Purchasing A Responsibility~narrative

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Author	Replies: 7 / Views: 1,590
CopperCastle Pillar of the Community United States 1132 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 04:26 am Hello friends, One night not long ago, I was pondering as we all often do. My mind wandered to the topic of coins (as it often does). I found myself taking issue with the notion of "purchasing coins". Owning coins & the procurement of said coins is something some people "get". There are others...who think we are fools. Fools that are simply throwing our money down the toilet. "Why would you pay $20, $40, $100" etc. "For a quarter, dime, nickel, penny" and so on is a question that I am asked all to often. The answer I have found, is that I'm not actually purchasing a coin at all. I mean I AM paying money and in return have the delight of possessing the physical metal...but what about those before me who have cared for this coin long before I or my parents were ever born? Do you think that your MS or AU 19th century coin was minted & placed on a shelf or in a drawer for 100+ years solely so it could find it's final resting place in your Dansco album? It's not a TV. It wasn't manufactured purely for the intent of setting in your home for your enjoyment. Obviously, the answer is no. Someone cared for this coin long before you got your hands on it. Not always! Sometimes a coin gets circulated. Sometimes they see a long and eventful life before someone pulls it out of circulation, giving this small piece of metallic history the respect that it has duly earned. Inevitably SOMEONE (it could be you all you righteous roll hunters ) does what is the responsible thing. They appreciate it, conserve it, cherish it. Someone will do the same thing (hopefully) long after you're gone. Imagine (if you will humor me) a world where no one saw a coin for what it truly is. A world where the government takes all of the old coins out of circulation & melts them down just to spit out a shiny new Zincoln penny. Where would we be? My daughter would never know what a Large Cent was unless she saw a picture in a book, or if lucky happened across one a museum. My point is, we aren't really "purchasing" the coin at all. We are in fact purchasing a responsibility. A responsibility to ourselves & a responsibility to the future. Do you know what I get for my money? I could (if I wanted) run my Morgans through a blender. Sand my Peace dollars down into a faceless planchet. Drill holes in my flying eagles or or melt my Mercury dimes down into a puddle of silver. But I don't. Why? I appreciate them. Others appreciate them. And if we do our due diligence our children & their grand children will have the opportunity to appreciate them too. I don't purchase coins. I pay good money to appreciate them. I purchase a responsibility. We all do. I leave you with these thoughts & hopefully a few of them will resonate in your mind the next time a coin is in your hands. You didn't purchase a coin. You've purchased a responsibility to the future. You could sell that responsibility to another (and sometimes make a profit) if you like. It's a nice reward for your diligence, but the fact remains. Somewhere down the line someone took that responsibility. Hopefully, someone will take it after. Thank you for taking the time to read & allowing me the opportunity to share my thoughts with you Sincerely, ~Charlie McClure aka "CopperCastle" Edited by CopperCastle 09/30/2014 6:12 pm Report this Post to the Staff

scopru Pillar of the Community United States 5029 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 10:10 am Well that was a great read. Nice post... I haven't quite thought of it in those terms before, but we are certainly on the same page. I think of it as preserving a piece of history and now have added "purchasing a responsibilty". Report this Post to the Staff
Tryna Pillar of the Community United States 937 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 10:41 am Well copperCastle, welcome to the world of collecting. I have found that every serious collecter of anything comes to this point sooner or later. Coins like most items are made as a tool to make work easier. But somewhere along the line someone decide to keep it and lovingly care for it, to be its caretaker. You are now its caretaker with the responsibility of keeping it sell for the next caretaker. The scary thing here is if you bring this thinking further. If you think on it long enough you could very well shake your moral, religous, and ethical beliefs. You will surely change your point of view. To quote a movie 'Many of the truths we cling to depend entirly on our point of view.' I leave you with this question; Do we ever truly own anything? Report this Post to the Staff
