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

I'm predominantly a collector of moderns but I've been meaning to pick up an Alexander tet for a while now. I think I'd be comfortable paying up to $500 for a nice example. That being said, I'm a young guy with no real financial obligations beside paying the rent. I'll be surprised if that number doesn't change as I get older.

 

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Well you can still call me new to this hobby. I only started collecting this past January. My average right now is about 40 - 50 dollars and it is only brought up that much due to the Hadrian and Postumus I bought recently.

Most I have paid is $100 for my Hadrian Galley and the least I have paid for a 'keeper' is ten bucks. I am still young though and am burdened by student debt. If I didn't have that I would probably be making bigger and more frequent purchases.

My purchasing power will go down until early next year. I have begun the road to making intelligent financial decisions such as opening a TFSA. However, I do believe my next purchase will be around $200. I am excited just thinking of it.

 

well, the most i have spent on a single coin is 96 (or so?) for this...




the least i've spent is 1 buck for this...



i don't know what my average is.....20 bucks? it's been on the rise as of late...i'm getting ready to jump of the wagon, i'll probably shoot at targets between 25 and 100 bucks.

 

My complete guess on my average would be somewhere between $30-50 probably? I have some higher-priced stuff but at the other end also have a whole bunch of $1-$15 coins. My costliest was my avatar coin ($290-something), and that I had to pay off with separate payments.

 

Even though two recent coins were the most expensive I've bought so far (about $600 each), my average per coin is still about $50.

Right now, I'm pretty comfortable paying a few hundred for coins I really like, and increasingly, I'm finding that I only care to spend any money at all on coins I really like.

I've been collecting for a year and a half now, and my coin preferences are still developing. I'd only be comfortable spending thousands on a coin when I'm surer that it will be a coin I'm happy to have in my collection 20 to 30 years from now.

Z.

 

interesting thread.
I collect mostly modern world coins. my highest coin I spent $375.00 on... 2 payments. lol everytime time I look at my 17th,18th,19th, 20th century world coins catalogs I tell myself to sell/trade half of my collection for older nicer grade coins. probblem is... I am having a very hard time parting with some coins. that dilema remains. probably 2-3 years from now I will do it. possibly trade for better older coins. I've been collecting coins for 15 years now and I am finding I want older coins now. Has this happened to anyone else ? once I get more of my high debt paid off I could see myself going to the $300.oo-500.00 bucks a coin range.

 

I agree this is a great thread. Provided I have money, I feel most comfortable in the $30-$50. I'm ok with $10-$20 coins If they are decent and/or fill a hole in my collection. So I guess my average would be like $25. The most I've ever spent on a coin was $200, and the most I have ever spent on coins at one time was $205 on 2 coins. I got an excellent deal on both purchases though. I've been pretty lucky with the deals I got on most of my higher end coins; love my local shop!

 

I have a wide spend range. I have spent >$1500 a few times and have been tempted to pull the trigger on some higher priced items a few times but have always lost my nerve ay the last minute and then spent the money on many cheaper coins instead. My normal spend range at present is in the $10 -$80 range and anything over $100 needs to be justified to myself. When I started collecting I was a true bottom feeder and generally bought in the $2-$15 range with a rare spend above $50 being a true exception. My tastes changed and my spending power increased and that is when I bought most of my more expensive coins. I am now more restricted with my spending and my spend range is much more constrained.

All my coins are bought sober.

I now have too many coins and am trying to figure out how to dispose of many of my lower value coins to fund something better.

 

Exactly, but sometimes it might be nice to have an excuse to hide behind. In addition to wanting to dispose of lower value coins I have a feeling that I'd rather give coins to a kid than sell them to a dealer who will triple the price and convince even more people that all ancients are rare museum candidates. That is why it hurts to see some postings here showing very ordinary coins that someone is proud to have paid so much for. The greatest change I have seen in the hobby in recent years is the effort put into selling poor coins by a new breed of dealers who were made possible by the Internet. In 1990, a new dealer might have to spend good money having a list printed and mailing it to a few hundred prospective customers. Now anyone with rudimentary computer skills can set up as a dealer and show off absolute junk in the hope that one of the million people who sees it actually will buy it. The cost is mimimal. A dealer friend told me of a man who bought his entire $2 junk box and was offering the coins for $20 (his choice) through his online venue. Will he sell one in ten? Certainly. Do most of us have far better coins that we would sell for $10? Also highly likely.

 

<- $349 First Meris Tetradrachm
<-$340 Kidara Drachm Kidarite Kingdom
<- $335 Alexander Lifetime Babylon Dishekel

I really need to justify spending $250 but never exceeded $350.

