Ancients => Curious? => what is your coin-cash-comfort-zone??

After gazing & drooling over a few of AncientJoe's coins, I was thinking to myself:

"Self" I said ... "there is absolutely zero chance that you'll ever spend that kinda cash on a coin!!"

=> not surprisingly, self just smiled and replied with "stevex6, you would have a fricken stroke if you decided to pull that kinda big-dollar-trigger!! => seriously dude, you're a light-weight => you get gut-cramps when you approach the $1,000 ceiling!!"

... sure, I may have been a bit offended by self, but I went along with his logic ...

Anyway ... after analyzing my current coin-stash, I discovered that the average $$$/coin was pretty close to $200 .... so obviously, although I have three coins that have shattered the $1,000 mark, the majority of the remaining 222 coins seems to range somewhere between the $100 and $300 range ...

Conclusion => I am fairly comfortible spending $200 for a purdy coin ... and "3-outta-225" times I've managed to drink enough wine to actually pull the trigger on a +$1,000 coin, but obviously this is truly out of my comfort range!!

So, hats-off to AncientJoe, IOM, and/or anybody else that feels comfy hunting for coins in the $100,000 range (honestly, there would be actual poop in my undies!!)

QUESTION/SURVEY:

=> "WHAT IS YOUR COIN-CASH-COMFORT-ZONE?"

NOTE => yah, I totally realize that it is certainly none of my biz, but it's merely an interesting mini-survey of my coin-peers (thanks gang)

 

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I prefer $60 or less. Alot of my collection has been in the $60s or less, mainly by luck & right place/right time. I dont have any issues hitting the $100 - $150 so long as the coin is VERY nice and maybe special in some way. Several are over $100 a piece.

Most I ever spent was $350. Was tough but no regrets.

But I am having a tough time going $350+ again, the evil Otho...He's more like $400+

 

awesome => thanks for manning-up and answering my question, Mat (cheers)

 

Oh, and just for the record, I know that Bing is gonna claim that he's only spent an average of $2.67 per ancient coin!!



... oh, and I also realize that a lot of folks are gonna claim that they don't care how much they spend as long as they know that they're getting a great deal (yah, that's not the survey-question)

... I am merely interested in knowing the general cost-range associated with our lil' Coin-Talk target-zone? (it would probably give a fairly accurate estimate of the mean/median cost that ancient collectors are spending on ancient coins)

... just interesting, nothing else ...

 

Steve, i still buy moderns, which i have spent over $1000 many times,but my ancients i have gone to the $500 mark, when you start buying these awesome large Greek coins its not hard to do.
Most of my ancient buys which i try to buy in threes or 4 coins, i spend $50 to $100 ea.

 

For example => ($200 + $60) / 2

=> $130 per coin is our current CoinTalk average

... interesting, no?

 

Thanks Eng (cheers, halibut!!)

... so now, we have:

($200 + $60 + $75) / 3

=> $112 per coin is the "comfy-zone"

Example:
=> so, if you were a coin-seller, you would target this cost-zone to optimize your coin turn-over


... interesting, no?

 

Santa's List:
Mat
Eng

 

Hard to say with my purchase history. I've bought several large lots-- how should I estimate the cost? A straight division of $paid by #coins?

I never thought I'd spend money for a coin, having grown up with cigar boxes full of classic US coins under the beds... I thought collectible coins were collected from circulation.

Then one day I thought it would nice to have something from the 1700's, something unusual. The Feuchtwanger Composition tokens harkened and I bought one.

Jumped ship to ancients soon after (earlier this year). It started innocently enough, playing "Guess the Emperor" on CCF. Then I lost my ancient coin virginity to a Corinth Stater with Silenos control mark. Just under $450 which I thought was a very good price. I had no intention of buying more.

(Hi, I'm TIF and I'm an ancient coin addict)

I've spent a little more than that on a couple of coins, but most of my non-"large mixed lot" coins are in the ~$100-250 range. Occasionally less, occasionally more.

So for now that is my comfort zone-- and I really should lay off buying for a while. In the next week or two I will be receiving PLENTY to keep me busy.

 

Depends on the coin. I have always told myself if I found an Antony and Cleo tet I liked for $5k I would buy it. I have also eyed 2k greek gold before. Most other coins, though,, I am more comfortable in the hundreds rather than thousand though.

