How secret is your hobby?

With my second book due out soon and over 100+ numismatic articles I have not been robbed yet. A lot of collectors are paranoid. Keep most of mine in the bank and carry them with you at shows and remember diners and car trunks don't mix. My only problem is finding a numismatic organization that keeps my interest for about 30 seconds - just the Historical Metallurgical Society at the moment ...

P.S. Draft photo of the front cover of my new book due out around June 2017 via Amazon Books.

John Lorenzo
United States

 

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I let people know I collect, even show some of my purchases. With that said I do not advertise gold purchases or coins of significant value. I enjoy sharing the hobby with those interested, but to a point.

 

I'm pretty open about it. I'm off at college though and most of my collection is at my house, that no one knows where it is. being young (24) I use it as a way to get other people my age into the hobby. I recently started a "coin of the month" thing with a couple of friends who are interested. Everyone month I give them an extra/surplus coin from my collection. None of them are worth more than a quarter but man they get excited.

 

Sorry. I couldn't stop...

 

... now I'm done.

 

Never have I hid my involvement in the hobby and I never will. It opens up opportunity I would not have been exposed to had I hid it.
Case in point, I give crisp one and two dollar notes out for tips whenever I am at a restaurant. I love the look on the younger generations faces as they are always confused at first as most have never seen one. (Canadian here) I hope it sparks something in them that starts them on the same road. In doing so though it has led to a few sit down sessions to go over stuff that has been handed down in their family.

 

I am semi secret, on the extended family side they don't know. Only close friends who are interested in collecting know.

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It's slightly depressing, but for me the issue takes care of itself because I actually don't know anyone else who'd be interested in my collecting if I told them about it. This includes family, who simply haven't noticed that it's more than a very casual interest, or asked what's in those boxes. (Low value collector here - if we were robbed I have a guitar that I'd miss more than the coins, and there's no use keeping that at the bank.) And yeah, this is a little like leading a creepy double life - but come on, they're coins, not dead bodies.

Like the OP, I've thought of publishing an article or two - in my case limited to the very few, very narrow subjects about which I flatter myself that I actually know something. Since I'm not concerned about "credit" I suppose I'd just hang them out on a web page or blog with the attribution "by xlrcable." Nowadays a lot of us have two identities anyway, one online and one off.

 

I also knew people who wanted to be my friend and constantly ask me for money and never paid me back. Luckily, i am no longer around such people. Ha, ha!

 

I am not too concerned about thieves getting to my collection because I luckily live among a lot of decent, mostly elderly people. Once back on Dec. 5, 2014, a female who I knew along with an accomplice tried to steal my collection until I scared them away then called the police.

 

I try to be discreet, but having 5 gun safes in the man cave makes people that visit think I am a GUN FREAK instead of a coin collector. I let them think what they want

 

I live in the Southwest, in the state of New Mexico. The nearest town is Albuquerque and there are 5 coin shops in that town. I know all the owners and fortunately for me, they are friendly and if business is slow, they'll sit and talk coins with me.

Having said that, my club is trying to get a dealer to move to a safer part of town. He has been robbed 5 times, and burglarized more times than I can count, the last time the robber pistol whipped him, knocked him down, and he landed next to where he had his gun stored. He grabbed the gun, fired one shot and there was a dead robber.

After that, we really put the pressure on him to move, his shop is in an isolated little shopping center and he is at the back of it where his store can't be seen from the street. The stores near him are restaurants and shops that tend not to be open when he is. This last Wednesday, at approximately 2:00am a car drove right through the front of his shop and cleaned out everything that he hadn't locked up in his safe. He still will not move. Now Albuquerque is supposed to be a nice, friendly, safe place to live. Do I publicize that I'm a coin collector? Only to a small select group of people who also are coin collectors. Do I keep any valuable coins at home where I can enjoy looking at them? Well, let's put it this way, I've become on a first name basis with the people who work at the bank where I have a large safety deposit box. Do I have a concealed carry permit and carry a gun whenever I'm moving my coins? I don't think I have to answer that question.

 

Hardly anyone knows and the people I do tell never seem to care. The few times in my life it has come up in conservation resulted in the fastest rapid topic changing sentences I've ever experienced. So I typically don't mention it because I don't know anyone who would care. And it's also a kind of private hobby for me anyway. A little world that I can disappear into and no one has any idea about what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.

Hm, it sounds kind of sick when I put it that way...

 

My immediate family knows and mom and dad. I don't really share it with many other people. I just joined a coin club and am hoping to make some friends through that. It does concern me to have a whole bunch of people know who aren't in to the same things.

 

Only my wife and my hairdresser know..........along with the mailman, the meter reader, and the kids. Does that put me in the cross-hairs?

 

hairdresser? lol. might explain the paper bag.

 

Bowl and a haircut..........

 

I'm the crazy gun guy and a veteran. I'm a good shot the neighbors know it.
But mostly people don't care or don't understand and thats ok with me.

 

Meaning no offense, you might want to know that New Mexico is consistently in the top 3 in the country for violent and property crime rates, and among those who have interest in such things Abq is considered a rough town. Not that I'd have the slightest fear of living there; I really liked the place on my only visit.

 

I moved here 22 years ago and it was a great place to live. It was safe, affordable, and a good educational system. My daughter got both her BS and MS at the University of New Mexico. BUT gradually, as the years passed, more and more gang members moved up from the south into our "Sanctuary State".

I know what I have just written is not politically correct, but as a retired Sheriffs Officer I know what is going on in this state. Your statistics are correct and they probably will only get worse. My saving grace is living away from the "big city" of Albuquerque, where the majority of crime occurs. I live in the mountains where you can still leave your door unlocked and your neighbors (although the average property is 5+ acres) watch out for each other. Not to mention as a Viet Nam Vet I know how to handle a firearm, as do the majority of my neighbors and the word is out to stay in town and not try to go "up the mountains."