Emotional Pain and Pleasure of this Hobby
RogerB
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What aspects of coin collecting-buying/selling-studying bring you the most emotional pain or discomfort?
What aspects of coin collecting-buying/selling-studying bring you the most emotional pleasure?
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Pain/ dealing with some of the personalities in the hobby.
Pleasure/ dealing with the others! Also, sharing collection with other collectors.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Right now I have 10 of my favorite coins at CAC. Being away from them for an extended time causes me a little anxiety. Also I have received a lot of pain from poorer than expected grades from PCGS.
The most pleasure is finding a cheap gem in the raw and having it come back with a high grade from PCGS.
Having relatively common coins sit on my want list forever gets to me after a while. I am much more into studying and enjoying what I have than chasing after it.
Also dealing with the really arrogant personalities in this hobby gets old. Some people expect you support them but offer nothing in return.
The most satisfying aspect of the hobby is to create to complete a project and then share it with other collectors.
If any of my hobbies caused me the least bit of emotional pain I would exit and find a new one immediately
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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......
"What aspects of coin collecting-buying/selling-studying bring you the most emotional pain or discomfort?"
The pitfalls and stresses of buying and selling.
"What aspects of coin collecting-buying/selling-studying bring you the most emotional pleasure?"
The essential beauty and historical interests of the coins, and the friendships the hobby affords with people whom you otherwise would never have had the pleasure of knowing.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
Most fun:
Least fun:
Pain: knowing I'll never be able to have all the cool stuff I want to have.
Pleasure: learning about some new (to me) ruler, event or place in history.
Physical pain: I'm allergic to nickel and handling my collection, which is something like 98% modern, causes my hands to feel like they are burning from the inside out, turn grayish green, and sometimes open up and bleed, depending on how long I work on them.
Honestly, I should just collect pictures of coins, it'd be better in just about every way.
Verdigris makes me sad.
That's a severe nickel allergy. Generally it's confined to particulate nickel, not alloy. It takes real dedication to collect modern coins in your situation! !
Well, either that or stupidity. Sometimes I wonder which!
Pleasure - upgrading
Pain - bright pastel colors on otherwise beautiful coins
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
You certainly got that right. Wow, just wow. Emotional pain from collecting coins? I fear for the future of mankind if this is what we've become.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
One of the primary arguments of Gould, Inc in favor of titanium coins (1978) was nickel allergy.
I didn't know that. It's one of the reasons I tend to favor copper and in world coins, aluminum, though.
Excerpt:
"Gould’s Reception by Congress
The Congressional hearings of May 1978 did not go well for Gould, Inc. and Dr. Selker. Mint technologist Alan Goldman questioned many of Selker’s assertions and rejected use of powdered metal by the Mint for the small dollar coin. Goldman’s 1976 report was clear that neither titanium nor powdered metals of any kind were going to get any practical consideration. Selker attempted to challenge the Committee about embracing new technology. He also claimed that “Nickel metal as small particles or corroded chemical is toxic to human beings, giving effects from dermatitis to cancer,” but this also elicited little response from Members."
"A small number of newspapers picked up the [Gould's] press release or commented on the May hearings. The Chicago Tribune opened a brief article with a not-very-subtle pun.
Gould Coin in Future?
There could be a Gould coin in our future. Dr. Milton L. Selker, a consultant to Gould, Inc, the electrical and industrial products headquartered in Rolling Meadows, has proposed the substitution of titanium coins for today’s nickel-copper alloy.
Coin hobby columnist Roger Boye, writing in the same newspaper a week later, titled his article “Yet Another Cancer ‘Risk’ – the Nickel?” and ended with the comment that “the nickel in coins is solid, not dust.” Elsewhere there was little interest in Selker’s claims or Gould’s powdered titanium and the matter quickly died."
End excerpt from Gould Laboratories, Inc., Catalog of Private Metallurgical Patterns, Planchets and Related Pieces,1976-1978 by Roger W. Burdette.
Wow! I wish they had gone for that idea.
FYI a titanium dollar coin could also have been colored without changing its composition. Maybe green dollars to match green backs?
Maybe not quite emotional pain but I don't like getting a coin in hand that is nowhere near the photo due to juicing or other 'help' on the image. Fortunately that has been awhile.
The best part - getting a really nice coin that I really love once I get it, along with many other that love it just as much and want to buy it from me. It kind of validates that a good choice was made in case I do want to sell later.
