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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;genbirch, post: 3511691, member: 96219&quot;]Long time daily reader - first post. Started coins in childhood during the 70&#039;s and was most interested in US cents - filling whitman holders with what I now consider cull, mostly. Very exciting times then though. World coins only now.</p><p><br /></p><p>I haven&#039;t exhaustively read this amazingly long thread, but I am inspired to make an entry because I suspect no one else has reported collecting . . . Diptera. </p><p><br /></p><p>For more than ten years, I was a very avid collector of two-winged flies with specialization in specimens of the hugely diverse group; Tachinidae. Tachinids are parasitoids of other arthropods - mostly larval insects - and they almost invariably kill their host. Beautiful animals though - really!</p><p><br /></p><p>Sweep netted specimens were killed with cyanide, freshly pinned with standard entomological pins, individually labelled with locality, date, habitat, collector information. Standard museum presentation. Did a lot of &#039;trading&#039; with other Diptera specialists. At present, my huge collection is safely accessioned in a major entomology museum. Tax write-off in an important year.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the past nine years I have resurrected my childhood passion for collecting &#039;world coins&#039;. There is no temporal overlap between my former passion for tachinid collection/identification and coin &#039;buying&#039;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have felt conflicted over the relative value (to me or to society) of &#039;documenting biodiversity&#039; via fly collecting vs. &#039;hunting&#039; for truly good numismatic material - for the right price - from among the widgets and dreck. On one hand, flies are free! They are spectacularly difficult to identify to species, they are meaningful to local biodiversity studies and, as they are uncommonly collected groups, each collection data point may have <i>real</i> taxonomic meaning. Time spent in nature moving quietly and watchfully, meditative pinning/labelling work, occasional surprise or rare encounter are among the benefits of this type of &#039;collectible&#039;. </p><p><br /></p><p>Coins, on the other hand, satisfy a different &#039;itch&#039;. I have history with them. They <i>are</i> history, fetishized. They cost money to possess, but may in turn be <i>worth</i> money - not just as a tax write-off. </p><p><br /></p><p>But my coin collection does not <i>feel</i> contributory to me - like natural history collectibles have. Future researchers have and will continue to benefit from my previous passion. Who will benefit from the carefully purchased, fantastically diverse collection that I&#039;ve put together? </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, I&#039;m bitten - I love coin collecting and will continue to avidly learn and pursue. I worry for the future though.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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