Psychology of Coin Collecting

Well I always loved history,to touch it, imagine it. I was going thru some silver of my late father in laws and while going thru some 35 washingtons I kept imagining a kid going to the general store buying pop or candy, someone counting their wage for the day,ect. I do get excited about filling a hole or completing a series or getting a great deal on a coin. I enjoy the hunt, the thrill and the pleasure of being a steward for a collection that will long out live me for someday someone else will wonder as I have the history of the coin I now possess.

 

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About 5 years ago, I read an article about the psyche of a "collector" in general. It fit me to a "t". Haven't been able to find that article recently though.

 

Much like us all dear fellow.......

 

I started young, but lost interest in the basic every date/mintmark thing. getting a new mintmark didn't excite me, even at 10. I have always loved silver, so moved to buying what silver I could afford, and still remember my excitement holding my first morgan. I actually had some money as a kid, (won a bingo jackpot), and convinced my mother to let me put it all in silver coins. When late 1979 came around, it just got too expensive for me to want them any more. I sold them all. I started up serious buying again in 1990, (hung around a lot of coin ships earlier), spending money again to accumulate bulk silver cheap. After I got enough, I started buying better coins, working my way up. This got boring after a few years and I slowed down again. I discovered ancients 10 years ago or so, and this more fully occupies me now.

Overall, I am a hoarder of silver, I love owning pounds and pounds of it. I am also a history buff, so ancient history has pulled me into ancient coins, (or is it vice versa)? I just love having a nice library, seeing something that I have never seen before, buying it and then going home and reading about it more fully. Chalk me up as acquisitive/historian, or just a silver bug who also loves history, and US history just got too small of a pond to concentrate in.

Great thread btw Winged, thank you.

Chris

 

How about challenging? The search and acquisition of coins. I read early on that collectors thrive on this. The art of the deal isn't being frequently mentioned either.

A picture is worth thousands of words. Here is how quick the sickness (good or bad - take your choice) can take over.

I moved my coin collecting sorting set up from the living room Fall of 2009





To a spare bedroom/office for coin study - Spring of 2010.




For kicks and giggles I decided to jump up and take a picture of my now Coin Mess. - Hopefully this will inspire me to clean it up. Anyone want to analyze this mess and save me the fees of a psychoanalist?

Keep in mind I only collect wheat cents. I think I am out of control.

 

I was putting coins in glass jars when I was 8. Then at 12 I help my brother put a engine in a car and there went coin collecting(hoarding) for fast cars. Then in Febuary of last year
I found the jars, I am 54!! I spend at least 1 hour a day reading about coins and have read 20 book on collecting and history of coins. I now have a complete circulated sets of Indian Head Coins,
Lincoln Cents (09-2011),Jefferson Nickels, Roosevelt dimes including proof and silver, Washington Quarters 32 to 98, Kennedy Half Dollars, Eisenhower Dollars and am working on
Presidential Dollars. I just love redneck coins ( shiny ones). When Silver broke $30 I started buying for investment. I liquidated half of my retirement and savings to buy silver at $32.
Half coins and half bullion. I never thought of my pretties as money just something I liked to look at and touch. As my ancestors never had anything to leave anyone I decided to have
something to leave my grandson.

 

Hey, Thanks to all ... for the stories and backgrounds ... it's been a fun read!!

 

"Psychology" involves a lot of other characteristics--character, philosophy, belief system or religion, our rationale for doing what we do. I was once a free-market libertarian; fortunately I woke up to how impractical this political position is, that the rule of law is as important as freedom, and witnessing how the sharp commercial interests can game any system. For them, "psychology" is like that Geiko commercial with the drill sergeant and the wimp on the couch--a cop-out and an excuse for failure to pursue your strong instincts.

I used to have a landlord who was a hoarder like the show, for which the Collyer brothers are patron saints--now, I can understand hoarding things of great value, I cannot understand hoarding junk--to me that is sick, sick, sick! Such people are in need of serious help. Most collectors and coin dealers I know are honest people who have arrived at their hobbies through healthy interests.

 

I was started by my grandfather when I was very young.
So for me it is something that takes me back to my childhood.
When I was a teen, I began to appreciate the art work and the history.
So now it is about all three of those things, with a 4th added ingredient...
Which is to pass it along to my kids (or any youth) and give them the gift my GF gave me.

 

Great Thread.
As for me, I find some are pretty shinny historical objects and they keep my curiosity primed.

Most days I can just reach into my pocket and find something to ponder. The old ones SOUND good and have a tactile presence.

A GOOD one can come my way via serendipity in change.:thumb:

Why buy a lotto ticket when you can have the clerk hand you an opportunity in change?
Some are old and misshapen. This does not mean they are bad......just different.

And unlike PEZ dispensers most can be exchanged almost anywhere, anytime for something else.....like gas.

