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Collecting and Skewed Value of Money
TommyType
Posts: 4,586 ✭✭✭✭✭
This happen to anyone else?
- Last weekend, I dropped about $180 on a coin. It didn't bother me in the least, since $180 is a fairly normal outlay for me, on a coin of interest.
- Today, while on a Home Depot spree, (yard supplies, replacing some hardware, cords and whatnot to "improve" my Christmas light setup), I ran up a bill of $145. I had a serious internal struggle with myself, paying THAT MUCH for these "things".
What the he11 is wrong with me? 
While your personal comfort zone may vary....anyone else see the world differently through their numismatic colored glasses?
Easily distracted Type Collector
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You got off cheap. I spent waaaay more than that. Not to mention hours and hours of installation time. Unfortunately, I haven't purchased any coins lately.
There's nothing wrong with you. The difference is one cost is sunk while the other is not. There is about a ZERO percent chance that you will ever recoup the funds spent at Home Depot to decorate your house for Christmas. No one will ever want to buy those lights from you from what you paid. The best case scenario is that you put them up for sale five or ten years from now at a garage sale and recoup 10% of what you spent. It's a sunk cost.
However, there is a possibility of recovering the entire amount spent on your coin assuming things go your way. First, you have to had bought it right. Second, you have to sell it right, and third, it should be a coin in demand by others. If all three of these things go in your favor, you are likely to break even on your coin or even make a profit. Part of being a numismatist is the study of how to buy and sell so that you are not sunk. Sure, you will have your winners and losers and you will sometimes make mistakes, but the difference between your coin and your Home Depot spending is that there is a chance you will see that money again.
What you spent at Home Depot is a deduction from your overall net worth while collecting the right coins at the right prices is simply a deferral of liquid net worth. The coins you buy today are non-depreciating assets that will still be the same coins they are today twenty years from now and will still provide the same degree of satisfaction of ownership. The same cannot be said about Christmas lights.
There's nothing wrong with buying those things, where I come from it's call "up keep".
Hedge your bets with a gold or silver menorah,
Make up a story about Jesus not having electricity.
Candles are up-keep.
So is an SDB.
Isn't it time to rationalize another coin purchase instead?
Hetty Green scrimped on Doctor's fees and had a large chest of gold coins down at the bank.
Money comes, and money goes...
Earned by sweat and spent on clothes
Some is saved and some is spent
and some you don't know where it went.....
Cheers, RickO
"collecting the right coins at the right prices is simply a deferral of liquid net worth. "
Boy I got to remember that when the wife asks " what did you buy NOW ".....
Bob
Lordmarcovan, WTCG, YogiBerraFan, Phoenin21, LindeDad, Coll3ctor, blue594, robkoll, Mike Dixon, BloodMan, Flakthat and others.
Although I might complain each week when I mow the lawn myself, instead of paying $40, I just picture two ASE's in my pocket.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
The post is not about a "skewed value of money." It is about how we individually value goods and services; and how those relative values change with circumstances.
Consider--
You live in an isolated cabin near Denali in Alaska. 200 miles to your closest neighbor. It's mid-December. You go hunting. You return empty handed after 5 days. Your cabin has burnt to the ground. No food, shelter, ammunition. Your private stash of 100 double eagles is undamaged.
In Fairbanks your double eagles would be worth $120,000 and you could buy supplies to rebuild. But you're not in Fairbanks. You have a beautiful but very cold, very hungry view of Denali. The value to you of a pallet of lumber, tools and an iron stove is very high, compared to the value of the DE.
We make decisions like the OPs every day. The Nobel Laureate in economics reminds us that we are not rational managers of our personal economies. Emotions, wants and outside influences govern what we do with money. This is much of why things such as "trickle down economics" fail, and continue to fail regardless of the happy names we apply. There are too many illogical decisions in the path to recipients, so in the end the projected recipients receive nothing.
OK. Enough economics stuff for today.
Funny how we don't mind paying an extra several hundred dollars on a 4 or 5 digit coin, while smaller, less expensive, more necessary items make us tighten our wallet.
It is counterintuitive and the behavior of a coin addict....Our addictions supersede all else.
I've finally reached a point where I'm trying not to be like that anymore.
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 agree with most of this.
As I have stated elsewhere, liquidating my Dad's estate has been a real eyeopener. Dad collected lots of stuff, and lots of the things he spent money on have become real dross since 2007-2009.
I gotta simplify my own pile of 'le Junque', including coins.