How Do You Get Your Coin Fix When Your Budget Is In The Red?

Slamnbass - When you already have a lot it is a daunting task as you well know.

Just list what is important to you for your inventory. I separate by denomination, then type, date/mm, grade, and my code for price and date purchased, and finally a realistic value.

Even if you only complete a little pile a month you will get done.

Then get in the habit of keeping a record of your purchases. I just print a copy of my PayPal receipt, if that is how I paid. Then when I have enough coins to burn an afternoon I photograph all of them using a repeatable number assignment so my photos are in the same order as my books, reholder the coins. And the final reward for all that work being the placement of my new friends in among my old friends.

yep.

My collection list was all hand-chiseled on stone tablets in the BC era (that's Before Computers). I recently shifted to a computer coin inventory program called Exact Change and have mostly input all the old data.

That inventory program is made for coins (not a generic inventory everything program), with pretty pictures (helps when trying to identify Arabic language coins), date conversions (again with the Arabic coins), has current values with free updates, can attach pictures, notes, comments, purchase price/date, varieties, errors for individual coins entries, as many entries for each date/mint combo as you want (different conditions, errors, notes, purchase info, etc.), accounts for stacking (got 328 of a particular date/condition?), create reports in many formats pulling from many database fields, create want lists and "for sale" lists (yeah, right, like I would actually sell any of these coins), etc. Playing with that inventory program helps the itch between paychecks. But so does perusing CCF and other websites to scarf up coin-oriented knowledge.

And in my spare time, I have several of those Red Book guide books to read.

I work on my existing inventory, cataloging and any other administrative details. I update my website as well.

I often take a look at my bookshelf and find a book I need to read or re-read.

Browse various coin dealers' websites and see what all they have for sale.

Watch those tv coin shows and comment about how overpriced they are.

I recently opened my book on national bank notes which had all the data. I used that to calculate the number of notes issued by a certain bank which I then used to see if I could get the same grand total that was listed in the book.

What separates a numismatist from a collector is a numismatist studies the history of the design and why there was the quantity of that date/mm struck for the coins he/she collects and other things and owns the in depth books written by the specialists of that particular series.

A collector buys the basic books, maybe but not always, required to have a basic knowledge of coins and typically does not own any in depth studies of the coins they collect.

A person who fills albums/folders filler does not automatically make them a collector even with their lists. It just makes them an organized accumulator.

A lot of "collectors" on this forum do not even own a Red Book much less any book related to the series they collect. I know this by their posts stating what they collect and the basic questions they ask which would not be asked if they possessed, and read, the proper reference books.

I can't believe no one has mentioned dirtfishing.
Thousands upon thousands of coins I've plucked from the earth, everything from Morgan and Peace dollars, to early 1800's coppers.