I'm Burned Out. Time For A Change.

Dave, to see you move from coins just as I have rediscovered them after 35 years seems so ironic. I knew that I could not just go about collecting sets, not my style. Instead, I am collecting keys, keys of any coin group. Then, I intend to go on and try to upgrade the individual coins. Concentrating on value and rarity instead of type. I knew that looking at hands full of vg-8 mercs would drive me nuts but looking for the 65 to replace the 60 I have made looking at options enjoyable. I mean, who wouldn't love looking at another ms/61 key of any coins. Lastly, a fist full of $40 Morgans vs one $1000 key seems like a much better allocation of dollars. Lastly,I know I just hate spending money on a coin just to fill a slot when the next great buy is on the horizon and I may need the cash. From a very selfish position, I want you to stay involved as you have already been more help than I ever expected. What would we rookies do? But, most importantly, enjoy your life.
Jim

I've posted about this before when the subject came up. I reached the wall when I hit about the 500th Lincoln BIE a few years ago. The original BIE guild collected for almost 15 years before they folded up. Collecting BIEs was new and the BIE Guild was a correspondence club. They traded between themselves by mail starting in 1965. They didn't have scanners, they drew pictures of what they had or what they wanted to trade. It's not hard to imagine that it would take a collector back 15 years to acquire 500 BIEs that way. It wasn't "efficient" but they sure lasted a lot longer then I did. I only collected them for about for 2 years, buying mostly on the Internet. I started to think I was a rooster looking at all these different hens that still looked the same and still made the same goofy clucking sounds.

That I believe is the problem and the problem that everyone will face--efficiency isn't free either. It's price is still entropy only quicker now, more efficiently.

In the past coin cycles were fuelled by whimsy and if the whimsy went on long enough it became the Greater Fool Theory. If the Greater Fool theory went on long enough they figured a way to get a new grade out of it. It still is, IMO, the biggest thing behind coin cycles. But now as we marvel over our capacity to buy on the Internet, we face Bad Company's-- "Johnny the Shooting Star."

I always had the impression that the publications didn't care too much for the Internet. Maybe that's not so. They don't seem to exploring what could be a rather weak point with Internet buying. ----"What's Johnny the Shooting Star Syndrome?" "I don't know, some comet that passed by last week or something, but I couldn't see it."

Dave,
I was in the same rut, was going to stop altogether walk away and then, I started my 7070 set best thing I have ever done to get back on track. I now spend more time researching and reading about all the types of coins needed for this set and enjoy collecting again.
Bruce

SuperDave try US Dime there are so many varietys that its hard to get all coin and borded, They call them the poor man morgan. maybe that will your break the wall?

I can relate to burnout. Mostly, I get bogged down in the cost of the "few" key coins I need to complete a set. That is the nice thing about a hobby, you can move on to something else and return to the old later if you care to! Best of luck!

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True to his motto...
"Overdoing it is barely doing it at all".

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Yer darn right.