Just To Many Directions

Preachin to the choir nohope. I may not have as many as you but I need no focus. I started a 7070 this year, then I upgraded my Ikes to a Dansco so I switched to that, then silver went down so I switched to Peace dollars.
I also have several sets of Roos,Jeffs,LMC,Ikes etc. just setting around collecting dust. Maybe we should have a CCF garage sale to get rid of some of the lesser wanted items in our closets.

You sound like a picture image of what I used to be like. I collect strictly Canadian coinage. When I first started appr. 12 years ago, I collected everything I could get my hands on. ie: mint products, proof sets, specimen coins, even some World/U.S. coinage.
Then I started re-thinking my collecting goals such as what you are doing now. A sort of "soul searching" and realized there was a part of my collection I no longer was interested in. Why? Who knows, Collectors tastes and habits evolve in time and the longer you are involved in the Hobby, the more you know what you want in it. Something like a marriage I suppose.
I then refocused my collecting goals and loves and realized my heart and soul belonged to Canadian "business strikes" of all 6 decimals between the years 1858-1967. Today, this is all I collect and focus my entire resources onto: financial, emotional, time, energy and patience, voila, I've now rediscovered coin collecting all over again!


Glenn

I did this about 4 or 5 years ago. I sold off a bunch of things that I really didn't care about nor did I even know why and sometimes how I even acquired some of the items to focus on the sets that did interest me. Sad to say I probably need to do the same thing again because if I were to sit down and really go through everything I am willing to bet that 7/8 of my collection is once again things I have no interest in

I came to the EXACT same conclusion about a month ago. I seperated my collection into two parts. 1 part to keep, 1 part to sell / trade.

I've had really good luck with trading / selling here on ccf. I've managed to trim off about half of the thing I set aside to get rid of.

I would ask you this question:

"If they don't mean that much to you, why are you buying a bigger safe to put them in?"

If the answer is, "because they're valuable", and that's the only answer, then can I suggest they're not really an important part of your collection. I would recommend turning their value into something equally valuable but more meaningful to you, like money, or bullion, or different coins that you actually are interested in.

If, however, your answer sounds more like, "They're my babies! I'd be heartbroken if anything happened to any of them", then I think you really aren't all that detached from them, after all.

Try this experiment. Choose a coin from your collection, at random. Now ask yourself: is there a specific reason for keeping that particular coin in your collection? For example, "It's the highest grade of that type/year/mintmark that I own", or, "My great aunt Matilda gave that coin to me when I was six", or, "It's part of this date set, or that type set, or my grading set", or whatever. If you have a good reason, excellent - it's part of the collection. If you don't have a good logical or sentimental reason why you need to keep that particular coin, if you can't even remember and/or have no record of when, where and how much you paid for the coin, or if you've never even opened the packaging it came in, then it's part of your hoard, not your collection. You won't miss it if you got rid of it.

Now repeat the experiment nine more times. What kind of percentage did you reach? Gotta keep 'em all? 90 percent? 50 percent? 10 percent? Couldn't even find one coin you really, absolutely needed to keep? The answer should give you a rough idea how much you can afford to downsize your collection by without causing too much emotional trauma.

For myself, I made the decision years ago: "No Duplicates". If I already had the country/date/mintmark/variety, then I didn't need another coin that was for all intents and purposes identical. For the duplicates I owned at the time, I put them side-by-side, picked the one I liked the best, and got rid of the rest. No regrets.

I deliberately expanded the scope of my collecting interests over 30 years ago, and that has not changed since. Every coin in my collection has it's part. Some of them would be worth thousands, and a signifanant number of them would be worth less than a dollar. All coins, ancient to modern, up to until about 1950, so long as it was actually used as a circulating coin.

Richard, one consideration for you might be that you are in a relatively unique position with your core collection. It's a small niche, lightly-specialized, and it is probably within your abilities to create something not seen before within that niche. You already have a big start on that achievement, and it would be a lasting service to numismatics in general should you be able to make it come to pass.

Few modern collectors share your "unhealthy obsession." Among them are folks like Jack Lee and the one called Tradedollarnut, and their achievements will survive them. I believe, within your niche, you have the ability to stand in that pantheon. It won't require the cubic money that the aforementioned pair threw at their specialties, but rather a level of knowledge and commitment you obviously share with them.

Go for it.

I know only some think as I do but to me coin collecting is supposed to be FUN. That is the way I look at it. FUN. I don't worry about quantity or costs. I never sell any coins and probably never will. I do give some away since to me that too is FUN.


Trivial since I've had coins locked away for well over 60 years now and there they will stay. They are mine and I like them all.