did you evolve from a casual collector to a numismatist?

Requirements of the casual collector:
- ill defined strategy
- limited knowledge
- limited desire
- limited resources
- some degree of interest, will seek coins when convenient
- may own a Redbook, but not much more
- rarely if ever attend coin shows, may have never been to one
- never attended a coin club or heard of the ANA summer seminar
- not focused on acquiring the best examples for reasons above

Requirements of the numismatist:
- defined collecting strategy
- knowledgeable
- higher desire to add quality examples to the collection
- willing to seek high quality coins even though inconvenient
- willing to attend coin shows, attend coin clubs, read out-of-print books, attend the ANA Summer Seminar, and meet other collectors
- has made plenty of observations through personal experience

At what age did you evolve from a casual collector to a numismatist?

childhood
teens
twenties
thirties
forties
fifties
sixties
seventies
eighties


I believe most people who ultimately make the transition do so in their fifties or sixties. I believe there are plenty of casual collectors in the younger age brackets with the potential to make the transition once they are free of other responsibilities.

ProofArtworkonCircs

I am going to say I was well on my way in my thirties
.

DIMEMAN

20's

BillJones

Unfortunately some of your criteria are pretty restrictive if you grew up in a rural area as I did in the 1950s and '60s. There were virtually no coin shows within easy driving distance, no coin shops within 50 miles, the number of published numismatic books was far fewer than it is today and there were no local clubs. Despite the fact that I had a driver's license, my parents were not about to let me drive to Wilmington, Delaware or even Dover to visit the closest coin shops.

I did attend on "stamp and coin club" meeting that I saw advertised in my area. When got there they were all stamp collectors with very little interest in coins. Their interest in stamps was limited to the various renditions of "Mr. Zip" (code) that appeared on the margins of full stamp sheets. It also didn't help that they were all retirement age, or seemed to be that to me, and I was 16 or 17.

As for resources $100 was a lot of money for coins in those days. You could go to a retail shop and buy mid 19th century half dimes, dimes, quarters and half dollars in AU and low end Unc. for $20 apiece. With $100 I could come home with a little box or bag of seven or eight nice coins. One of the gold pieces is now in an MS-65 holder.

I subscribed to "Coins" and "Coinage" magazines, and I had copies of Penny Whimsy and a book or two by Don Taxay. I suppose the test as what kind of collector I was may have been reflected by the fact that the head of the department at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia offered me a job when I was 16. So I'll put that down as the age I moved from "collector" to "numismatist."

Boosibri

Late 20's

keets

15 years ago and Bill is correct about your criteria being a bit off.

amwldcoin

Mid 30's here...started collecting at the age of 8 when I traded my older brother a model car for a partial set of Lincoln's in a Whitman folder.

TopographicOceans

I'll let you know when it happens.

Walkerfan

Mid to late 20s is when I became serious numismatist. I was a collector, since 6 or 7.

RCDB

My father was a collector, so I started as soon as I could read a date on a coin. I did not come up with a strategy that actually made sense considering what the hobby turned into, from key dates to condition rarity, until I was 50.

johnny9434

15 or so

mvs7

I would say mid-to-late 30's for me. Haven't met all of your criteria, but most of them. I have a feeling that I'm going to retire (in twenty years or so) before I get to a summer seminar.

drei3ree

Late 40's

TPRC

40

david3142

Started collecting at 10, started really learning/reading and putting money into it at 21.

ricko

Started collecting at seven..... likely not numismatist level until late thirties...by your criteria. Cheers, RickO

Shamika

Started collecting when I was 7 but didn't qualify as a numismatist until I was 33.

Shamika

<< <i>Requirements of the numismatist:

- willing to attend coin shows, attend coin clubs, read out-of-print books, attend the ANA Summer Seminar, and meet other collectors >>




I'm not sure I'd want to meet most of the clowns on this forum so maybe I don't qualify as a true numismatist.

homerunhall

My grandmother...a coin collector...gave me penny and nickel albums for my 12 birthday in 1959. By my 14th birthday I was selling coins on bid boards. Thank you grandma!

roadrunner

...never attended a coin club or heard of the ANA summer seminar

Still working on that one. So I must be a casual collector still. Only a couple coin shows in the past 4 years seals the deal.

