Can you make money being a coin collector?

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My friend is 14 and he works at a coin shop.

 

a good coin collection is developed over time in my opinion and it is not unlike stocks in that as you learn you buy smarter and get better.i have no idea how much I have paid for coins or how much 12 safes full of coins is going to be worth,but I do know they are mine and unlike my 401k that took a multi 1000 dollar dive a few years back over all these will go up as time passes.

 

there is no coin shops nearby (walking-bike riding) distance, and the law says I must be at least 15.
yeah. I live in THAT state.

 

lol

 

be a coin dealer. however, they are all rich to start with. it takes plenty of money just to consider being a coin dealer. other than that, my opinion would be, not to try to make money on selling coins. i have been trying to make a profit from selling coins for the past 6 years. and only once did i ever make a profit on any of the coins that i have sold. sure, i have sold many coins, but always at a loss. the problem is, that nobody is really selling the coins at prices low enough that the coins can be flipped for a profit. and another problem is that, once you have spent a lot of money on coins in hopes of selling them for a profit, you just end up losing money everytime. then you spend years of your time and a lot more money just trying to get back the money that you have already lost on selling coins. it is in my opinion, a pointless cycle to get into in the first place. if you want to have more money, then don't spend any money on coins. i would without a doubt have more money if i had never bought any coins or spent any time or energy on coins in the first place. i know all of this sounds very negative, but it is the truth.

 

I dream of having my own shop. To be able to sit all day immersed in coins. I figure I'd have to be a millionaire first though. Fat chance of that happening. So I collect what I can afford, and I go for quality. I collect raw and graded, as most the collection is being passed down.

 

Perhaps from a philosophical standpoint. Practically speaking, if you purchase a lot of coins for $100, keep one coin that sells for $50 and get the same $100 back from selling the other coins, that $50 coin is profit as long as its market value does not fall to $0 whether you have sold it yet or not. Some people prefer to keep a coin rather than keep an equivalent amount of money in the bank, but I don't think one should be called a fool for believing these two to be interchangeable.

 

If buying single coins with the intent to resell for profit, it's certainly an uphill battle. But when buying multiple coin lots that appear to have potential, there is a much better chance for finding hidden gems. There are a bunch of eBay sellers that do exactly this and, although sometimes there is a loss on a particular lot, overall they are very profitable. Just have to learn to avoid those set up lots that are meant to look promising but have been searched and sifted and all decent stuff removed.

 

Last year I made a net profit of 25% as an ebay dealer. That's including eBay and PayPal fees, gas, fees, MY cost in buying the coin, hotels, flights, meals, postage, packing supplies, holders, fees, PCGS submission fees, and oh yeah, some fees. It's a lot of work full of ups and downs, but it sure is fun, my friend.

 

well, i think that most (if not all) coin lots of any kind, have been searched through many times. do you really think they are unsearched? i think it would be quite difficult to find even one coin lot that has not been searched through. and buying coin lots on ebay, forget it. those are the most searched through coin lots on the planet.

 

I can personally vouch that it's much easier than you might think. I have been buying lots on eBay for almost 7 years now, and overall making decent profit while also building up a legit collection of foreign coins. Often I bid against the same 15-20 people doing the same thing in world coins category, but there are even more in the US coins category.
One of the best sources of unsearched coin lots are the state treasury accounts selling off unclaimed property. Though these are also the easiest to lose money on as they generally get bid up by people who are not even knowledgeable in coins.

 

returning to the same coin shop regularly and buying a fair amount say 200 to 800 gets me a discount and sometimes he gives me a coin or two in appreciation.he also let's me send in coins for grading and pay only what pcgs or ngc charges.

 

that's right lets scare/disillusion everyone away from the forum till there are only 2 people left you and me. 2 people who don't collect coins but have no dearth of experience. way to go grandpa

don't forget to mention inheritance tax in your next post.

 

flippers can make money but as Doug said that differs from collecting. Personally I like collecting but I recognize that I may not realize a "profit". The thing is that many many of those old coins are "lightly cleaned"

 

It might be different in the US, but in Canada, the majority of coin dealers do not make money on coins. They make money buying and selling bullion (coins, rounds, ingots, jewellery, etc.). Good collections just don't come in that often, and sellers now tend to be a bit smarter, using the internet to research their coins, and consigning it to local auctions for a better return...

 

I haven't made any money on golf, fishing, or coins. I must be doing it wrong. When I did have a boat, that first fish was expensive. The second cut the cost in half though.

 

Oh ya - my other hobby, boating! Didn't make any money on that one! Lost about a grand selling the boat and that doesn't count fuel, oil, replacement parts, taxes, registration, launch fees, and whatever else I'm forgetting. I sure had fun with it and want to get another boat...next time I'm stateside.

Where does this idea of "making money" come from? Is it because coins are money or the few stories out there of collectors who sold their collections and realized enormous sums of money like the Norwebs, Eliasberg, etc.?

 

i have not seen any u.s. or foreign coin lots on ebay that were worth bidding on. could you post a few examples/links to some of the types of auctions that you mentioned in your post?

 

Here are a couple recent foreign coin ones I had bid on (though not necessarily won).
It varies in that sometimes you can see worthwhile coins, like item# 161076940324
Sometimes the lot just looks like there is potential for something worthwhile, like item# 400540258252 or 111131979499 - lots like these if you lose $ it's usually minimal, but when you make $ it's usually a significant %
I don't look in US coins category so can't provide examples from there.