My daughters weren't introduced to coins until after a divorce at the turn of the century. My whole (other ) family is uninvolved in coins. Somehow my dad got me interested when I was a kid and I nurtured it for about 10 years where it lie dead /dormant for over a quarter century (no pun intended with quarter). In all…. after 15 children, 97+ ? grandchildren, 115+ great grandchildren, and a couple great great grandchildren… there are possibly 1 or 2 other family members in about 200 people in my family, who are concerned at all with anything "numismatic". One nephew is beginning to understand the difference between bullion , scrap and "coins". So there are a couple bachelors and lots of married men and women and ZERO collectors.
Forgive me for collecting coins. It's one of the few "hiding places" a socialite can hang out. If I had it to do all over again, I would not have been married. I would have been a fireman. That's what I'm gonna be when I grow up.
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others. >>
Well yes, I think you would be hard-pressed to find disagreement there. The question is whether or not that percentage is much difference than the general public. And looking at a handful of famous coin collectors who pretty much all died a long time ago doesn't seem to really have any scientific merit. This is one area that would require a lot of data and analysis to actually make a conclusion. We of course may have gut feelings one way or another, but proof would be a pain.
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others. >>
[...]And looking at a handful of famous coin collectors who pretty much all died a long time ago doesn't seem to really have any scientific merit.[...] >>
It might have merit for "top collectors," since there simply aren't that many top collectors of any time period and they can be named and researched. I did look up a few more collectors that are still living in addition to Norweb, Simpson, and the forum members listed, but stopped when I ran across some that had wives that passed away, out of respect. A top collector list doesn't seem impossible to accomplish.
It's been noted that many successful businessmen tend to be married. It would be interesting if the same could be said for coin collectors.
<< <i>The question is whether or not that percentage is much difference than the general public >>
I agree the question may be harder to answer for the general public, especially if much of the collecting public cannot be observed at public and club events. Perhaps a US Mint survey would help here.
In most populations there is a fair amount of diversity. Say we could rank male coin collectors by their level of social adjustment, which is strongly related to marital status and success in the business world. On the high end we would find many of the married businessmen with substantial assets, who have built high value collections. On the low end are the single guys who might want to be married but can't seem to make it happen. Their assets may be lower, but their living expenses may also be low, so they may turn to purchasing nice coins as a way of gaining pleasure from their money. So the causality in this segment of the population could be (single --> serious collector) , instead of (serious collector --> single) . Of course correlation does not suggest a direction of causality, but we like to think in terms of cause and effect.
If you want to get scientific-----I bet that if I ran a regression with owners of successful/higher-end collections as my independent variable (Y); the correlation coefficient (r) would be high for the 3 dependent variables (X) of wealth, IQ and married/significant other. All we need is a good pool of DATA. Yes---I am trying to be funny but I am also telling the TRUTH as I know it! What I'm saying is that most coin collectors are successful, well-adjusted individuals.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
Actually, looking at the thread title again, the hypothesis is "collecting precedes and causes never married in remainder of life". So I think in this instance "correlated" is meant as "causes", instead of "statistical correlation" (which does not have a direction of causation).
It's hard to do true science, where you have a controlled experiment, because people choose to collect or not. Vs. having a random assignment of collecting to different experimental subjects.
Like you said, IF we had some data, we could compute a correlation coefficient or run a linear regression or logit on various factors. But statistical methods on nonexperimental data are not very scientific, because of the lack of random assignment. (explanatory variables correlated with left out / unmeasured factors).
IF we had the data, I'd stratify by social adjustment, and run a regression or logit separately in high / low groups. Although if all of the variables are 0/1 (collector, married, low/high social adj.), we don't need fancy tools and could just look at crosstabs.
Thanks for bringing this back up WTCG, I had never seen it. I also was not really aware of there being a large number of bachelors in coins.
I am one of the lucky ones, found my match about 35 years ago. She never really got interested in coins but she knows what to look for. She has got me plenty of wheaties and even an off-center Lincoln.
When I started doing shows I told her she had to come along and help. She probably was not too enthused at first but ended up having a blast talking to everyone. Watching me jam wads of hundreds in my pockets didn't hurt either. Don't think I could keep her away from a show now.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
Movies have portrayed coin collectors (in one instance) as people who have AS (Aspergers Syndrome). It is a neurological disorder which inhibits social functioning and people who have it are not what is considered neuro typical. You can do your own research on the subject. I don't think coins are the cause of someone not getting married, there could be other factors involved like AS or perhaps the guy is a sugar dater or strip club hobbyist who has no desire for a committed relationship or its restrictions.
