Collection Questions

There is absolutely nothing wrong with displaying your collection. It is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. My advice would be not to let too many people know that you collect coins. It doesn't matter if you collection is worth no more than face value, if the wrong person hears you have a collection, you wont have a collection anymore. And believe me, it isn't so much losing your collection that will hurt, it is the fact that some stranger has come into your house and violated your property. I actually moved house once because I was broken into and the place didn't feel the same anymore.

Now, to your question. I display my loose coins in folders. I put them into 2x2s and put them into plastic pages so I can look at them whenever I want. "Packaged" coins, like proof sets etc I keep in a special cabinet that I can just take them out of and look at. Once, I used to have a display cabinet with a glass top that I could put different coin displays in. I would put bullion coins in one month, proofs another and so on.
As my collection has grown and become more valuable, a lot of my coins are in a safety deposit box, which makes it hard to appreciate them, but keeping the more common coins at home allows me to see and enjoy my hobby.

I just collect them and store them. Just don't show to people or let others know I have them. Mainly because, I may be able to trust some people, but can I trust the ones they may tell a week from now.
To me that is one of the real down-sides to the hobby. Especially if I take several hundred dollars, go to a coin show and purchase coins to fill gaps in my collection. Then I come home and take them out of the 2x2's, examine them, put them back in 2x2 toss them under the matris. It's almost like I have nothing to show for the money spent but a fun day at the coin show.
Here is a suggestion that has made things much more fun and enjoyable for me in the past. Join a Coin Club if you have one in your area. Even if you have to drive a long ways to get to it, they generally only meet once a month. You'll be able to see different coins, learn a lot and maybe show some of the coins you've had hidden away for years. Plus when you show them something, it will be to someone who has a real interest and not to someone who looks at it and says, "Oh that's nice how much is it worth".

Such questions are depending on where you live, who you know, how many you may tell and lots of other things.
First of all when in college if you take a course in phycology there is a first term test in most colleges. It is to show you the attention span of people and their ability to remember facts. 10 people stand in a circle. The professor tells a very short story to one and it is then repeated to the next and then to the next. The story is whispered so the next one doesn't know what it is. At the end the last person says this out loud. It usually has nothing to do with the original
By all that I mean if you tell someone you have $10 in coins, they will tell someone you have $100 and they will tell someone you have $1,000, etc. Eventually someone will hear about all your millions and you will end up with a home invasion. People are just people and if what they hear is not interesting, they will try to make it interesting.
As to those that laugh at you for collecting coins, people used to laugh at the Right Brothers, Albert Einstien was a idiot in school, Edison was a laughing stock and I'm sure Bill Gates was also nothing at one time. However, just don't bother to discuss subjects with people that know nothing of what your talking about. It is truelly a waste of time. I've tried to explain to people about Nuclear Power Stations since I helped design them. Most look at me as if I'm radioactive.
My suggestion is to continue collecting coins, stamps, fishing poles, rocks or anything else you want and just appreciate your hobbies yourself. Way to many morons out there to try to impress.

Another praise for Carl, great post.




Let them laugh, you do what you enjoy and don't let anyone tell you different. In 30-40 years, when your collection is worth thousands, you'll be the one laughing!

I had to chuckle at justcarl's story about the experience in psychology class. I remember well playing that "game" in first grade; we called it "Telephone", and it had the same result as in jc's psychology class.

Later in 8th grade, I learned a hard lesson about telling my schoolmates too much about my cent collection, which I brought to school to show another classmate who also collected coins. I don't know if the room was locked or not when off we went to recess, but when I returned, I found that the 1913-S cent, the most valuable one at the time, was missing.

People laugh at me when I tell them that I collect radio station coffee mugs. By the time I list all the other things that I collect (my basement is a computer museum, my second floor a library) and get around to telling them about my coins, their eyes are glazed over (mine get that way when I have to hear about someone's collection of plastic artifacts, and when I go to garage sales I see so much plastic junk that I just want to load it all into a recycling bin).

I'm definitely a low-brow collector; I like bronze coins better than silver, and I have absolutely no gold coins and only a few silver type coins, but I'd still feel violated if my collection suddenly disappeared, so I don't tell many people that I don't know extremely well about my coins.

Hello,

WOW, this is awesome, I'm thinking I can look at and enjoy my collection with other collectors or maybe my wife but not "Advertise" it. Unfortunately there are no coin clubs in my area but a lot of coin shows, which is awesome.

Thanks,
Rich

Personally, I feel that everyone should collect at least one thing, if not more. I started collecting sports and non-sports cards growing up and slowly moved to comic books. Every once in awhile I would trade the cards for comics and would usually get the short end of it. At the time, I did not care because I was getting rid of something by heart was not into and getting something new I would treasure more. At about the same time my grandparents got me and my brother a couple of Whitman folders for Cents and Nickels. I would always go through my change and search for one to fill a hole or better condition. Since no one else I knew collected coins I had no one to ask questions and learned some things the hard way (like putting low circulation coins back into circulation because I thought the circulation number meant the future price) and finally had me quit doing it all together.

As I got older I started collecting toys, especially Star Wars, and lucked out that one of my best friends and a few co-workers did the same. We would go out at different times and places and find what ever we could and help each other get the pieces they were missing. I did this for about 5-6 years knowing it was more of an investment than collecting and had to give most of them up when times got hard. Then I moved to where I am and after a few life experiences started collecting coins again. I do not tell hardly anyone what I do and even less of what I have, out of my entire collection only my wife has seen it all. My kids have just started getting into it and it has been fun helping them understand what they are looking at and collecting what they want and not what dad wants.

As much as I trust most people there is no way I am going to let them know what I have and what I spend on it. I have seen a few friends do this with their collections and a few months later it has been stolen. If you really want family and friends to understand what you do start slow and ease them into it. The item that helped with my wife and kids best was a book for kids about collecting coins that covers most type coins for the 20th century and the more current trends (statehood quarters, birth years...) and makes it easy to see what is available. Because of this my kids have started off with cents and are wanting to move on to their own sets (Kennedy's, nickels..) and I could not be happier.

I do not display that much because I do not want others to know what I have. If you came into my house you could easily find a ton of Wheaties, a few foreign coins and some silver pieces but nothing that would kill me if taken. Just be careful, for some reason there will always be someone out there to steal it if you turned your back long enough.