OldEastside

10...................rest is history

Steve

lordmarcovan

I became a collector at age ten, in 1976.

Had mostly evolved to "numismatist" by around age 25 or 26.

I was, however, still fairly ignorant of a great deal until I came here thirteen years ago.

(Let's just say I've evolved considerably under the influence of these forums.)

And of course my evolution continues.

coppercoins

I was a collector at about 7 years of age, and transitioned into really studying the coins around the age of 16. I never wanted to acquire "higher dollar" or "better" coins - I just wanted to know what existed and catalog them - never mattered if I actually OWNED them, and it still doesn't matter. I am a Lincoln cent specialist with a heavy attention to die varieties - and I still don't own a 1955 DDO cent, and may never own one. I know what they look like, I know the markers of a genuine piece, and I have a number of them available to me should I want to photograph them...so why bother OWNING one?

I suppose you could drop me in the bucket with Numismatist/Researcher and Writer rather than as a Collector, Dealer, or Investor - because I'm really none of those. Once I have put my effort into a subject matter and completed my research on it, I don't really care to keep the pieces I used in my research.

CoinZip

I've always been around coins.... my Grandfather stared me down the path.

It was impossible for me to buy during parts of my military service, I was deployed for 6 months during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. We were only in 2 ports (about 10 days) but I did manage to buy some 22k gold in Egypt....

UncleJoe

I started collecting when I was about 8 or 9 and over 50 years later according to your definition I am still not a numismatist.

Joe.

Baley

I became a coin collector in 1975 at age 8.

A numismatist in about 2000

CoinJunkie

Just shy of age 40.

BryceM

It goes in stages.

1) Complete ignorance
2) Casual awareness
3) Early interest
4) Blissful ignorance
5) Painful lessons
6) Early knowledge
7) Overconfidence
8) Additional painful lessons
9) Growing awareness
10) Narrow area of actual knowledge
11) Less frequent but occasional painful lessons
12) Awakening awareness (but complete ignorance) of additional facets of the hobby
13) Enough education and experienced enough for a person to know what he doesn't know. At this point, maybe someone is a neophyte numismatist.
14) Choose your own adventure at this point. Some sit back. Some sell everything. Some write books........

On my own scale, I'm probably wandering somewhere around number 9 or 10, dropping at times to 7 and rising on rare occasion to 12.

JJSingleton

Collecting coins is not a requirement to be a numismatist. The study of coins is.

About 45 is the answer to your question though.

Nap

I was a casual collector in my teens. Started becoming a more serious coin collector, reading books, and spending more money in my early 20s. Started delving deep into a very specific series in my early 30s, reading articles on metallurgy, manufacture, and history, investigating die-links in 1000+ year old coins, spending time tracking down elusive coins and rare out-of-print books, exchanging correspondence with seasoned numismatists and book authors.

I do not consider myself a numismatist yet. Besides sharing some insight on this board, I have contributed nothing to the greater field of numismatics.

crazyhounddog

I started collecting when I was in the cub scouts. My father got me interested in them. So, I was "Collecting" coins at about 8/9 years old. I'm 63 now.

TwoSides2aCoin

Haven't become one, yet. Still studying, though.

coinkat

While it is an interesting question to ask, I will refrain from answering because I have different view as to what constitutes a Numismatist.

jcping

I became a coin collector at age 7, and turned into a numismatist at 31

leothelyon

numismatist

Gee, what is that?

leothelyon

<< <i>Late 40's >>



lol

BLUEJAYWAY

Can one be a "collectmatist"?

JohnHarper

I was in college in the early 1960's and became fascinated with the 1957-D Lincoln Cents. I accumulated about 50 different die varieties with BIE defects, filled numbers, filled letters, etc. I believe I was acting as a numismatist in that study was more important than filling holes or making money. I was not aware of any published references at the time so I was exploring an undocumented field of research.

Twenty years later I was a serious student of die varieties of U.S. large cents. By that time the seeds planted in the 1960's had developed into a blooming interest and into becoming a numismatist. I hope the fruits of those early seeds are still growing.

keyman64

31-ish.

