What are the "Hobby Killers"?

Cultrual Property MOUs limiting shipping ancient coins to US.

 

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I think as a few people mentioned counterfeits is a big deal. I won't even look into Chinese coins because I know the odds are too high of getting a fake. Another killer is the notion that you need to be a "completist" and get every date and mintmark for a series. Some of them are just so expensive that you just can't go after them if you don't have a huge budget, and that's really daunting for the average collector. It's what pushed me out of U.S. coins and into world coins.

 

I collect classic early us type. I like them. I started with the Whitman folder of Lincoln’s then buffalo nickels and ihc then I got an 1865 2 cent and was fascinated. I bought a redbook and discovered early large cents. My first was a 1817 15 stars. I got a few others Then I got a 1800/1798 and I was really hooked. By then I was about 10 and had been collecting probably 2 1/2 years. I used to go to little coin auctions a gentleman had I think probably selling off some of his accumulation. My father bought stuff too as he collected a little too I remember the gentleman who had the auctions showing me his type set and his prize was his 1795 flowing hair dollar. I finally got mine 30 years later

 

As much as I love Ayn Rand I don't believe "...in collecting there is no such thing as too many stamps; the more one gets the more one wants..."

Whatever happened to the popularity of classic commemorative coins? Or for that matter the popularity of stamp collecting which at one point outstripped coin collecting? Does anyone believe the mint's 10 jillion modern commens helps the classic market? Or the BEP's commemorative stamp a week helps stamp collecting?

IMO, too much, too easy and *too fast* is Kool Aid.
In the 60's BIE Guild collectors could spend years buying or trading BIEs between each other by snail mail. I bought duplicates from a retired Navy guy who collected them that way for 20 years and he never got bored. Buying by snail moved too slow.

But for me, between his duplicates and getting on the interweb and ebay, I was ready to puke at the sight of a BIE in not even two years.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp

 

Yea right, @Bman33 very depressing.. Got real down when @Randy Abercrombie said he wouldn't collect coins BUT BALL CAPS if he started over... Well one thing I did learn here if you collect coins you can always spend them you cant spend ball caps... or bottle caps.. I still find it interesting jus reading the threads because I am sooooo far behind. I still dream of finding that one coin... snowball chance in hell I will..... bout like winning the Lottery....

 

Forced sell bc you got in over y head financially. Down market is a killer.

 

Thought I posted it here before, but maybe I didn't: counterfeiting for me is the #1 killer.

Buying an overgraded coin by 1 or 2 or even 3 grades won't kill me. An MS coin that is really AU, maybe even lower ? Live and learn, take a grading course, maybe I liked the coin the way it looked even though I thought it was too high, etc.

But paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for something worth a fraction of that amount ?

That's existential risk to the hobby.

 

Unless you spent a ton of $$$ at the peak of the cycle/bubble expecting to sell for a profit, that should not be a problem, let alone a hobby killer.

JMHO.

 

Never an expectation I ever had, and I wouldn't still be collecting if I expected such. I've only ever sold any parts of my collection if I got duplicates or in moments of financial desperation. I collect what I want to collect, and I couldn't care less what they will sell for at some point in the future, because I never intend on selling them if I can help it. What they will be worth in the future is the problem of who inherits them after I pass away. Coin collecting for me is a hobby, not an investment. My only concern in figuring out what a coin is worth is making sure I don't overpay for a coin I want.

 

I disagree with that second sentence because if coins I want drop in value, that just means I can afford to buy more of them; to me that's good for my hobby personally, not a killer.

Somewhat related side-note: I've never been one to care much about what happens to the hobby in general because it's not like my coins will disappear if coin collecting becomes less popular. I've never been one for collectivist thinking. It's fun to talk about my collection to people that are mutually interested, but even if nobody in the world cared about my coins but me, I would still get the basic pleasure collecting them gives me.

 

As an investment professional, anybody who thinks coins -- even 100% bullion coins -- are an "investment" drives me nuts.

Almost as much as people I see on the convenience store lines spending hundreds of dollars on games of chance every week...and then complaining they can't save money for an IRA or pay for their own health insurance 'cause they don't have the $$$ !!

 

That would be the same folks that have $2000.00 worth of tattoo ink?

 

@GoldFinger1969, @Randy Abercrombie-

Don't want to get to far of track or hijack @kaparthy's thread but can you give me your financial advise in 3 words or less?

 

Buy low... Hold

 

Wrong.....next.

 

Why does one dis-like the word INVESTMENT upset Collectors.. If I buy some coins and the price shoots up and I sell them for profit then that's an investment to my kind of thinking... but I wouldn't sell anyways but if I decided to it would be profit... can you do both at the same time… ? Collect an investment..

 

Do it yourself. ?

 

I don't think we dis-like investing associated with collecting. We (I) just don't think most coin collectors should go into it with an investment strategy in mind... But if it works for you, great!

 

Nope.