collecting coins: is it a "hobby" or an "industry"?
dorkkarl
Posts: 12,691 ✭✭✭
simple question.
K S
K S
0
dorkkarl
Posts: 12,691 ✭✭✭
Comments
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
You know, there's also a bowling industry and a camping industry.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Total Copper Nutcase - African, British Ships, Channel Islands!!!
'Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup'
Though to some it is first, foremost, and always a way to earn a living or to make money
and to others it can be a livelihood and a ton of fun. So long as anyone is willing to pay
more than face/melt or buy coin supplies then it will be an industry too.
Ken
Tom
it's a hobby but it's grown to the point where it involves quite a few various industries on a moderate level. i work in the plastic industry myself, and we all know how that's involved in the hobby. things have evolved into big money and bigger business.
al h.
CoinPeople.com || CoinWiki.com || NumisLinks.com
I think you know the answer to your own question.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Les
My 1866 Philly Mint Set
<< <i>Hobby for true collectors. Industry for most dealers. >>
Agreed.
My grandfather, a button collector, came up with a way to make buttons from coal and watch crystals. He'd trade them to other collectors for buttons he wanted. He told me many times how button collecting was a fun hobby because the difference between a common old button and a rare one was no more than about $20, and there wasn't enough money in it for sharks to get involved.
He died, and my grandmother who by then had the collection died a few years later. One of my grandmother's long-time button collecting friends (a nice elderly lady) suggested to my parents that a particular midwest antique dealer who dealt in buttons might buy the collection intact, and my parents sold it to that dealer. Some research after the fact revealed the dealer auctioned the collection off and probably took in 10x what my parents were paid. I suspect the nice elderly lady either got a finder's fee or the equivalent in buttons out of the set. Even later we found out my grandfather's homemade buttons were listed in a couple catalogs and were considered collectible!
As Placid said, a hobby for true collectors, but an industry for most dealers (and some collectors as well).
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>Hobby for true collectors. Industry for most dealers. >>
In other words, it's both.