Am I Really The Only One?

A lot of the enjoyment I get from collecting is the thrill in being able to pick something for less than its worth and flip it for a profit. I often have a rough idea on value and would like to ask what others know. At the end of the day id say most of the people on this forum have a budget and not a lucky money tree. Value is a huge consideration when making a purchase.

There is of course many coins which I would never consider selling!

One thing that I really get tired of is this idea of "investing in rare coins". I simply cannot convince myself that's anything but a scam. And so all the things that seem to go with that, like slabbing (which has always seemed to me to be something people do for coins which are going into a vault in hopes that they'll appreciate, rather than for pieces they enjoy having & want to look at), or elaborate grading systems with fine distinctions, receive my jaundiced glance.

I picked up a Coin World recently, & there was a piece by Q. David Bowers about saving thousands of dollars by buying nickels graded MS-63 or MS-64 which nevertheless have a more pleasing appearance than ones graded MS-65. I wanted to hit myself over the head with a frying pan. It's just how I'm put together, I guess - " key date / mintmark / variety hunting holds no charm for me, & the most boring thing I can imagine is a Whitman folder full of Lincoln cents in pristine condition, with the 1909-S-VDB turned reverse-outward. (It's easier for me to understand wanting that one piece out of the whole series, for the sake of its particular history.) I'm much happier being able to go into my collection & pull out an Ethiopian silver dollar of Emperor Menelik, a Dutch silver five-cent piece of King William, the Australian one-year silver fifty-cent piece, & an Indian Native State rupee with a landscape on it.

I'm sorry if this little jeremiad treads on anyone's toes. If you're the "every date, mint, & variety" man who collects only a single type of coin, or you have a safe full of slabs & keep a spreadsheet showing you the market value of your holdings from day to day, or your idea of fun is to cherry-pick dealers' junkboxes for unappreciated rarities to sell on to other dealers, I don't begrudge you your pleasures ; but I don't share them, & I hope you won't expect me to.

As others have said, you are not.

It isn't a "scam", if done honestly (and there are many shonky organizations out there who are dishonest). But I wouldn't call it "investing", either. To me, "investing" is where you put money into something that offers or promises some kind of periodic return on that investment - buying rental properties, or blue-chip shares, or money in a high-interest bank account. Things like rare coins, bullion, and collectables do not offer interest or dividends while you own them; their only "profits" come from buying and (later) selling them. Buying such things in the hope of higher prices in the future when it comes time to sell is more properly called "speculating", rather than investing. And "speculating" is really just a sophisticated form of gambling - you are betting that when you need cash and/or wish to sell, the price you can get for your treasures will be higher than what you paid for them; if it is, you win. So long as the speculators go into this with their eyes wide open and in full knowledge of what they are doing, I have no problem with the ethics of it.

Speculators tend to be a two-edged sword whenever they enter a collectables market. They drive prices up, which is good for those that already own items, but bad for new collectors trying to enter the market. Rising prices increases the visibility of the hobby, which tends to bring more items out of the cupboards and vaults where they've been hidden for decades - which is good, as it increases supply. On the other hand, speculators are a fickle bunch, caring only about profits and not about the coins themselves. So once the hobby becomes unfashionable again, the speculators dump their "portfolios" onto the market all at once - making the resultant price crash even worse.


There are two basic types of coin collectors out there, and they get their start in two different ways. There are those who begin when they find an old, obsolete coin in change or are given one by a friend or relative - in America, this might be a 2 cent piece or a Buffalo nickel; in Australia this might be an old silver florin or round-50-cent-piece. These people will tend to collect their own country's coins - they are in it for the history. These are the collectors that are likely to end up trying to fill all the holes in a Dansco album or scour through boxes of "junk" Morgan dollars looking for VAMs.

Then there are those who start off by finding something odd, unusual or foreign - an ancient Roman coin, or a strange coin with indecipherable alien script on it, or even just a nickel from the Bahamas. Such people might pick up the bug in their own travels or those of friends and relatives returning from overseas. Or they might have personal historic connections to a different part of the world. Whatever the origin, for these collectors, it is the geography that is just as important as the history. Coins that tell a story of the land they came from and the people that made them are what these collectors find most appealing.

It is even entirely possible for a collector to be interested in both - filling the Dansco holes as well as appreciating Roman denarii, Islamic figural bronzes or FAO commemoratives. Numismatics is a "broad church" - there are no rules about what one must or must not collect.

Interesting thought. In my opinion, money fuels the world, so people connect monetary value to importance of a coin in their collection and resale value (although most people don't want to resell, it's always good to be safe with a price). The value is also a way to compare different coins.

The coins I collect, they haven't made for over 350 years, so I can't just pick them out of circulation, I have to buy them.

So, yes, I have an interest in price and value, in that I have a limited amount to spend on coins and want to make the best of what I can afford.

And value is of course of interest since over the years I've gotten more fussy about grade/ condition and coins that used to excite me don't. So I want to know what I can get (what I paid is OK, though of course, I'd like a bit more!) in the hope I can sell the ones I don't want and buy ones I do!

Otherwise, it's just a question of how much do I insure the things for. Their "value" to me is of course very different from the money they might make if sold or cost to replace. Such as their history, art and the pleasure of handling something that has been passed from person to person over the centuries. Which I guess is what you're talking about Publius.

I just like the idea of having valuable coins. I'm young and I don't have a career yet so I don't have a steady cash flow. If I found or bought a coin worth thousands of dollars for cheap, I would be happy, but I would never actually think about selling it.

I think a lot of new collectors feel a little self-conscious paying money for money. I know I do.