Jinx86

Not until I started to sell coins for a profit. Started collection in my teens but really peeked my interest in my early 20's. Ive been a full-time dealer for 2 1/2 years, and part time dealer for 5 yrs before that.

Scary to think the 30 next year

Regulated

It all happened right around my 27th birthday. It's been downhill ever since...

HandH

Late 40's. Better late than never.

jdimmick

started when I was 4

seriously early to mid 30's(wasn't till I could afford to be serious)

Neca63

I started collecting Jeff nickels in 1956-57 when I was almost 4 years old.
I got one of The 1955 DDO cents in school lunch change when I was 6.
Been stuck ever since.

brg5658

Seems a good many people here confuse being a dealer with being a numismatist. I have met a great many dealers who know a lot less about things as basic as coin production than I do. Numismatists are about the production, art, science, history...etc.

Dealer and Numismatist are not synonyms. The good dealers are the ones who are also numismatists...for example John Kraljevich.

Just my 2 cents.

SullivanNumismatics

I was attending a Civil War show when I was 10, and wandered into a building attached to the show which happened to be a coin show. After seeing all the coins I was hooked, and have been collecting and later dealing in coins ever since. I decided I wanted to be a dealer at 13, and was a part-time dealer for about 13 years before going full-time.

golden

I was a collector at 10 1/2 and a numismatist by 21. I have loved every minute.

RedTiger

<< <i>At what age did you evolve from a casual collector to a numismatist?

Requirements of the casual collector:
- ill defined strategy
- limited knowledge
- limited desire
- limited resources
- some degree of interest, will seek coins when convenient
- may own a Redbook, but not much more
- rarely if ever attend coin shows, may have never been to one
- never attended a coin club or heard of the ANA summer seminar
- not focused on acquiring the best examples for reasons above

Requirements of the numismatist:
- defined collecting strategy
- knowledgeable
- higher desire to add quality examples to the collection
- willing to seek high quality coins even though inconvenient
- willing to attend coin shows, attend coin clubs, read out-of-print books, attend the ANA Summer Seminar, and meet other collectors
- has made plenty of observations through personal experience

At what age did you evolve from a casual collector to a numismatist?
>>



Terrible list. There are some life long collectors that can probably numis the pants off you, that don't meet the requirements of your list. One of the worst things in the hobby is this preaching of personal preferences as some how superior to other ways of collecting. Plenty opt out of the quality game for a variety of reasons. Plenty have a broad range of collector interests. Yes, the PCGS forum does tend to skew towards deep pockets and quality oriented collectors. However, out in the rest of the world it just isn't like that.

GhosOfRudy

The year my dad passed for the most part. 2013.

GRANDAM

My maternal grandfather use to take me to a monthly coin auction and he would always buy me a steel cent, indian head penny or a buffalo nickel or something.

Then in the transation from silver to clad coinage every week he would cash his paycheck at the bank and bring home rolls of dimes, quarters and half dollars and then every Sunday after dinner we would go thru all the coins and pick out the silver.

I was only 6 yrs old at the time but I have been collecting ever since. I looked forward to doing this every Sunday, Grandpa was my buddy as my father had been killed a few years earlier and Grandpa and I were real close.

Grandpa did have a nice set of gold coins $2 1/2 Liberty & Indian, $5 Liberty & Indian, $10 Liberty & Indian & a $20 St Gaudens,,,,, actually Grandpa sold these coins himself before he died,,,,, he asked me where to sell them and I took him to a local shop to a guy I knew and trusted. I was only 25 at this time and didn't have the money to buy the coins myself. I don't remember the dates but they were all uncirculated coins as I recall. I remeber Grandpa smiling saying he only had $45 in the $20 Gold coin.

When Grandpa died Grandma put me in charge of disposing of the rest of his collection. I bought a few coins that I kept for myself but the majority of his collection was the 90% siver coin we pulled out of rolls 20 years earlier.

Grandpa died before I got so heavy into collecting and I like to think he would be pleased if he could see some of the sets that I have put togrther over the years.

GrandAm

mercurydimeguy

13...which seems like it was yesterday.