A massive project

Hello, My name is Brandon Spiegel and I am a junior attending Wylie East High School. I have been studying coins for the past four years but now I want to take it to the next level by partaking in a course called TPSP which stands for Texas Performance Standards Project course. This course is a high school version to a college thesis that requires a final product. My goal for this course is to bring my passion for numismatics into a business setting by helping other people start their own collections.

I am going to have my final project be a starter set that gives a new collector everything that they need to start a collection. a bunch of good, basic knowledge, Some coins, and some supplies to keep their coins safe, and their collections growing. in addition to that I am going to include a small safe so they can keep these coin safe, and the coins that they will get in the future safe. for around 100 dollars

I am still in the research portion of the course and I am trying to figure out what theme/ title should the sets be. If I should sell the sets on amazon,Ebay, Etsy or else where. I also am clueless as to the packaging, and exactly what I am going to include in the set

I would greatly apreciate it if you could please post any ideas below or send them to me at edited I would also appreciate if I could send some of y'all a short email interview to aid in my research.

Thank you! Have a good day

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Hi Brandon.... I'm Brandon

 

I would say do World Coins with animals. there so many coins and countries to choose from. all different price ranges. I myself am going the route of topical/themed collections. my personal favorite are "coins with insects". "coins with hands", "coins with certain stars", "coins with small coins on the coin as the design itself", different shapes starting with 3 sides on up to 14 sides on a coin. most of these collections are world coins. not sure if a $100 would do it.

 

First, is this just a school project where real life viability isn't that important? If this would need to have even a remote chance of success, I fear you're barking up the wrong tree, at least from what you have thus far shared. While offering a "starter kit" may sound like a fine idea, in practice you're not likely to find many takers.

One thing that sticks out as a bad all-round idea is the safe. For starters, no "safe" that could profitably be added to a $100 "starter set" is worth a darn, and would do no more than give potential purchasers a false sense of "security". Acquisition costs will likely eat up a large percentage of your per-set maximun investment, and will also add to shipping costs, perhaps even to the point where the few interested in such a thing will walk because of it. If you want to sell cheap "safes", sell cheap safes; otherwise, you would be wise to drop the idea altogether.

The "theme" idea takes an already very-niche idea to the extreme. Sure, there are collectors who like plants and animals, but basing a business solely upon it? No... not a good idea unless, perhaps, focused mostly upon the new ATB series, but even then your price, especially if you insist on that "safe", will drive a nail into your coffin. Most who have an interest is US coins, other than perhaps children, often have it because of a childhood experience, or because of the connection to history. There are, of course, other reasons as well, but the point is that for the broadest appeal, US coins should more than suffice as a "theme". Cents have long been a popular starting point, but partially completed circ sets are dime-a-dozen and easily found on at least one of your potential venues. The same goes for everything else... why pay up for a "set" with possibly unknown coins in unknown conditions when money could easily be saved clicking elsewhere. Short of gift buyers, interest very well may be nonexistent.

The "investment" idea is, with all due respect, poor, and in context would be nothing more than a gimmick. At best you're going to be offering a handful of widgets at forever buried prices, which certainly does not make for a fine starter "investment". In addition, putting forth the idea that collecting is an "investment" is really false advertising. Nine plus times out of ten, people will lose money on their collections, and this is especially true for those collecting low end, low dollar material.

The point I'm hoping to make here is that if real world potential has any place in this project, the idea needs a lot of work. Recently there was another young fellow with a school project he wanted to tailor to his coin interests, and with all due respect to him, the idea was doomed to failure from the very start. This was because of his insistence on the "business" being what he thought a good idea and not what there is an actual demand for. One of the biggest reasons for failure of small businesses started because of an interest or passion is that the market has no need for it. As an example, I've personally watched what seems like countless pizza joints come and go during my lifetime. Whenever a new one opened, I made a point of patronizing it and always tried to get the proprietor to talk about why they started the business. Nine times out of ten it was because of a dream, perhaps not to sling pizzas, but to own a business, and this particular one offered low start up costs and higher profit potential, yet they failed to account for market needs and failed because of it. Just because the place down the road brings people in left and right, it didn't mean another place would double the fun, and the same can be said for coins. There is no shortage of people selling them these days, and in fact theres more sellers now than ever before because of the internet and the very venues you wish to use. Why would and why should anyone buy from you when there are countless other options out there, likely including the very same suppliers you would be using?

Again, if this business project doesn't need to be viable, non of this matters and I've wasted my time. However, if it does I do hope you take this all as food for thought. I wish you luck regardless.

 

Brandon, I can understand your reaching out to this coin forum for ideas on your coin project. Now I need you to understand something. Any ideas we may give you will necessarily limit your creativity.

That understood, your goal in this project is to create a starter kit that will generate sufficient interest to bring people into coin collecting. What brought you into coin collecting? Build this kit on that. Don't build it on what we think, build it on what you think.

This TPSP is designed to assess your creativity, not ours. Do this the way you think, not the way we think. What's important isn't whether this project succeeds or fails. That's only the end result. What's important is the creative means to that end result. What's important is the creative process, itself.

That can only come from within you. Start with you. Build this your way. That's all you have to do. Look inward for your answers, not outward. Build it on what brought you into coin collecting. That's my advice.

 

First of all, you want to pique someone's interest. If you peak their interest, the implication is that there's nowhere for it to go but down.

As for your project, you have three related themes (things on coins) one idea for collecting old things, and one idea that will almost always lead to disappointment (investment). Take a look at what Whitman and the ANA have done with starter kits, so that you aren't reinventing someone else's wheel. Figure out what interests people in your target group and see if you can make things that fit well to these interests. Someone buying this for themselves or someone else must see a benefit to doing so, which you'll need to address.

I agree that you don't want to provide a safe. Too much expense and false sense of security. Make it the purchaser's responsibility to keep their coins in a safe place, although you do want to provide means for protecting them.

 

Need to sanitize the response that quoted the original.

 

What da mean? There's a raging bull in coins with shelf doubling.

 

I greatally appreciate you saying this. Although it was dissapointing at first I came to realize that it was the most valuable thing that anyone has told me thus far. I would much rather know that there are much better options from the start than to realize that down the road.

edited to fix quote tags

 

AWESOME!!! - very cool name if i do say so myself

 

lol Why yes... yes it is

 

Any questions, fire away!