DunkDave, you already have a lot of experience finding and saving coins. The help info you are getting here in this and other threads is based on hundreds of years of collecting and is extremely valuable. Continue to use common sense and learn from them. That said, I began "saving" coins at age 11. My first lesson learned was that when you find a nice coin it needs protection. In 1962 I was finding mercury dimes in change, and some of my best are grading at 58 to 61. Nowadays I see a Indian Head penny (IHP) that is G4 and say to myself gee, what if that one had been rescued earlier? Obviously, you can't save everything. Lean to your interests, learn from all of these astute gentlemen and put aside a few dollars to buy a coin you like. That won't break your budget and you will smile at your coins as a collector. My philosophy is simple: If a coin has escaped the ravages of circulation and is attractive it deserves being saved and protected. The ones I collect are not with making money in mind, but with preserving. My favorites are Morgans and Mercurys, and Walking Liberty halves.
That is very common for many collectors. They get interested young then family and career consume all their money and time. Coins take a back seat. But eventually the kids grow up and move out and you are well settled in your career. Funds become more available and collecting returns. That's why you don't see a lot of young people in the hobby. They get exposed, they drop out, and then we get them back when they are in their 40's + years. Then they stick around for 30 years which makes us top heavy in the age range.
First, hone your skill set in grading and become a series expert. With this skill set you can cherry pick raw coins. In-turn, slab these cherries and make a tidy profit. Then expand into other series and widen your breath of numismatic knowledge. A fast track way to riches is to study the errors of a series and identify them without a guidebook. Cherry pick the raw coins from dealers using your memory (a dealer sees you with a guidebook... you show them your poker hand). This cherry picking can also be done with your grading expertise. For those who are young.... profits should be used for college education. Advance education in a career in demand. I talking Masters and PhD level. Treat coin collecting as a profitable hobby and not a career. A steady flow of outside high income allows you to enjoy the hobby more.
I had actually been wondering more of late about the reason for the apparent upper-level age demographic on here; thanks for the explanation!
John Wooden, not just the greatest coach in the history of college basketball but a wonderful human being as well.
Well, for me, that is fun. Especially when they arrive in the mail and I get to put the glass on them. It's like Christmas. Gift from Investment/Me to Coin Nut/Me. Though my wife get's tired of my gifts to myself. But she will help with grading - she's a more sober grader.
I guess it's more significant that your wife helps you with the grading than that she gets tired of your self-gifting, eh?
Yeah . . . if only she wasn't such a harsh grader. It feels like malice. Sometimes I'd rather have her NOT look at the coin. But occasionally I'm surprised where she's given the coin a small grade bump over what I would think. 'Occasionally' is used generously here. The Morgan is her favorite coin, and I buy heavy toners. At least on those I can say. . . "Hey . . . look what I got for you . . . another Morgan!"
All in all, it sounds like the benefits you accrue, both for your collection and for your "emotional well-being", from this co-operative venture/arrangement far outweigh any possible detriment, especially if you keep going heavy on the Morgans!
Its a hard discipline , Numismatics. The keys as mentioned are knowledge, knowledge, and more knowledge. And after that you add to the knowledge. When honest and sober, most here , even the greybeards, will say they made some very bad mistakes in the beginning, by trying to do it with fast flipping, Youtube learning, and figuring they are smart enough to not need books or significant reservoir of knowledge. General coin knowledge first, specialization following, varieties and errors last. But rules #1 , have fun. If you don't , it is a low paying job with few benefits.
It is so easy to make $$$ from a coin. The difficult part is the time and effort and expenses you make getting to the point you can recognise the value of the coin and then hawking it around to find the right buyer that gives you the best money you can get for it. Every moment you own a valuable coin waiting for the right buyer is money you don't have. Also every moment you put into learning about coins is money you are not earning for the time you use to learn. For many here, money earned at a job, however meager could easily add up to more money in your pocket over time, than spending time learning and then 'investing' what funds you can on coins you think will rise in value. In fact, if you look at coins that have risen in value over the past 50 or even just 20 years, you will find you can likely make more money on an 'investment' by putting your money to work in other more common ways. But that takes discipline and self-control. Back to the ease of making money off a coin. I have had several good opportunities to make some great sales. Like when I sold a quarter I found for 180.00. or sold about 20.00 of Kennedy halves (face value) for their numismatic value. Nice bank runs for those. But every bit of monetary profit I have gotten or will likely get for whatever coins I have that are worth more than face value are more than outweighed by the time and expense to procure them and to sell them. Coin are not a good 'investment' for most people.
Right, if you don't love it, and haven't done your homework, you're simply an opportunity to exploit for those that have.
I mean no disrespect, but this is one of those "if you have to ask" type of questions. I can also only assume you haven't really thought this one out, and for the simple fact that you're asking your target to tell you how you can profit off of them instead of simply doing it for themselves. To put it most simply, though, knowledge coupled with a willingness to do the work is your answer, at least as long as you can be brutally honest with yourself regarding your own abilities. One absolutely MUST know THEIR market in order to have even a chance of succeeding, along with the ability to detach themselves emotionally from coins. Many who try to do as you wish to fail simply because they're not honest with themselves and/or see only what they want to. They allow emotions or personal preferences to impact their goal, and in this business that simply doesn't cut it a vast, vast majority of the time. In closing, I can't blame you for trying, but there's simply more to it than the desire to make money.
It's a good thing I've never tried to go into the business of selling coins, because I don't have a salesman's bone in my body; the art of sales is Greek to me.
