dumbest thing you've ever done

lets all help each other learn to avoid certain pitfalls in this little hobby and share something incredibly stupid we've all done that we shouldnt have done. it might help a new collector in the long run! i'll go first.

i cleaned 20 dollars in pre 82 pennies with a solution of vinegar with salt. it took all the brown off and left a somewhat pink hue to them. i think they're all turning brown again, thankfully. now why did i do this? i heard of this to clean pennies and since im saving these just for their melt value i figure it wouldnt hurt. and it didnt really hurt anything but they looked ugly afterwards and that made it stupid.

remember kids, copper + vinegar + salt= bad idea. just dont do it. EVER.

 

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when i was a kid, i cleaned several of my wheat cents from a whitman folder with a silver tarnish remover. it cleaned them real good, and to this day, they are still a nice red/brn shiney color. after looking at them with a loupe, i still cant find any cleaning marks or other defects - yet, i know they are there lol

 

I guess I let my guard down once when we had visitors over. Anyhow, my set of American Silver Eagles dissapeard and I have no clue when that happened and not knowing when makes it impossible to figure out who. Anyhow, I keep my coins in my safe now and I dont let anyone know I have them, other than the real close friends. But that was like atleaset 12 years ago. And I havent owned a silver eagle since. It even caused me to take a long break from the hobby.

 

The dumbest thing I did was stopping coin collecting for many years after I started. When I got back into it later, I had missed a lot of good opportunities.

 

Amen! I made one ebay purchase that was pretty dumb too. Learned FAST from that mistake. (Thankfully, I got my money back.)

 

Im too young still to make any really big mistake but when I was about 13 or 14 I used an eraser to clean my morgan dollar and sold off two nice MS mercs for only about 18 bucks.

 

Early on I cleaned a 1783 Nova Constellatio in Hydrogen Peroxide.
I thought it would take off the green stuff.
It did, along with half of the coins details.
Lesson learned.

 

Where to start...

I have made alot of mistakes in this hobby, however none severe enough to keep me from enjoying it.

Early on I used ebay alot and was literally in awe of what I was looking at Coins 100 or 200 years old, and I would bid away...

Other mistakes were using the Kennedy Mint, thought I was getting a deal......

The worst mistake, and it was a few years into collecting that I finally fixed this. I enev bought any books to learn, just coins...

I will quote a member here...buy the book before the coin.

All in all, I have learned (and continue to do so) from my mistakes

One thing I have learned aswell is ASK all questions. I would have saved alot of money and time had I done this in the beginning. You know the phrase there are no dumb questions, its true!

Regards,
S

 

I have to agree with this post. Now, this is a Cautionary Tale. I too lost some (20 Seated & Morgan Dollars) coins when I left my apartment in the trust of an old college girlfriend. It was 1982 and I'd departed for basic training and she needed a place to say for a month or so.

When I returned, 21 women gone, 20 Ladies and 1 woman of apparent "Negotiable Affection." I think the breakdown was 16 Seated and 4 Morgans.

Take Care
Ben

 

Damn Women , You can never trust them. Only one girl I trust is my ex girlfriend... believe it or not . I would have her look over my collection over any other person I know.

 

when put into perspective, cleaning some non important pre 82 cents isnt as bad as having your coins stolen from you. but i did something stupid, getting your stuff stolen doesnt count as doing something stupid. not the same i dont think. but getting robbed like that is BAD period.

 

yeah, and sometimes they will even say: could you move that junk, we're having company!

 

My biggest mistake is quiting the hobby for so many years. My grandfather turned me on to this when I was 7 years old. Around 14 I totally stopped and locked away the coins I did have. Just recently I've gotten back into it (last month I started searching boxes and seriously collecting again). My first purchase was the Red Book

Usually new coins re-spark my interest. The presidential dollars didn't really do it for me (they do now though. 2/14/08 a new one comes out and I plan to be there with money in hand).

Just think I could have so many mint state coins from the bank if I just kept with it. 10 years of unc. rolls. Now, I'm trying to catch up.

My advise; "Even if you don't breath coins...at least stay somewhat current."

 

Biggiest mistake:
Getting married, the first time.

 

OMG. LMAO...

 

i went and checked out the pennies i had cleaned with the vinegar salt solution...they're all back to their normal colors. it didnt do a darn thing to em! they're all back to being brown and looking like they've been carried in a million pockets by a million people.

 

Kaboom, lack of knowledge, some coins from my collection, need I say more? :headbang:

Phoenix

 

let's see polished coins with brasso, I was 8, showed my fathers collection to my friends (he only collected silver dollars) about 150 or so of them, all dissappeared, let my ikes stay in a page too long and got pvc poisoning.

 

i think the dumbest thing i did was clean all my coins with erasers and brasso when i first started. never clean your coins! :desk:

 

Been there, done that. My first wife was everything from a clepto to a psycho and could have been a regular on the Jerry Springer Show.