<< <i>I'm not sure I agree with this. The list of married coin collectors is long and varied:
- Bass - Carter - Eliasberg - Farouk - Ford - Green - Lee - Mehl - Newman - Norweb - Pittman - Simpson
Not to mention:
- CRO - HRH - RYK - TDN
Bachelors / bachelorettes include:
- Brand
In fact, I was hard pressed to find a collector that was not married! >>
I do believe I remember a quote from Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, "It's just as easy to fall in love with a wealthy man"...
I suspect the above mentioned collectors in general had assets well beyond the general public. Having these assets I suspect made them babe magnets, no matter how socially inept they were.
Having spent some time around others with nerdy interests (computer programmers, comic book collectors, hardcore online gamers, MTG card players, etc) I would say that coin collectors are probably among the more socially-adjusted of nerds.
Comments
In all…. after 15 children, 97+ ? grandchildren, 115+ great grandchildren, and a couple great great grandchildren… there are possibly 1 or 2 other family members in about 200 people in my family, who are concerned at all with anything "numismatic". One nephew is beginning to understand the difference between bullion , scrap and "coins".
So there are a couple bachelors and lots of married men and women and ZERO collectors.
If I had it to do all over again, I would not have been married. I would have been a fireman. That's what I'm gonna be when I grow up.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>
<< <i>There is no correlation IMHO. >>
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>There is no correlation IMHO. >>
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others. >>
Well yes, I think you would be hard-pressed to find disagreement there. The question is whether or not that percentage is much difference than the general public. And looking at a handful of famous coin collectors who pretty much all died a long time ago doesn't seem to really have any scientific merit. This is one area that would require a lot of data and analysis to actually make a conclusion. We of course may have gut feelings one way or another, but proof would be a pain.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>There is no correlation IMHO. >>
I'm starting to think there may be a correlation. If you look at the list of collectors I posted above, many of the top collectors are / were married. >>
Yes--that is what I mean. I think that most collectors have significant others. >>
[...]And looking at a handful of famous coin collectors who pretty much all died a long time ago doesn't seem to really have any scientific merit.[...] >>
It might have merit for "top collectors," since there simply aren't that many top collectors of any time period and they can be named and researched. I did look up a few more collectors that are still living in addition to Norweb, Simpson, and the forum members listed, but stopped when I ran across some that had wives that passed away, out of respect. A top collector list doesn't seem impossible to accomplish.
It's been noted that many successful businessmen tend to be married. It would be interesting if the same could be said for coin collectors.
<< <i>The question is whether or not that percentage is much difference than the general public >>
I agree the question may be harder to answer for the general public, especially if much of the collecting public cannot be observed at public and club events. Perhaps a US Mint survey would help here.
Say we could rank male coin collectors by their level of social adjustment, which is strongly related to marital status and success in the business world.
On the high end we would find many of the married businessmen with substantial assets, who have built high value collections.
On the low end are the single guys who might want to be married but can't seem to make it happen.
Their assets may be lower, but their living expenses may also be low, so they may turn to purchasing nice coins as a way of gaining pleasure from their money.
So the causality in this segment of the population could be (single --> serious collector) , instead of (serious collector --> single) .
Of course correlation does not suggest a direction of causality, but we like to think in terms of cause and effect.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
So I think in this instance "correlated" is meant as "causes", instead of "statistical correlation" (which does not have a direction of causation).
It's hard to do true science, where you have a controlled experiment, because people choose to collect or not.
Vs. having a random assignment of collecting to different experimental subjects.
Like you said, IF we had some data, we could compute a correlation coefficient or run a linear regression or logit on various factors.
But statistical methods on nonexperimental data are not very scientific, because of the lack of random assignment.
(explanatory variables correlated with left out / unmeasured factors).
IF we had the data, I'd stratify by social adjustment, and run a regression or logit separately in high / low groups.
Although if all of the variables are 0/1 (collector, married, low/high social adj.), we don't need fancy tools and could just look at crosstabs.
I am one of the lucky ones, found my match about 35 years ago. She never really got interested in coins but she knows what to look for. She has got me plenty of wheaties and even an off-center Lincoln.
When I started doing shows I told her she had to come along and help. She probably was not too enthused at first but ended up having a blast talking to everyone. Watching me jam wads of hundreds in my pockets didn't hurt either. Don't think I could keep her away from a show now.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
<< <i>I'm not sure I agree with this. The list of married coin collectors is long and varied:
- Bass
- Carter
- Eliasberg
- Farouk
- Ford
- Green
- Lee
- Mehl
- Newman
- Norweb
- Pittman
- Simpson
Not to mention:
- CRO
- HRH
- RYK
- TDN
Bachelors / bachelorettes include:
- Brand
In fact, I was hard pressed to find a collector that was not married! >>
I do believe I remember a quote from Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, "It's just as easy to fall in love with a wealthy man"...
I suspect the above mentioned collectors in general had assets well beyond the general public. Having these assets I suspect made them babe magnets, no matter how socially inept they were.
U.S. Type Set
Get a date , today. No spam intended , boys.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5