Confessions of a numismatics sinner (Warning: Long Rant)

Confessions are a double edged sword. Though it may feel good to unburden your soul, you are nevertheless admitting imperfection, guilt, and accepting the punishment and loss of prestige and reputation that comes with it. But some sins are too heavy to live with, consequences be darned:

I may as well get to the point. I am a numismatics sinner. In my pursuit to build a large and amazing collection I lost track of the reasons why I got into this hobby in the first place:

(1) The drive to learn about and explore ancient cultures through the coins I come across.
(2) The fun of going back and reexamining, re-cataloguing, re-exploring and learning something new about old coins already in my collection.
(3) A sense of purpose and order.

I was busy posting about my new Argos coin today when I made the comment that in the later part of this year I would not be buying coins and would instead focus on reorganizing, re-cataloguing, and re-labeling my entire collection, as I had postponed these projects for far too long. @Jwt708 rightfully called me out on my negligence, and his words struck a raw nerve.

In my pursuit to build a "large collection" I've gotten to the point where I've lost track of what really matters. Instead things became about getting the next coin, and moving on to new coins after that.

Somewhere along the way I discovered my labelling system needed work. I started to fix it and abandoned the work in the pursuit of more coins.

Then I discovered my cataloguing system was flawed, and started to fix it only to abandon the project twice in pursuit of more coins. I now have three catalogs spread through three computers, and none agree with each other, all have coins missing from them, and it's gotten so bad that I honestly don't know how many coins I own.

Same with photography. I started a database of images, abandoned it for a second one, and then a third, and now I don't even know where the images to all my coins even are.

And with that mess, things have gotten so bad that I even have coins sitting on the desks at work and home because I haven't even bothered to process them and properly store them. Needless to say, I lost track of the reasons why I started to collect, which was learning about and researching the coins to discover new things, enjoying actually owning them, and falling in love with them over and over again. It's all become about the hunt and not the scholarly pursuit. And that's not the kind of collector that I want to be because that is a recipe to eventual burnout.

Starting this weekend I will begin the arduous task of finishing those long-abandoned projects. I don't care how tedious it is, I will properly organize and label my coins and document them, and I will research each and every single one again for new information. I will not buy another coin until I do so. That will be my punishment for my sins, my form of atonement for losing track of why I got into this in the first place. It will be hard, but I think I will be a better collector at the end of it all because of it. I've let myself down and disappointed myself, and now it's time to fix things and make it right again.

To all newbies, be aware. Don't repeat my mistakes but learn from them before it is too late.

Sorry for the rant.

 

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I think we all do this. It's all about the hunt, attack, let it arrive to your mailbox, then hunt again. I know I am at fault for it.

But I don't let myself get scatterbrained. I always get the labels ready as soon as the new victim is in hand.

I also look at my coins often, usually to check for BD but to enjoy them too. It's the U.S. coins that rot away & only looked at every few months.

 

Say 10 alleluias and go and sin no more......

 

"You must forrow direction! You rack disciprine!"

"You all need more disciprine! True disciprine come from within"




Edit;

 

Well I will surely miss your new coin posts for the time it takes you to accomplish the tasks.
I and am sure many of us know while necessary to catalog our collection is important it is sometimes overwhelming.
Mine starts on paper before it's turned into data & filed. I've also changed and redone it several times over, because I always find a flaw in my own system.
You'll come out of this having learned a lot more about your collection than you realize. Have fun with it and don't make it seem a chore to yourself. You will be better once you've complet & ready to add more.

 

Sounds more like procrastination than a sin. We have all been there and done that. Always seems like a more mundane thing to catalog, organize, photograph, etc. Always easier to just buy, buy, and buy some more and put away for another day. But now that you have confessed, it's going to be your duty to get after the details and then get back to us. That's your penance for the day.

 

Eh, just need a little focus, some time, and a bit of patience. I don't think I buy quite as many coins as you, but I've definitely fallen a few behind at times.

I am currently in the middle of a years-long project to re-photograph all of my coins. Unfortunately, I've been improving such that the pictures I took at the beginning aren't good enough anymore.... so as soon as I finish I'm going to have to start over again. I feel like Sisyphus!

 

If these are your worst numismatic sins, you're in good company. Once you get going on this project, it won't be an "arduous task" anymore; it will be a fun exploration of your collection.

Have fun!

 

I will miss the hunt too, but I need to sort out the mess, get reacquainted with the coins I already own, and get back on track.

I will probably still make new posts. I'm sure I'll discover some new things about an old coin that I'll want to share, or maybe I can document my progress, and there are still plenty of newbies to help.

Once I sort out the mess I'm sure I will feel better about expanding my collection now that I know more about what coins I like, what coins I already have, and where I want to go in this hobby.