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
My hands would itch like crazy. They still do at times even when I don't handle them as much these days.
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
At our last coin club meeting in Danbury we had a vigorous group of young numismatists, who brought along folders of coins they were collecting and were given cash by their parents to bid on items in the auction. If we could get more of that enthusiasm it would be great.
Discouragement involves those who use the hobby as a means to an end, rather than a hobby to be enjoyed and shared.
Well I do not sell coins... I do buy, collect and study them. Therein lies the pleasure I derive from the hobby. I do not experience pain at any level in this hobby... If this were to happen, I would simply devote more time to my other hobbies. I am pain averse, had enough through the years, and now devote myself entirely to pleasure - of all sorts. Cheers, RickO
some of the attitudes can be a downer
You'll cheer up when you're no longer green at this.
Pleasure, starting a Barber dime & quarter set when I could get AU-50 & 58's for little or no premium, 'cause no one else wanted them
Pain: trying to find them today, for the pieces that I still need, 'cause everyone wants them.
BHNC #203
The greatest emotional highs for me are cutting out a beautiful gem DCAM proof from the OGP cellophane that may have been masking just how beautiful the coin is.
Emotional pain is certainly the wait time on submissions, especially as the projected turnaround time passes. As far as pain, it's just the anticipation and disappointment each time I check if they've posted...which is admittedly far too often.
Good hobby should not bring emotional pain; a lack of patience may cause some degree of frustration but It is part of the whole process so enjoy it. I actually enjoy the hunt and the promise of finding out the grades (it is what it is when finally posted)
My emotional frustration came from one sentence-negative response post without merit.
Pleasure is seeing and handling all of my coins and have my thoughts wondered with them to the years past......
The follow-up question:
How do we, as individuals and as a group, maximize the emotional pleasures and convey those to potential collectors of all ages - especially younger ones?
I have thought in the past that kids play electronic games pretty much non stop. I know that some of the games have things you pick up along the way to help you out. Wouldn't it be interesting to expose those kids to collectible coins that exist in real life so that it may spark interest in seeking these coins out to handle them in reality. Crossover from fantasy to reality.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Try cracking a nice MS66 CAC Rattler and have it come back a 64. While not enough pain to make me quit, it left a mark on me and in my drawers that is going to itch something terrible when it dries!
No emotional pain caused by the hobby for me. As for the pleasures of the hobby... win a few lose a few.
I share my collection as often as I can and talk to the beginners as much as I can.
Answer their questions and treat the kids more like adults than kids.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
I have never had pain from my coin collecting addiction/hobby. If I did, I would no longer do it. I do it for the pleasure of it.
I get pleasure from the forums, searching and finding a good deal for my meager collection, learning as I go. I don't get twinges of pain from coins I can't afford. I receive pleasure from the coins I can afford. It is all relative.
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
Too many disappointing products from the mint... or really just too many in general. Staying with the mint, mintages too high for many products. THis is not coming from a flipper. I just enjoy collecting and want to pass on value to my children. There is nothing like the feeling of a mint product with a low mintage going on sale at noon... I actually get butterflies hoping to get one or two.
Pain of seeing the one coin you need for your collection but you are tapped out financially so you can't acquire it.
A Barber Quartet is made up of Nickels, Dimes, Quarters, and Halves.
It's painful to see nice coins ruined by harsh cleaning, etc.
My YouTube Channel
The Pit of Misery
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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......
Seeing all the coins damaged by artificially toning them is kind of painful, too.
Pleasure is finding a coin I have been seeking for many years miraculously appear, all there for the grade, and priced right. This was the case re my Barber Half (4 year search), Heraldic Eagle Bust $ (8 year search), and Capped Bust Half (12 year search).
The pain is for multiple reasons:
a) Having a coin I want change hands three or four times before I can get to it, making it not reasonably priced imo
b) Seeing vastly different quality coins, same denomination, same year, in the same graded holders by the same TPG
c) Being asked to pay full retail and then some for coins which imo aren't all that hard to find
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
I cry in my soup, not my beer.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
the pain would be storage space
For some reason, filling a hole in a set gives me great pleasure. I have a suspicion that all coin collectors are at least mildly OCD.
Though "pain" might be too extreme, looking at all of the beautiful coins I'll never be able to afford is somewhat depressing.
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