 

I am not sure a coin hoarder is that much better than a regular hoarder. The main difference to me is that my hoarding takes up much less space! I do commisurate with people in hoarding shows. I can see how they go down that path, I hate throwing away anything of value. Now, those people who let it get to the point of nasty food in the fridge, unclean conditions, etc. I think is way too far. Basically I think most coin collectors are hoarders in their own right, since most of us do not like to part with our coins. Its a matter of degree. Heck, I have a lot of junk silver and better US coins which I do not actively collect anymore in a SF box. Is that really rational? We tell ourselves its an "investment", but I wonder if those other hoarders tell themselves the same thing......

Chris

 

medoraman, it's interesting you posted this. this was very true for me. I lost my interest in date/mintmark collecting when I was about 13 or so. i wonder what the percentage breakdown is of collectors that do 'date/mintark for a series' vs. 'type coins' vs. 'bullion' ... what do people think is most popular now-a-days? i get the impression most people seem to focus on a series or two.
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My first coins was a 20 & 50 groshen and 1 zloty from Poland. It was in 1980, when I was a 5-years old boy. These coins I find in our closet. And since that day I am a mad collector:axemeethead:

 

ive always been collecting something. the first thing i really do remember collecting was lincoln cents. i was so young i really didnt understand anything about it besides maybe mintages. after that it was baseball cards. next was antique radios. i went back to coins because i really dont have the room to store radios and baseball cards is such a bum market. theres so many great different reasons for collecting coins. the history, the artwork, meeting people and sharing knowledge i would even say the artwork on top of artwork (toned coins). i wouldnt want to turn it into a job because im not very good at telling people when they have junk in a nice way and im sure dealers are looking at junk all the time. i probably wouldnt mind being someones assistant but im pretty satisfied right now just going to a dealer once a month and shows once or twice a year. im sure of all the items i have collected ive spent the most time on coins because theres just so much to learn but i really just try to limit myself to large cents to keep my head from exploding. hahaha

and nice thread. its great to read other peoples reasons for getting into this hobby.

 

I tend to think of myself as more of a penguin, who just enjoys having a nice pile of shiny rocks.

 

I like to have all of everything. A direction or a goal to be achieved. When I got my penny album, I got the one with the proof spots cause I couldn't stand not being able to put something in it. I owe it the OCD. At some point I intend to have an album (preferably all Dansco cause that's what my penny one is) of all the different types of coins. Call me crazy, but I will consider breaking 1,000 dollar coins out of their slabs to put it in the album.

 

I think this is the great divide between collectors. Some of them seem to have a need to complete a "set", howevr they define it. It happens in all aspects of collecting, but seems to be more prevalent in US collecting, maybe due our books we put them in and the Redbook telling us what a complete "set" is. Others simply like collecting coins, and do not worry so much about a complete set, simply collecting what appeals to us, or as the other camp calls us, hoarding coins. I quickly found out I am not a "set" collector, and strike my own path as it were. I do have some minor "sets", like the anonymous bronzes from A1 to K, but not really by desire to have to complete the set, merely because I liked them all.

Chris

Edit: See, me and SWThirteen are completely opposite collectors, and I think that is great!

 

My grandfather got me into this hobby in 1983 with the usual whitman lincoln books. He took the time to teach me how to handle the coins, not to clean them, what the mint marks meant and buying a few lowball stuff to get me started. He passed away the day after xmas in 1990 and I continued with the hobby till about 1994 when I entered jr high and of course high school/college.

After coins I got into comic books, comic book trading cards and some rocks/fossils and WWE Wrestling. I lost interest in alot of that in 2001 except wrestling, I got tired of it in 2009 and thats when I fell back into collecting coins.

I ended up selling alot of my junk comic books, trading cards & wrestling memorabilia to put towards coins. I mainly focused on upgrading my u.s type set but seeing how high coins have gone up and how everything is about slabs it was shying me away from them. Thanks to posters here sharing their collections and such I got interested in Ancients. I even bought my first ancient from a board member here and since then I have been hooked on them.

I occasionally buy upgrades to my U.S. coins but I tend to just spend it on 3-4 nice ancients vs 1 high -mid-grade half or something. I also love the history ancients provide instead of a limited history U.S. coins bring.

But I have always had to have a hobby and collect things. Ive tried a little bit of everything but it seems coins are where it's at.

 

Yeah but, do you only wear black and white and waddle around in flocks?

I went the opposite direction:

Background: I have collected (ok saved) all my pocket change for as long as I can remember. I was also handed down a rather large hoard of Lincolns. About a year ago, I found myself with time to go ahead and do something with these coins. I started with Google looking up values, learning key dates, then that took me to eBay to see what stuff was actually selling for, which led to learning grades, which then led to PCGS & NGC - which led to message boards.

With of all of that, I decided that I needed to put my hands on some certified coins to use for comparison against what I have. .... So, I went on a PCGS Cent buying binge - that just confused me more. So I decided to pick just one coin and last October, I chose the VDB for a lot of reasons, affordable, plentiful, controversial, 1st Lincoln etc.

Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/showthread.php?t=167212&pagenumber=#ixzz1K6ADiaUu

 

Ever since I began collecting coins, I have been greatly involved in politics and learning about as much history as possible when I have spare time. Coins hold much historical value, from my point of view. They all tell a story.