 

Good heavens.......I don't want to catch that.

 

I was gonna reply with that, make a journal on here or progression posts.

I've said it before, I enjoy seeing us coin collectors doing being in our natural habitat. Seeing the messes, the piles, the papers & stacks. Breaks up the mundane pile on threads or new coin posts.

Nice to change it up from time to time.

 

I can sympathize with you Sallent I woke up to myself last year when I was buying coins and just leaving them lying around not even in a flip, moving on to buy the next coin. So what I did I tightened up my buying criteria and become strict on a coin having certain features, condition and of course price, this slowed me down enough to appreciate the few coins I was buying and returned the discipline to catalogue and put them in an album.

 

Sallent,
Your post is spot on, I have until recently been to deeply involved in the hunt and neglected studying and learning about my purchases. The current rain storms in Norcal have kept me inside, which is a good thing since my free time is now spent attributing, weighing, measuring and learning about purchases I had nearly forgotten about. This kind of activity has been very gratifying and in retrospect is a part of the hobby that I should have paid more attention to earlier.

 

If you are a sinner, I am the devil himself. I started the year intending to renumber all my images to make things easier to find and got about half way through the project when the opportunity presented itself to buy a bulk lot of coins and I could not help myself. That really messed up my numbering of one period.

At this point, I am going to try a new system where I will not look for coins to buy but only buy coins that I feel looked for me. These would be serious candidates for my top ten next year. I had told myself that I was going to get rid of as many coins as I bought this year but the lot pretty well guaranteed that will not happen. New Year's resolutions rarely work out. Will those made on the eleventh? Good luck with your plan. I don't have a chance.

 

I wouldn't label what you've done as "sin." I understand what you're saying, in that you've lost focus as to why you collect in the first place. The "number" of coins in your collection has taken more of an importance than the "why" of coins in your collection.

And that's OK.

You've simply wanted your collection to grow. That's something I'm sure we all want to have happen to our own collections. I'm guilty of wanting more, wanting another coin, visiting stores and dealers on a regular basis planning on buying another coin for the collection. It's easy to get lost in the "numbers game" because it's easy to acquire a new piece, but then you have to catalog it, photograph it, store it, etc. Ugh. Who wants to do that after EVERY item? Meh.

You've simply come to the realization that you've neglected the steps that come after acquiring an item. You know what you need to do. And it sounds like you're going to start doing it.

And that's good.

I'm thinking (and believing) that soon into the process of consolidating your multiple catalogs, organizing your photographs, and re-researching your collection's pieces, that you'll find that spark and deep meaning behind your collection (and the act of collecting) that made you start it all in the first place.

Sometimes, the only way to look at a map is to get lost and need one.

And that's OK, too.

Good luck. It'll take some time to complete your task list, but I think the entire process will be a huge help to you.

 

Sometimes I am in the mood to work on photographs (an endless task of large then smaller and smaller improvements).

Sometimes I am in the mood to research a coin, city, region, emperor, etc.

Sometimes I am in the mood to read coin books.

Sometimes I am in the mood to clean some dirt encrusted beauties.

Sometimes I am in the mood to catalogue and organize.

I keep all the receipts and paperwork forever so it really does not matter when I get to it.

I tell myself that I will finish it all when I retire in a few more years, that is my crutch.

 

I retired in 2003. It has not happened yet.

 

Ditto except I didn't retire completely till 2014 but semi retired in 2010.

 

A thoughtful post, Sallent, which clearly struck a nerve. I was thinking today about this discussion board and how we post pictures of our coins for one another to comment on. I thought to myself that I could save a lot of money by just copying pictures of coins online and sharing those! But the reality behind the ridiculous notion is that once I have the coin in its flip, I rarely handle the physical object itself after that, and most often revisit the coin through its digital representation. Doing the tedious work of going back and weighing, measuring, photographing the coins and re-ordering their presentation reconnects me with the coins as physical objects. And that's a good thing. The main thing.

Also, in my cataloging system I always include a NOTES section for each coin. I try to write at least one interesting thing about the coin or the Emperor. Every coin tells a story, and this database field prompts me to learn and record such stories.

 

I actually enjoy curating my collection. Cataloguing, labeling, organizing, researching; those tasks can become as addictive as the hunt, if you'll let them.

As for labels, I designed a relational database for my collection using MS Access. I enter information on the coin once, and then I can automatically generate flip tags, tray tags and a page about each coin that goes onto a binder. The beauty of this system is that if I wanted to change my tags, I only need to update my template; then I can print a tag for every coin in my collection by two mouse clicks. It makes organizing less tedious once you've got the basic database design functioning.

Good luck with your goals.