In What Stage Are You As A Collector?

I skipped step 1 and went directly to step 2, I guess I'm step 2 and 3 now.

I hover between #2 and #3.

I had a job with real money, from 12 years old. (1958)
Before then, I was merely very interested in coins, but didn't collect. My first coin was an 1826 George 1V silver shilling, given to me by my father. I still have it.

The development of my coin collecting 'career':-

1. Type set of Australian gold sovereigns and Half Sovereigns including an Adelaide Pound, with which I completed, when I bought it for myself for my 21st birthday. Most were acquired between 18 and 21 years old.
17 coins in the type set. I then completed an Australian silver and bronze pre decimal type set, made up of key date coins only,

2. Read for two years on Roman coins, but my first was a silver Denarius acquired at 18 years old. By 25 years old, I had about 80 Roman coins, including a gold aureus and a gold solidus.

3. Didn't do much for the next 5 years, then sold the whole of the above collection, to pay about 10% of the value of our house, as a deposit for a mortgage in 1976.

4. Started collecting again immediately, with Roman and World coins, always cherry picking, looking for best value for money, until about 1986, when

5. I started reading about ancient Greek coins and culture for about two years. My first ancient Greek coin was my avatar, a gold stater of Philip 11 of Macedon, which came from Spinks in London in 1988.

6. Expanded into ancient Chinese Indian and South East Asian coinages as well as English and European medieval hammered coinage and post Renaissance milled coins, from about 1990.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not many collectors begin with building a gold type set.
Not what you would call a typical coin collecting 'career'.

Still continuing with 4,5,and 6. I am a generalist, not a specialist. My learning curve is still steep.


I have failed to go beyond step 3, in the OP's original post,
but I have already given several $thousands value of coins to my two kids. Most of these came from my mom, through me.

Tony,
Post those 2-3 coins in a want list,never know right?
John1

John , It's not the issue of locating them , It's the cost of them that's got me in a sway . I don't think our members would just let those key coins go for peanuts .

I am at 3 trending to 4. I've completed some sets to my satisfaction and just nothing is grabbing my interest right now. I've bought a little silver as I've gotten a chance, but it's probably been a year plus since I have bought anything at all.

It's kind of funny for me, I used to regularly phase between 2 and 4 as I'd drop off collecting for a while and return with a reinvigorated thirst. For the last few years I've steadily hovered around 2, maybe 2.5, now that collecting is much more of a regular hobby. I'm in school though and don't always have the time on my hands to make several new additions so quickly.