 

OK, but $2.67 is just a little on the light side. I dunno exactly, but let me try to break it down a little. I've been collecting for over 30 years and my record keeping for my early coins is rather sketchy. I own more than 650 Ancient coins with he most expensive costing me $1565 (Caligula Denarius) and perhaps 20 coins in the $500 to $900 range. The next group would include about a quarter of my entire collection in the $200-$300 range. Next would be nearly a third of the collection in the $100-$125. Of the remaing 300 or so coins, about a quarter in the $50-$75, a quarter in the $25-$50, with the remaining coming in under $25. So lets see. That works out to be:

1 @ $1565
20 @ 500-900
165 @$200-$300
215 @$100-$125
75@ $50-$75
75@ $25-$50
150@ <$25

I'm not certain where my mean will fall (probably $100-$125), but I will tell you I am very uncomfortable spending anything over $200. I will also say, that I have become uncomfortable buying cheap filler coins as well. My average coin purchase in the last year works out to $50 per.

Hopefully this answers the question and is not too much into the weeds.

 

My top end coin was $535 in 1995 (from CNG) and did not make the cut when I worked up my list of my favorite 100 coins. Included in the list is one coin that cost $6 although I have to admit that it might have been worth more than even on the day I bought it. Go figure. The price of a coin is related to the opinions of a bunch of people I do not know so I prefer to buy coins I find interesting rather than coins. Certainly I would love to have an EF aureus or twenty but I am able to enjoy at least equally coins that have interest other than their price tag.

When it comes to buying coins I use money I do not plan on needing or ever again seeing. This is the same money that I use when I splurge for a meal at a restaurant or to see a movie with my grandson in a theater. (IMHO, Free Birds was a turkey.) I doubt that our aureus buying members shop at Goodwill or eat at Taco Bell but there is no reason I can not enjoy the hobby as I have for these last fifty years. I do not suggest anyone use the kids' college fund or (heaven forbid) borrowed money to buy expensive coins when their income matches mine. I'm told that the money I have spent on coins is wasted because I'll not be able to sell the junk for what I paid while I could easily sell a single Ides of March that cost the same as my whole collection. I'll not plan on finding out. When I am done with them, the coins will go to someone who might appreciate them, the clothes will go back to Goodwill and we won't discuss what happens to that last meal.

"Love your coins for what they are, not what they are worth." Frank Robinson

Pertinax $535 (inc. fees and postage) CNG 35 lot 843 - 1995

Anonymous Pagan $6 Windsor Coins junk box (Baltimore show) - 2000

I have a few cheaper but they missed the top 100 just like that Pertinax did. Like Bing, my average coin purchase in the last year works out to about $50 per. The 2013 range is $7 to $400 but I am rarely finding those worthwhile under $10 coins anymore. That is because Steve and the rest of you are paying too much for coins I like.

 

One thing Steve, you can't tell our wife's how much we spent, i don't want to be in the dog house with jw...

 

ahaha, Doug ... *whateva*


=> thanks for responding, gang .... very interesting

Hey, maybe I'll try to determine an average at the end of this thread ... so far it seems like the average is hovering somewhere around $100 per coin

 

Santa's List:
stevex6
Mat
Eng
TIF
medoraman
Bing
dougsmit

 

A very interesting thread - I've read all the replies with great interest.

I have to divide this question into two parts. Many moons ago, when I was single and earned far more money than a single man should, I had no issues dropping $1000 on a coin. But I was collecting US at the time, so that doesn't really apply to the question at hand, which concerns ancients.

Today, as the major breadwinner in a family of six, coin collecting is a necessarily minor financial priority - next year I'll be starting a very long haul of getting four kids through college.

The most I've spent on a coin this year is $400, and the least, $8. I've made a handful of $100 purchases, but most of my other acquisitions fall in the $20 to $40 range, so I'm probably somewhere with Mat as a mean: $60.

However, I've also started selling coins, and so far I've made a very modest profit from about a dozen sales, bringing the average down. In fact, I like the process of hunting down overlooked gems in the junk box and flipping them. Personally I'm far more attenuated to numismatic research than collecting, so I'll probably sell or give away all of my coins before I exit this mortal orb.

 

That should be your lesson. Find a coin you really like and let non-sober you do the deciding.

 

Ummm Cazkaboom, did my wife fund that post?




... oh, but you're 100% correct

=> booze is not a good wingman!! (trust me!!)

 

lol!

 

lol the most by far I have ever spent on a coin is $2250 im actual ok with spending 3=5 grand on a certified set.... when I have it to invest