I have done well in the past...
NGC choice VF Athens tet. $150 est. $750
XF Lifetime Alexander tet $245

I almost spent $500 once but Doug told me to hold off, 20 minutes after the email my computer HDD fried.

I have over 200 coins the majority are in the $75-200 range, with a few outliers.

I retain only about a dozen $5 coins. I was once told by a seller, " I always loose when I sell something nice, but junk always sells."

 

Yes, but you're talking about the extreme example of shysters and fools soon to be parted with their money. How often does that greedy seller make that one-in-ten sale? The question isn't rhetorical - I really don't know.

But railing against inflation in general is moot. Inflation is a necessary and healthy part of any economy. If a dealer buys a coin for $10 and sells it for $10, what's the point? He collects no salary, and everyone needs a salary.

I sell some coins on eBay from time to time, and I can speak from experience to say that you've got to be very careful calculating the overhead. eBay/Paypal charges come in around 13-14%, then you've got the cost of the envelope, postage, and tracking. If you want to make any sort of profit, you've got to add the proper mark-up. I always calculate the asking price to render a 30% profit after overhead, but I also accept offers. Most buyers give an offer, but I never accept one lower than what would yield a 10% profit - again, what would be the point?

I know exactly what sort of dealers you're talking about Doug - there are a handful of them on eBay plying their wares, ie. common LRB's with asking prices over a hundred dollars. But look at their feedback - most of them have accepted lower offers, so the market isn't really that gullible. Those sellers are actually doing me a favor, because after buyers have perused their ridiculous prices, mine are a breath of fresh air. I've had people ask me why my coins are so much cheaper than other stores, and all I can say is well... I didn't add a 2000% mark-up.

 

I have several low grade coins I have never shared. I buy cheap ones I know I can flip for a bit of profit or use as trade bait, which is what I mostly do.

I have tons of Domnas & yesterday finally took a common Juno one and made a simple necklace out of it. No holes, glue, or filing was done. Sure this is a huge nono in the coin world but the coin was less then $10 and the holder was $4 so it doesnt faze me.

I try to stay away from very low budget coins for my collection, like my last post with a low grade vespasian & child caracalla. But I really like them & I am happy to add them to my collection instead of a junk pile, even if they stick out like a sore thumb in my gallery.

 

I'm not sure if all the blame can be laid at the feet of the internet. Afterall, the truth behind the phrase 'there's a sucker born every minute' has been around much longer than the phrase itself has.

At the very least, there are two sides to the internet's effects on this hobby. On the obverse positive side, prior to the internet, not only would collecting ancients of the western world have been very difficult for someone who didn't live in either Europe or the US (like me), access to numismatic literature and knowledge would have been equally difficult.

 

We'll just have to disagree on that point. The Internet makes it possible for someone who knows nothing to appear to be a major dealer for no cost whatsoever. My ISP includes enough free web space for my use that I could set up a business as complex as Bargain Bin Ancients using software I wrote (or even using the software tools they provide). At least until recently, I could set up a sales front like VCoins without any questions (although I understand that is suppose to be changing back to the original, more policed way???). In the old days, you might spend the cost of a VCoins shop on printing and postage for a hundred patrons but now a million people can see the listings so you don't care that only .01% buy. The question is not that more suckers are born but that they are easier to find now without paying for an ad in the back of Boy's Life magazine.

 

Well back in the day when I had money I would drop $1500 a month on a coins. Now that I'm poor if I spend that much in a year I doing good. I miss the old days. Seriously About $100 these days are my limit.

 

I don't count myself as poor, but really any coin approaching $100 gives me the jitters and I really have to justify it to myself. I cannot imagine even thinking of spending a 100k. My wife wouldn't have to kill me, I would have a heart attack.

 

Just counted, i only have 10 coins for which i spent between 200 and 500 dollars out of about 400 ancient coins. My avatar is one of the few exceptions in gold. I mostly do eastern bronzes and some silver. The vast majority of my coins is below 50 dollars of which more than half below 20 dollars. The average price is also brought down by buying some lots in the 2-5 dollar a piece category. While gaining some more knowledge, i find that new coins which i find interesting to buy mostly fall in the 50-100 dollar category. The 200-500 dollar category i allow myself only 2 to 4 times a year.

 

I know that when I get to that point of being able to spend $200-500 a coin those coins will in a slab TPG certified genuine. I know there are those coin collectors that frown upon slabbed coins but if spend that kind of money. I want to be sure they are genuine and properly preserved with the slabs.

 

I'd rather trust the (free) advise of real experts...

 

I'm comfortable in the 300-400 $ range
One or two times a year I allow myself to a 1000+ $ coin
And I'm proud to say my wife is OK with that (on the two most expensive purchases I made in my life (not roman ) she even encouraged me with some "life-is-short-go-on" kind of argument)

Q