A different view of the hobby

the thrill of the hunt not knowing what you will find and the history behind the coins, not to say so many different types of coins to collect

 

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Good point - by the time you get engaged in a series, you suddenly get enamored with another series. My wife and I really like Standing Liberty quarter and trying to build a set, but now our minds are deranged as we are really loving Bust Halves.

 

What I love about this hobby.
You don't need much money to have fun. I still enjoy just picking up the Red Book and reading.
The next thing I love about the hobby is how cool it became with the start of the internet. Everything changed and today we can look up most anything.
Next would be all the coin forums. You make friends and see coins that are great to learn from.

 

Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the history aspect. I love the artistic merit of coins. The symbolism, sculpture relief, modern vs classic design and coin development; it is all so nice and I can just get lost in it. I think that has already been brought up, but I love using this hobby as a release. Just a break from work, home life, adult responsibilities, it is a sigh in a hectic world. Lastly, I have been recently obsessed with the mechanical aspect of this hobby. How coins are manufactured, how they wear, how luster develops and degrades. I just find it so fascinating, and again, seem to get lost in the whole thing.

 

I fill holes.

I read the Red Book.

So relaxing.

 

You can see a division in collecting coins or almost any thing. Some people just "Have" to finish a "set" to feel successful. I and some others like to gather the coins that are "different" from the usual pocket change. And of course those that try to do "everything" such as going through bags/boxes of 5000 cents weekly hoping for the 55/55 or 72/72 DDOs. "Carpe Diem" all.

Jim

 

I love reading everyone’s answers. They’re just something nice about a question with no wrong answers.

I can add to my list. I also love that I get to learn, then learn, then learn some more. I started collecting ancients a couple years ago. Over the weekend I posted in a thread asking if a coin was good or a fake. To my surprise my post that the surfaces seemed off turned out to be right. It was a cast fake. I’ve seen enough ancients know that I’ve picked up what a pretty obvious fake looks like. It’s a good feeling when you know you’re picking stuff up.

 

This. There was an exhibit of counterfeits at the big show last weekend, and one part of it was "which coin is real?" -- I found that it was easy now to spot the fakes, and explain how I was spotting them. I remember when it wasn't.