YoshiRules Pillar of the Community United States 602 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 11:31 am "Do we ever truly own anything?" Answer #1: Yes, but temporarily. If we buy a coin for example, it is ours, but it is never meant to stay ours forever but to be kept, cherished, and protected to be passed down to the next generation of collectors/buyers for them to do the same and to keep the hobby alive, per se. Answer #2: We only have what has been given to us. Report this Post to the Staff
just carl Bedrock of the Community United States 20753 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 12:41 pm Reading all this reminded me of the some time ago post about all the things people do to coins. Responsibility is far from thought of with so much damage done to coins. Not much thought of a future for a coin when they are drilled, burned, melted, thrown and on and on with all the things possible. Coin collections and many other hobby types of items are so many times handed down from one family member to another due to inheritances. However, in so many instances, with coins so many are either sold, given away or dumped in a bank. Sure would be nice to know something good happened to my stuff. Report this Post to the Staff
Tryna Pillar of the Community United States 937 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 1:16 pm Smiles knowingly and hears Oh no, I've said too much I haven't said enough... playing in the distance Report this Post to the Staff
CopperCastle Pillar of the Community United States 1132 Posts	Posted 09/30/2014 1:27 pm I absolutely agree Just Carl. When I hold an old coin & it's obvious that the prior "care taker" has done a good job, I don't always know who that person was. But the truth of the matter is, if not for them...that coin would be worth a fraction, and not be as beautiful. I respect them for that. I'd like to think someone will do the same after me. In essence, a coins worth is greatly contributed to based on how good the lineage of caretakers were (and mintage figures of coarse). Edited by CopperCastle 09/30/2014 1:38 pm Report this Post to the Staff
january1may Pillar of the Community Russian Federation 5172 Posts	Posted 10/01/2014 2:05 pm That's why I almost never buy higher-grade coins. I'm really bad at this sort of responsibility. And on that theme, there's one funny story... Last week, I went to grandma's to eat some potatoes, and the only plate left was that huge one with some flowers. Now, I almost always look at the bottom of any interesting-looking plates (or cups, or saucers) and try to find a stamp of where it was made; I particularly like it when it turns out to be a country that doesn't exist anymore (like USSR, GDR, or Czechoslovakia). Anyway, when I looked at that particular one, I found some unfamiliar abbreviation that appeared to be the company name... and a Russian eagle, complete with crowns. The plate clearly was more than 20 years old, so the only realistic explanation was it being pre-1917. When I showed the stamp to grandma, she said something along the lines of "oh, right, that's a Soviet company, must've been around the 1930s". I didn't believe her, so I went and googled. Turned out that - even ignoring the question of what the Imperial eagle would be doing on a Soviet-era plate anyway - the relevant company was actually shut down in 1917. Next day, when I got there again, I explained what I found out, and after taking out a magnifying glass and carefully looking at the eagle, she did agree it probably wasn't Soviet after all. Which still left the question of, um, what the triangular heck a hundred-year-old plate was doing there with potatoes on it anyway? ...For a few minutes, I wasn't sure why was I so worried about that plate: surely I have coins that are twenty times older? Then I realized that a plate can be very easily shattered - something I'm sadly familiar with - but you pretty much have to try to really do anything a coin (which is, after all, made of metal). [That, naturally, only applies to lower-grade coins; anything better than VF can be harmed relatively easily.] And that, while a bit of a tangent, is actually pretty close to your ideas on responsibility. Returning back to coins... About two years ago, a certain CCF member sent me a few high-grade 1950s US coins that he apparently found in circulation back then, including some wheats that looked pretty darn close to mint red (I had to look very carefully to make sure that what I was seeing on the 1955-plain was not any sort of doubling but just sheer glare from the redness). I've known from previous attempts at getting red foreign coins (eurocents, the occasional shield cent, that sort of thing) that whatever passed for air at my home didn't agree with mint-red coins particularly well, and was really afraid it would also ruin these pristine examples. So I left them in their 2x2s, put the 2x2s back into the package they came in, and hoped for the best. Well... I take the 2x2s out occasionally to look at the coins, and the red ones seem as red as ever. It's only been two years, though; I applaud the CCF member in question who managed to keep these coins red for sixty. Report this Post to the Staff
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