Your Friends and Family perspective of ancient coins

I showed my roommate some of my coins, and he thinks they are fascinating. He loved the Ancient Chinese Wu Zhus I recently bought, and he thought the Alexander Tetradrachms were quite interesting. To Make sure he was not trying to flatter me by feigning interest, I told him why the 1914 D Lincoln Cent was so valuable, and he couldn't understand and thought it was completely boring. So we are like-minded when it comes to coins (though he'd rather spend his money on Legos, which, in fact, is a better investment than coins.).

 

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Investment? I don't think of my obsession as an investment. It's my hobby.

 

I was strictly speaking in the value increase over time. I don't collect to invest. I may start investing in Legos, though...

 

Good luck with that. My sons, especially the oldest, would probably be interested since legos were some of his favorite toys when he was a little kid (he's a big kid now at 47 years old).

 

I actually have several sets that were $30 originally that are now holding steady at $200-300 each. The 5000-piece Millennium Falcon that was issued a few years ago for $500 is holding steady at $3000 (used) and $5000-6000 (new).

 

My neighbors grandson is obsessed with legos. Always was from a little kid and now he is 13 and still likes them. He's always getting and building sets, some in the $100s just for the cost of them. Most are star wars related.

I frankly never got into them. They bored the heck out of me and still do.

 

Tbh people are really dull if they're NOT impressed by ancient coins... OR if they ARE impressed by modern coins

Ancient coins are the history of us, the human species. If you don't care about that, you don't care about anything.

 

Great topic for discussion, Icerain! I have no family members who are remotely interested in my ancient coin collection LOL. I collect "Bible" coins. Judaean prutahs mostly. There are some folks at my church who are fascinated with my coins however. The thought of holding an actual coin that may have been touched by one of the Saints is awesome.

 

Coins from the Bible are awesome! It's great too see another collector of Biblical coins.

Way to go, Deacon Ray!

Erin

 

My experiences with friends and relatives fall in line with yours. If they have some interest in History they'll express awe at holding an object that old, but the intricacies of coin-lore bore them to death. Some get very excited at the idea of seeing Greek or Roman coins because they think they're super valuable, so their interest wanes quickly. My mother is convinced I'm being swindled.

I think it all comes down to how much knowledge a person has on the particular time period you're collecting from. After all, to understand what makes a set of coins unique - why they get debased over time, why a certain deity shows up more under Emperor A than under Emperor Z, why they move from laurels to radiate crowns to diadems, etc - you have to know the history behind them, and that takes a lot of time disbursed in books and museums. Otherwise they're just lumps of metal with funny sketches on them.

Recently I got a relative to read Gibbon and he's already showing some interest in the Roman coins I have, asking me to explain the different designs and so forth. So I guess that's a possible approach to try if you want someone else to appreciate your collection.

 

To be honest, I hate the sets as well. I like creating my own things, like this:



The real thing:

 

I have several collections, and the only one who seems to care about this one is my wife, and all she cares is that it fit in my closet. I should be grateful for the utter lack of interest from friends and family in my collections, I suppose, given that 15 years on my mother still asks before visiting if we 'have bones in our living room'? [a couple dinosaur femurs that won't fit anywhere else are on display in our living room.] Given her reaction to bones, probably just as well she doesn't know about the coprolites.

 

Is there a Lego forum, please join that )

 

Don't worry. I'm done.

 

I think Cyrrhus meant that as a compliment-- your train is fabulous and it deserves to be shown on a Lego forum where it can be fully appreciated

 

My neighbor's grandson I have never seen make something out of his own imagination using them. As much as he was into them, smartphones and current generation video games have taken over the #1 spot of legos.