Have you ever had thoughts of giving it all up?

have you ever...............................

............i have stopped collecting in the 70's for a few years because i lost my brother. he was really in to collecting and it was a thrill to share a hobby and its interests with someone in the family. it seems much more enjoyable, at least to me, to be able to talk and relate to someone that was excited about the hobby. within the last few years my sister has gotten the bug................NOW i'm sorta getting my second wind so to speak and am enjoying the hobby much the same as i once did in the past with my brother.

 

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Goals, like in life should be fluid and adaptable to the circumstances. Find pleasure in the path you choose and how you walked it for the scenery will fill your heart and mind. Accept at any point along the path there may be a boulder to big to go around but you can still admire what cannot be reached. Enough zen

Funny thing I have noticed is that the hunt is sometimes is more fun than gaining something I hoped for. In part I think that is because most of the collection goes straight into a safe place and I do not get to enjoy it on a regular basis. Watched a movie recently "A Good Year" with Russell Crow where his character came to realize that having nice things you cannot admire is a shallow existence. I feel that is an important lesson when it comes to hobbies like ours.

In a post you made recently you talked about a Morgan Set you sold long ago and still regret. I think you would forever feel the same about your NY collection. It's different than a modern collection as some of those notes are true rarities! Find a way to display some part of your collection and take some time off. You will come back to it when you are ready. Those notes that are impossible to get, sacrifice a grade and complete the collection as time/money permits. If the opportunity comes along later to upgrade I'm sure you will do okay on the trade up.

Okay - that's a lot of typing on a blackberry!!! LOL

 

Great question. I plan to stop collecting and give everything to my kids to do whatever they want with it. I'm not quite to that point yet, but I don't think it will be difficult when the time is right. It does impact my purchases now, and I never buy anything anymore that I think will be difficult to resell without getting ripped off -- so the eventual decision has affected my collecting habits.

 

Sometimes. That is because it has become an obsession and I think anything that is done to an extreme can be harmful (time/attention away from family, etc.). Also, I could save more money!

I am on two tracks. I want to continue to collect early type, but for now only one example in the best grade I can afford with great eye appeal. This has taken a back seat to my second track which is collecting Conder tokens. There are thousands of different ones that can be collected so there really is no ending point (I like this) - each with a unique story. Again, I am not buying everything I see - only those that strike my interest. I do have an eye toward future value by collecting rarer pieces. Again, the best condition I can afford.

Don't see any ending point so the question is irrelevant for me.

The economy is of great concern and I worry about my job being eliminated (I don't know of many who think differently). I spent more than I should have at FUN and will not buy anything for a long while now. I do not share the details of costs with my family since they do not have the proper context to understand/appreciate what the value is or the satisfaction associated with a careful purchase. Ultimately, discretionary dollars that feed my obsession must be attenuated against the economic situation. This also has to be balanced with supporting two kids in college (tuition, rent, food, car insurance, gas, cell phone bills, etc etc times 2) and a new teenage driver and his expensive car insurance.

However, if I didn't have this hobby, I would be terribly bored with the daily grind of work and my duty to support my family. So there is an intrinsic value received from the money spent. I've also met new friends along the way and those relationships are important to me.

(Hmmmm......self analysis....have I done a good job rationalizing why I spend bucks on my hobby?)

 

One day, I will sell everything and buy that retirement home I dream about.......a boat on the lake. My wife is getting close, and I am a few years behind, but that was always my big plan.....retire on the lake, and use my coin collection to do so.

 

RickieB, don't do it. Just think of that other guy/girl. The one who gets the notes you need to complete your collection. You probably have the ones s/he need. Persivere(sp?). Make them give up first! Nothing worth doing comes easy.

 

before i used to buy real coins now i am buying trinkets in order to keep my collection going. the only good thing is i wouldnt have bought these trinkets when i was collecting coins so the trinket collection would have been left incomplete. the only good thing is even the trinkets are looking like coins with every passing day. what luck sigh

 

I began collecting many years ago while in high school. Over the years, my interest has come and gone. I will get tired and go to something else for a while and then go to something else. I used to think it was some sort of flaw in my make-up not to be able to sustain an interest continuously.

Now I am older (not a whole lot wiser) and just do the things which give me pleasure. I have always sort of alternated between stamps and coins and have put together several collections of each.

Eventually I sell and start over.

Regrets? sure, but I always bounce back better than ever.

 

Well i have more then thought about stopping collecting i already have. Cointalk used to be my homepage and i would compulsivly check it around 15-20 times a day. Today was the first day i have done cointalk in roughly months. I also missed my first Baltimore show in over 2 years (which is a lot for me considering im 15)

I just dont seem to feel the same spark that i used to.

Now i have been going through a tough time with severe anxity and depression causing me to miss over 6 weeks of school but i Want to start collecting again becuase it was such a enjoyable past time but it just is not happening.

This may be because i have been only able to work during the summers and i am very very picky on what coins i buy. Also my local coin store is a scam. Maybe yo have heard of them. It is the GCE or gaithersburg coin exchange.

Well hopefully ill get the spark back and hopefully it started by checking out cointalk today but i am really not sure if i should sell my collection and just take a even longer break.

 

NEVER!!! I love this hobby and am emotionally attached to it.

 

A Note about the Family not understanding.... Any time a new coin comes in the mail, I show it to my Wife and explain why I bought it and what I like about it and she now comes over when she sees I have a package in the mail to sit with me ;-)
Also I show the coins I really like to my 9 mo daughter, she likes that they shine and that I am smilling down at her showing her something so it really doesn't matter what it is I am holding. You are right that niether Understands my coins as I do, but they love that I enjoy them as much as I do and in thier own way enjoy them too.

Sincerely,
Donn

 

at this point because i am a kid and i very much doubt that i will have to be living on my own money for a good 6-11 years i do not think that i will be selling them even though a good extra 2 grand wouldnt be bad in my bank account. (yah for rich jewish parents)

 

Wise words from GD Jako.....

 

Sometimes I wish I was that young again....

Speedy

 

5 years isnt that much of a difference. Do you have to pay for your living expenses or if your going to college, tuition? More like i had a weathly grandfather who thought i was a genius for some reason and would hand me 100 dollar bills haha

 

i dont know why you keep forgetting about spock i never even got rid of one coin ever i have collected since i was 4 and never stopped of course there were times when i didnt have money for coins coz of other hobbies but i never took a break from the hobby. wow it suddenly dawned on me that i have been collecting a long time


and another thing dawned on me you must have had a complete collection of what we call ancients from circ coinage when you were 15

 

I take coin collecting from an investment standpoint most of the time...

I find it hard to give up a collection that has actual worth, unlike something like card collecting...

as opposed to card collecting, these coins are actually made of something worth a LOT of money at times... not just paper with nice colors and shiny stuff on it

It's definitely hard to fight the temptation of the market's price fluctuations... though the riskiness of it these days is definitely a turn off.

I dunno... I guess it just helps to know that they keep getting older and older... and will continue to appreciate over time. It's definitely not some fad that will fade after a few years

 

this is what I was talking about...

in less than 6 years I plan to be out on my own....

Speedy