Numismatic mistakes you made when starting out (funny or serious)

Threw out a few error coins. Thinking they were just broken.

 

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Like many other probably, cleaning a circulated peace dollar from a keychain with sodium bicarbonate. About 52 years ago. Still have the dollar someplace.

 

I think I threw out the 1 ancient coin I had. So small I probably dropped it and the vaccuum cleaner took it

 

Many years ago I put a lot of modern proofs in Dansco albums. Many gained spots. Some are just ugly. Not a lot of money but it taught me a lesson.

 

No, I had to return it to the seller to get the refund. I wish I had taken pictures but this was back in the day of film cameras and it really never occurred to me. I was impressed how well I was treated by everyone involved and relieved to get my money back.

 

I saw only what I wanted to see and felt the generous older gents kindly trying to help me dolts too stupid to understand how much smarter I was. Sound familiar?

 

So what was your actual mistake as a newbie?

 

I still remember the first coin I spent more than $2k on (this was in 2009) .... It was this 1806 Draped Bust half. At the time, I was pretty serious about the Capped Bust Halves. I was focused on eye appealing, solid EF graded halves. I had a really good feel for the Capped Bust series, but I wanted to expand a little earlier. So I saw this Draped Bust come up for sale in a well-known dealer's inventory. It was graded PCGS VF-35, but I figured, you know, these earlier series get really expensive in EF, so I'll drop in quality a little to keep it more affordable (mistake #1). Should have stayed with EF... shortly after I bought it, I regretted that it was almost good enough to match the rest of my set, but just wasn't there.

Then I figured, hey, it's graded by a respectable TPG, so the grade must be right, right? (mistake #2). Turns out, it was overgraded by a few points and more accurately should have been a 30. Now, if you look at the pictures, I'll bet you can see mistake #3.... there is a pretty long (but very thin) scratch across the obverse. Market acceptable, right? Well maybe, but its not physics-fan3.14 acceptable. And then I saw the price, $2500 (even at the time, a strong price). I figured that the coin had original surfaces and good eye appeal, and a cool variety, and so the price was worth it. (For those playing along at home, go ahead and guess the Overton. Should be pretty easy). Well, mistake #4. Turns out, the extremely strong price was not such a great deal, even for the cool variety.

Anyways, excited-but-not-yet-as-experienced me forks over the cash, gets the coin... and I'm sorta underwhelmed by it. I look at it, and I kinda like it, and I look at it, and six months goes by and I'm sorta just unimpressed with such an expensive coin. Finally, I go to the FUN show in Orlando, I bring it, and I get fortunate enough to sell it for.... $2500 (to a variety specialist). So, I didn't loose anything (happy ending to the story!), but I learned so much from this coin.

It isn't the price of the coin that matters, its the quality.

 

I'm being serious.

Of course I made all sorts of stupid to regrettable direct mistakes, but all stem from the above.

 

O-114 R-4.

Great post. Never buy a coin you won't fully appreciate - especially for that amount of money.

 

They must have downgraded it. It was listed as an R-5 in 2009 when I bought it. And yes, that is exactly the lesson I hope to convey.

 

That line just cracked me up Jason. A great story and one we can all learn from.

 

I dont get that one

 

There was one particular Lincoln cent that did not look as good as I wanted it to be.
When I could not pop it out of its hole within my blue folder (whitman?) of cents, I used my mother's brillo pad and proceeded to clean it in its place ... along with the surrounding cardboard. The folder somehow suddenly disappeared. Thank you dad for teaching me a great lesson. I was 8 yrs old.

 

I cant speak for my first year of collecting. My dad helped me and prevented me from some really terrible buys.

My mistakes began in around 2011 or 2012 when I began buying coins on my own.

My biggest mistake in general in my first few years was collecting outside my area of expertise, and collecting coins that did not fit into my collection. I would see a deal on a key or semi key coin that really didn’t fit into my collection. I did this a lot in my first few years. I would buy a 1909-S cent here, a Liberty Nickel there, etc. etc. I lacked focus and it ate up funds and my collection did not look focused. It was just a smattering of random key dates and type coins I had gotten “deals” on. My biggest mistake in this respect, was I saw a PCGS Fair-2 1807 Draped Bust quarter for a “great deal” on Collectors Universe and bought it. 2 months later I’m looking at this coin thinking “What-Do-I-Do-With-This-Now?” Seriously. I had no interest in creating a quarter set, nor the funds, nor are quarters my denomination of choice. It was simply an impulse and immature buy. The 1807 isn’t even truly a key date. I ended up selling it and breaking even.

Now, my biggest mistake as far as getting ripped off due to inexperience was a bad one. I bought a raw 1912-S Liberty Nickel at Long Beach. It was solid Very Fine, maybe a bit better, or so I thought. (Again, out of my experience area, even at the time.... what a dumba**) Surfaces looked original. I examined it for a good 20 minutes but failed to notice tooling on the head and reverse Legend... I paid about $240 for it. I took it home and showed my dad, who IMMEDIATELY noticed the tooling at 5x magnification. Needless to say that was extremely embarrassing. When my dad pointed it out I realized right away he was right.

Now, after such distractions earlier on, I try to stick to Dimes and focus on them. I like to stick to my field of expertise and hone my grading and authentication skills, unless I see a deal on something I know I can flip. But I like sticking to the 10C Denomination as it is my favorite. Of course I love learning about other coins, but I don’t have quite as much confidence when buying other denominations.

 

Lots of mistakes and lots of cons I was subjected to. My advice is buy only certified over a certain value. Also followed Scott Travers book on making money by cracking coins out; too much trouble, and don't dip coins expecting good results that were previously graded. You often can't put the genie back into the bottle.