Cointalkers- are there any mistakes/regrets that you'd like to share?

My biggest regret is purchasing fairly expensive coins (for me that's over $500) without learning more about grading and how to judge surfaces. Selling my late father's coin collection around 2008, piqued my interest. I started buying "BU" coins from the big full page ad sellers in CoinWorld. I later found out that all of them were either dipped sliders, or cleaned. Next mistake was looking for raw "bargains" on eBay. You can probably guess how that turned out. And I won't go into the early Trade Dollar purchases... I had just enough knowledge, and money, to be dangerous. Fortunately, I discovered forums like this one and CU, learned about surfaces and grading, read books like Travers, and stuck with graded/holdered coins until I had learned enough. My avatar serves as a reminder; it's a straight graded NGC AU58 but now I know that it had a light cleaning/dipping and then album retoned.

 

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Same here, see my previous post in this thread. Coast to Coast in Numismatic News.

 

My biggest mistakes? I should have asked Santa to bring coins instead of video games when I was a kid :-D ...and I remember I once sold a key date 1958 5 Mark silver for like $50. D‘oh!

 

If I ever get one, I would want the rays also

 

My #1 regret is similar: Those early years spent pursuing sets. Until one day I realized I didn't really care to own dozens of Jefferson nickels, Washington quarters, etc. that were all essentially the same except for dates and mint marks.

All of which leads into regret #2 . . .

. . . money wasted filling holes in albums with coins of questionable quality.

 

Started collecting as a youngster to obtain a Scout merit badge. Even after the merit badge, still collected and built up a stellar collection. That all took a back seat to me learning how to drive and becoming enamored with the fairer sex. I remember playing Mr. big shot one time on a double date and paying for dinner and a movie for all four of us with 2 pockets full of Morgan and Peace dollars.
Built up the collection again and cashed in the silver when the Hunt Bros. cornered the market. Did buy a nice 1979 Pontiac Lemans with proceeds. Don't know what I miss more, the convertible or the silver.
Third time my collecting took a hit was when the 'good stuff' lined the pockets of a couple of divorce lawyers.
Last time I almost wiped the slate clean was to purchase a piece of foreclosed property, flip it and make a tidy profit.
Been building up the ever revolving collection again since 2000. I guess we could all play the 'what if' game. But sometimes life takes strange turns. I just take the ups and downs as all part of the hobby.

 

I lost Memere's button canister.... with the ri ship coin, 2-3 bar cents a real nice mass copper and a few others... we played with em as kids (button sorting games) and the "coins" were the prizes... I would kill for the coins that were in that canister!!!

 

sold all my silver holdings and a 69 camaro restored to buy first house with girlfriend back wehn i was 24, and 5 1921 ms-67/8 1916, ty 1 slq (2 of em for 200.00 ea) today those coins would of bought me 5 houses, lol

 

^ Reminds me of another one.

I sold some of my childhood coins along with other things when I needed some extra cash to buy a Camaro, a '91 RS Convertible. It made sense at the time, I needed a car. I no longer have that car but I would have still had the coins.

Nothing really special, but they were valuable to me.
• 1879 CC over CC Morgan, low grade but sold for more than twice what I paid for it.
• Austrian Ducat, 1915 restrike. Not a special coin, but you don't sell gold!!!
• A real California 25c piece. 187-someting, holed, but a neat piece regardless. I miss that one.

On the plus side, I sold a lot more coins to my dad and he held onto them. Silver dollars, halves, interesting notes that I pulled from circulation as a kid (back when a web note would show up once in a while), etc. He insisted recently that I take them all back. I couldn't just take them in good conscience, so I bought them back.

Don't sell coins for a car. Cars don't last!