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How much money have you spent on your coin collection?
It depends on what part of it counts as "collection", but probably somewhere in the vicinity of $1000. Most of it was on a few select coins (some large silvers cost me over $30).
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How much is your coin collection worth?
No idea really
probably just a little bit more than the sum above because 1) I managed to buy $80 worth of coins for $35 at least twice and 2) a large part of my collection (if mostly the nearly-worthless stuff) was given to me by my father.
Then again, some of the stuff I collect seems to have no relation of catalog prices and actual ones. E.g., I so routinely get Rentenpfennig coins for way under catalog prices that by now I've taken a habit of grabbing every single Rentenpfennig piece I see in junk bins (well, in under-$1 ones at least) in faint hope that I'll ever be able to actually sell them for at least half of catalog
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How long have you been collecting coins?
Theoretically? About fifteen years, most of which looked more like playing with my coins than collecting them
Seriously, as in
paying for them? With the obvious exception of commemorative tens (seriously,
everyone collects commemorative tens, I'm surprized there's still enough of these left that I could actually ask for them when I buy something and even receive one or two a week) it hadn't even been
two.
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What do you plan on doing with your coin collection?
I don't really plan anything about it outside the immediate future
Theoretically, I would want it to be included in some sort of family archive, and ultimately get displayed in a family museum (together with an 1930s painting, bags of confetti from the 1960s, a bunch of 1950s forks (if by then we won't still be using those), and an unopened teabag pack "best before" 2002). But that's only some theoretical ideas, and seriously, it more and more seems that it'll go to my younger brother (currently 6).
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Have you made any decisions while coin collecting that you know regret?
Not buying gold (or for that matter large silver, but I don't remember any) when I had the chance.
Backstory: there was that one day in October 2010 when I was sent (unrelated long story I won't say here) to a huge tourist market with $150 in my pocket. Returned with a bunch of random junk worth probably less than what I paid for it, and $135 still in my pocket
even though there was a literal gold coin on sale for $40 (admittedly it was a very small one - don't remember what exactly but something Italian from the interwar period).
Gold prices had doubled if not tripled since. I've never since seen any other gold coin for a price I could actually pay. I still hope to get a gold coin in my collection, but every time I think of it I can't help but remember that one
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If there was one thing you could tell a new coin collector what would it be?
Start out early. I know you've missed the age when there was silver in circulation, but (assuming you're American) you still can catch the wheat cents (oh, talking about wheat cents, if you ever see an 1955-S for under catalog, go for it, it's a sleeper that's going to be a semi-key when late wheats become classic like the IHCs are). And for hecking's sake,
never buy MS when you don't know where to store it! (Leave only that last one if it's really only
one thing
)
...Okay, I'm not exactly a wise and old collector (I'm only 20 actually so probably eligible for YN), and my answers almost certainly show it (I'd be surprized if they somehow don't). But still, this was a fun poll
and I love to talk about my coin-related stories. Too bad there's hardly anyone near me who wants to hear them
Posted 05/28/2012 9:47 pm
