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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;PlanoSteve, post: 2935614, member: 91609&quot;]At the risk of being redundant, I really love CoinTalk.&nbsp; As I have mentioned before, I&#039;ve been reading it daily for over 4 years, but just this week decided to join (in).</p><p><br /></p><p>I love that this is a microcosm of the real world, centered on coins.&nbsp; All people are united by their lives on our planet, even though our lives are vastly different from one another.&nbsp;&nbsp; Our special little microcosm is united by our coins (I should probably include paper &amp; exonumia) even though we all do it differently, with different goals &amp; expectations.</p><p><br /></p><p>I collected my first coin in the 1950&#039;s, then really got going as a newsboy delivering &quot;NewsDay&quot;.&nbsp; I would go through each coin, then discovered to my amazement, that the bank would actually give me silver dollars for the coins I turned in!!!!&nbsp; Wow!</p><p><br /></p><p>From age 15 to my mid 50&#039;s I did little &quot;active&quot; collecting (yes, I&#039;m really going somewhere with this story) and I did not actually &quot;buy&quot; a coin until the mid-1990&#039;s.</p><p><br /></p><p>Two years ago I got the &quot;Coin Manage USA&quot; software to start cataloging the collection &amp; make it easier for my heirs to know what&#039;s there.&nbsp; My latest data indicates that I have a total &quot;cost&quot; of cataloged coins of $7,303.&nbsp; Of these, the most I paid for a coin was around $650.&nbsp; NOTE:&nbsp; My cost was 100% DISPOSABLE income! I could have just as easily flushed it down the toilet &amp; not missed it (but remember, this is over 50 yrs of accumulation).&nbsp; The software does periodic updates of the &quot;current value&quot; &amp; it is nearing $20K.&nbsp; So while that looks like a satisfactory return, to quote Rhett, &quot;Frankly my dear, I don&#039;t give a damn!&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>I have another 2,500 or so coins which haven&#039;t made it to the catalogue yet, &amp; most probably never will, because of my extremely eclectic collecting habits.</p><p><br /></p><p>My collection includes both raw and encapsulated coins (see, already I know some of you don&#039;t like encapsulated!).&nbsp; I have MS coins, all the way down to &quot;G&quot; - but I guarantee I have coins which were touched by the likes of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, etc., I just can&#039;t prove which ones!&nbsp; I have foreign coins (mostly French, English &amp; Irish) and focus on circulated coins from historical periods (ie, French Revolution, American Revolution, 1812, &amp; Civil War periods - common coins actually carried by people of those times.&nbsp; And my Rosa Americana which I previously posted on a different thread!&nbsp; I also have a modest collection of US paper currency, about 50-60 bills total.&nbsp; I do not (yet?!?!) have any ancients, although I do read the ancient threads daily.&nbsp; I&#039;m still so afraid!!!</p><p><br /></p><p>So back to goals &amp; expectations - although we are inextricably bound by our attractions to coins, our goal, expectancies &amp; especially our experiences are different.</p><p><br /></p><p>If I need cash, I have other much more fluid funds from which to draw.&nbsp; Coins may be easy to sell, but not easy to sell at the price I may want (I should note here that I have never, ever sold a coin, although I have given some away).&nbsp; Not at my level of collecting anyway.&nbsp; If my heirs want to dispose of part or all of the collection at even 1/2 it&#039;s &quot;value&quot;, it&#039;s 100% profit for them - remember, it was disposable money to me!&nbsp; I suppose the main difference in selling, or shall I say the &quot;investment&quot; of coins would be in the rarified air of the DMCCS (&quot;Dead Millionaires Coin Collecting Society&quot;) where a single coin may bring a 5 or 6 figure number - but that&#039;s not the majority of us. </p><p><br /></p><p>Coin &quot;investing&quot; for &quot;personal&quot; gains is probably not really practical, but I understand the need to know the marketplace, &amp; charts &amp; graphs are certainly a &quot;tool&quot; to understanding.&nbsp; But if history is any teacher, the effect of time is a critical element to the &quot;Investment&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>News flash:&nbsp; Just this very morning (12/15) &quot;Motley Fool Stock Advisor&quot; issue a &quot;Buy&quot; for Vail Resorts.&nbsp; Do you think they&#039;re expecting snow?&nbsp; (I occasionally read their stuff for the satire, comic relief, &amp; the hope that someday they will accidentally include a bit of info which may be worthwhile.&nbsp; Otherwise they&#039;re just sheep herders.)&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This reminds me of &quot;stacking&quot;.&nbsp; Remember, when a stock moves, it basically means someone HAS confidence in it &amp; someone equally DOESN&#039;T (unless we&#039;re looking at an Enron situation, which is an entirely different matter).&nbsp; Or let&#039;s look at bookmaking (OK, you librarians, get out!).&nbsp; A bookmaker doesn&#039;t care who wins &amp; who loses, his take is the juice! His intent is to get equal amounts on each side of his book so he can pay the winners, so he (or she) adjusts the &quot;points&quot; spread to move the betting money from one side of the book to the other to even it out.&nbsp; Stackers, does this sound familiar?&nbsp; Really I&#039;m not picking on stackers, just want to point out that some members here are collectors, some are stackers &amp; some are both.&nbsp; It&#039;s a very personal thing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Wow, how long have I been on this thread?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Just sayin&#039;, don&#039;t get so wrapped up in the charts &amp; graphs &amp; go play with your coins...OK folks, nothing to see here, just move along....![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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