State of the Hobby

That's BS. If one has the knowledge to flip what they don't like to fund stuff they do and doesn't is either an idiot, someone without the initial funds, or has enough $ in the first place to not need to play the game imo

The old guard is going away. Which I believe is the point you're making

 

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I've never really had the money to make permanent acquisitions, and from Day One have practiced "catch and release" collecting. I don't have more than 150 coins in the "permanent" collection, the overwhelming majority of them being an OFEC effort using cheap circulating stuff. As long as anyone, anywhere, is buying coins, there will be people for me to sell them to.

I doubt you buy 10% of your coins from people who don't do that. Do you really think people sell things to you at cost or below out of altruism? Life isn't that black and white, man.

 

Let's agree to disagree. It is what it is (today's hobby landscape) and if you have a mindset stuck in a single gear then you'll never get out of first

 

Bull! I buy easily more that 95% of my coins from two sources - mints, and estate auctions, where the coins are being sold for the dead guy who held them for 50+ years.

 

I think Ebay is a good gauge of the state of our hobby. And the buying and selling of coins on Ebay is huge.

I'd like to know the annual number of coin transactions on Ebay, it's got to be astronomical. And that's not just here in the USA, European countries also have their very active Ebay.

 

If you have an unlimited budget sure you can buy anything without ever considering resale. The rest of us have to consider it to some level for most of the collection but sometimes a truly special piece comes along that you just don't care you love it so much.

In all honesty if there is any actual threat to the hobby it is people making judgements about how other people collect or saying they aren't a collector because they don't collect how someone else wants them too.

I am the same as you, I have some special pieces that I don't see going anywhere but or the most part I prefer the catch and release style too. It allows me to enjoy a lot of extra things that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. For collectors with a budget it really just makes sense for us to sell most things when a part of the market catches fire and take advantage of that to turn into more coins or something that has been just out of reach for a while.

 

Haha on the same page with that one

 

Well that 95% is limiting you to only 5% of the market which brings me back to my "first gear" comment

 

Then you're part of the problem with it becoming so difficult to be a dealer.

 

We'll never know how many dedicated coin collectors today began as speculator wannabes.

 

Dr. Robert Bilinski's book from 1958. I believe flipper, speculator and coin investor has always been the prerequisite delusion to becoming a dedicated coin collector.

 

When it's unethical, I find it distasteful and a huge turn off to the hobby. I don't even collect U.S. anymore and there's part of the reason.

I don't think this is really a collecting strategy any more than me going to work is a collecting strategy because either way funds my collection.

@Cascade called it a game and "flipping" coins is one I'm not interested in playing. Maybe I have enough money to not need to play, maybe I'm an idiot, but really I don't have time or want to be bothered.

I'm the guy who buys with no regard for resale or potential profit. Any money I spend on coins is considered lost - just as it would be if it was spent on bourbon.

 

On the other side of the issue, I couldn't afford to ever have something "nice" if I couldn't then flip it, and it's made me a pretty skilled cherrypicker.

 

Be a darned collector or be a dealer! The people trying to straddle the middle are the problem. Pick a lane and stay in it.

 

Yes, I am. And I want no parts of the "new way".

 

I never buy ANY coin I don't INTEND to keep VERY long term. Yes, things change. The idiot prices of metals in 2011 provided me returns I simply couldn't turn down.

 

No, I COMPETE WITH the local dealers for inventory where THEY get it. I know the dealers around here, and they're sitting there next to me. Why would I pay their markup when I can buy when and how they buy?

 

I use a different strategy - if I decide to acquire a major piece above my normal budget for coins, I simply STOP buying "regular" stuff and save up for the piece I want to chase. When I was a beginner and started getting close to completing my Lincoln set, I established a "sinking fund" to get a really nice 1909-S (non VDB). I still do it that way.

 

Ironic. The U.K. guy says "bourbon", and for me it's good Scotch or Irish Whiskey, or nice Bordeaux wines.

 

I have no choice but to concede that point.