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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sallent, post: 2617981, member: 76194&quot;]Confessions are a double edged sword. Though it&nbsp; may feel good to unburden your soul, you are nevertheless admitting imperfection, guilt, and accepting the punishment and loss of prestige and reputation that comes with it. But some sins are too heavy to live with, consequences be darned:</p><p><br /></p><p>I may as well get to the point. <b>I am a numismatics sinner</b>. In my pursuit to build a large and amazing collection I lost track of the reasons why I got into this hobby in the first place:</p><p><br /></p><p>(1) The drive to learn about and explore ancient cultures through the coins I come across.</p><p>(2) The fun of going back and reexamining, re-cataloguing, re-exploring and learning something new about old coins already in my collection.</p><p>(3) A sense of purpose and order.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was busy posting about my new Argos coin today when I made the comment that in the later part of this year I would not be buying coins and would instead focus on reorganizing, re-cataloguing, and re-labeling my entire collection, as I had postponed these projects for far too long. [USER=32619]@Jwt708[/USER] rightfully called me out on my negligence, and his words struck a raw nerve.</p><p><br /></p><p>In my pursuit to build a &quot;large collection&quot; I&#039;ve gotten to the point where I&#039;ve lost track of what really matters. Instead things became about getting the next coin, and moving on to new coins after that.</p><p><br /></p><p>Somewhere along the way I discovered my labelling system needed work. I started to fix it and abandoned the work in the pursuit of more coins. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Then I discovered my cataloguing system was flawed, and started to fix it only to abandon the project twice in pursuit of more coins. I now have three catalogs spread through three computers, and none agree with each other, all have coins missing from them, and it&#039;s gotten so bad that I honestly don&#039;t know how many coins I own. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie9" alt=":eek:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Same with photography. I started a database of images, abandoned it for a second one, and then a third, and now I don&#039;t even know where the images to all my coins even are. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie5" alt=":confused:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>And with that mess, things have gotten so bad that I even have coins sitting on the desks at work and home because I haven&#039;t even bothered to process them and properly store them. Needless to say, I lost track of the reasons why I started to collect, which was learning about and researching the coins to discover new things, enjoying&nbsp; actually owning them, and falling in love with them over and over again. It&#039;s all become about the hunt and not the scholarly pursuit. And that&#039;s not the kind of collector that I want to be because that is a recipe to eventual burnout.</p><p><br /></p><p>Starting this weekend I will begin the arduous task of finishing those long-abandoned projects. I don&#039;t care how tedious it is, I will properly organize and label my coins and document them, and I will research each and every single one again for new information. I will not buy another coin until I do so. That will be my punishment for my sins, my form of atonement for losing track of why I got into this in the first place. It will be hard, but I think I will be a better collector at the end of it all because of it. I&#039;ve let myself down and disappointed myself, and now it&#039;s time to fix things and make it right again.</p><p><br /></p><p>To all newbies, be aware. Don&#039;t repeat my mistakes but learn from them before it is too late.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry for the rant.<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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