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Message:: [QUOTE="SuperDave, post: 2562731, member: 1892"]The "casual younger people" need to understand that this is a hobby of meticulous knowledge, and if you don't treat it like a business in one sense - knowing the product - you'll be eventually leaving the hobby in disgust anyway once you realize how badly you've been taken. It is the sort of methodical, planned approach that Jaelus describes (although maybe not to his degree <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ) which is how one builds a collection. Anything else is collecting pebbles. Look, I'm the original Ricochet Rabbit when it comes to coins - I own everything from 18th Century Russian Copper to a 2015 March of Dimes Mint set. I have Morgans, Lincolns, Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels, Washington Quarters, a few British Victorian issues...you get the point. I could have half a dozen different issues of interest when I walk into a show, but they're all bound by the common thread that I know enough about them to be willing to evaluate them raw, and I'm not going to reach outside my comfort zone for something I don't understand. Well, not very often anyway. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> But I have a plan when I walk in. Maybe your plan will be more about learning than buying, and you're going to look at everything once and only spend $50 all day. It's a good, valid plan. It's when you don't have a plan, when you walk onto the bourse floor with no clue what you want and even less clue what you should buy, that you begin learning the hard lessons which will drive you away from the hobby. Coin Collecting isn't for everybody. It's not for the people who don't want to be immersed in it. "Immersion" is like drinking, though - some who enjoy it drink only very rarely, while still deriving great pleasure from the activity. An hour a week with their coins is enough for many. Others (raises hand) spend as much time with numismatics as they do earning a living. But if it doesn't have that magnetic attraction, you won't be doing it for long anyway. The reason many mid-level dealers leave shows early is because of their Want Lists. They're not "retailers" in the traditional sense; they have regular customers who have expressed desires for specific coins (back to Jaelus' thinking again), and that's why they're at the show - to network with other dealers and fill their Want Lists for the people they know are guaranteed sales and profits. They don't have the expectation of doing enough walk-in business to justify the extra time. Want Lists from 100 different customers isn't out of the pale for an established dealer. The year I did FUN, the guys who bought the table drove down, and if they didn't have 500lbs of stuff in their van, they didn't have an ounce. It would have been a deal-breaker to try and ship that much stuff; they only went because there was a way to bring everything with them. Not all dealers bring that much inventory, but what they gain in weight they lose in risk by shipping some pretty expensive material. You don't have any clue what the public will be looking to buy, so the only way to populate your table correctly is to have enough of everything for everyone for the whole show, unless you're such a known specialist that you can bring only Early Copper, for instance. And you can still bring all that crap and only do $2000 in business for the show.  That dealer who left early paid the exact same amount for their table (as much as $1000+ at a major show) as the guy who didn't pack up until they ordered him to on Sunday afternoon. It's obvious that hard math caused them to leave early, probably because they reached the limit of time spent guaranteeing income.[/QUOTE]

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