Can You Profit From Coin Collecting?

Look at Morgans! Learn to accurately grade and search for VAMs. Just an example ... a certain Morgan $ is normally available for $25 in MS60 but if you find a rare variety of this common date, you can get $2500 for the coin.

Pick up a copy of the " CherryPickers Guide" and use these links for VAM identification.

http://www.vamworld.com/Morgan+VAMs+By+Date

http://www.ashmore.com/index2.htm

But be warned ... This could easily become an obsession, where you shun sleep, go blind from staring at the computer screen, and become uncontrollably giddy when you make a big find!

you could go on ebay, see wat people are bidding in medals and the various coin categories. If you find something that people are paying lots of $ and you can get lots of it for super less amount then that's a way to fund your collection. Buy cheap, sell high. I've been doing that lately and it has been nice for me lately. I ordered some new stock to continue my luck streak

All great suggestions. I am looking more for quick turns like building sets from my duplicates rather than investing tons of money into a key date and holding it. That sounds a little more like investing. Besides, if I ever bought a 16-D Merc. I would have a difficult time giving it up!

I agree with Seated Nut..I would pick up the CherryPickers Guide Vol I & II. Beyond Morgans (I don't have the heart to sell any Morgan I own), it's something you can use to look through regular old pocket change to find varieties that you can flip for many times face.

I am financing my collecting precisely as SeatedNut describes it. Not doing too badly, if I do say so myself. However, it must be noted that it's costing me a lot of hours, between searching all of ebay and literally dozens of online retailers for targets. Hardly lucrative counting the hours invested, but I get some decent cherrypicks.

It has the added advantage of forcing me to learn a whole lot about what I'm looking for, and related skills like interpreting poor photography.

Your original question of can you profit from a coin collection is dependant on what you have, what you do with it, how you get them and lots of other factors. Selling on ebay is time consuming, you run into scams, must have a source of coins to sell and just to many other items to make a coin colletion profitable. Many coin collectors become coin dealers. If you have a source for coins, are near where they have numerous coin shows, that is one method that many are now finding very profitable.
Completed or mostly completed sets are not smart. They do not sell for a lot of money so the time to make them becomes sort of a waste of time and money. Possibly on ebay they may go over but if you goto coin shows, coin stores or hobby stores that carry coins you will seldom see entire sets for sale. This is based on the same logic that you can buy a car for one price or attempt to purchase all the parts separately and make your own car. The sum of the parts is always greater than the whole item. This is why coin dealers sell primarily all coins separately.
The main thing is you can actually make a profit from any hobby but so much is depending on so many things.