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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 4094699, member: 15588&quot;]I skipped a few of the listed stages and at least two have overlapped. Over the past two years, I have slowed down considerably, nearly to a halt. Perhaps some five years ago I qualified as a voracious stage 1, &quot;hoarding at the start, anything and everything.&quot; That became overwhelming pretty quickly as everything and anything appealed to me. My boxes filled up. I had no standards. It felt like numismatic drowning. I also didn&#039;t know a lot about problem coins, especially cleaned ones.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once I realized that I had wasted more money than I cared to admit on problem coins due to my gross lack of education on the subject, I quickly jumped to stage 3, &quot;becoming much more selective, new additions slow down to a crawl.&quot; At this point I stopped attending local coin shows and local coin clubs and I no longer read &quot;The Numismatist&quot; cover to cover each month. My coin book collection also came to a halt and I sold the vast majority of my numismatic library, which was never extensive.</p><p><br /></p><p>So far, I have not purchased a single coin in 2020, though I did buy some current Japanese paper currency. I may never reach stage 4 because I think stage 5, &quot;selling, slowly eliminating or all at once,&quot; has overlapped with stage 3 for me. I sold maybe a few dozen coins over the past year, not to make room for more, but to reduce the overall collection, hopefully permanently. Now when I think of coins my mind focuses on selling and not on buying. I really don&#039;t want to lose any more money on this hobby. I&#039;ve lost enough. The prospect of buying something now that I&#039;ll probably regret later has pretty much squashed my desire to purchase anything new. My &quot;dream coins&quot; no longer inspire me. I had always wanted a nice 1917 Type-1 SLQ. Now I can&#039;t imagine shelling out $200 or more for a really nice one.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;ll see if this is just another phase or if it persists. Coins became kind of an impulsive obsession for me, something I don&#039;t look back at with much pleasure or gratification. My attitude towards them seemed almost pathological at times. Plus, I could never find anyone in my real (i.e., non-internet) life that didn&#039;t find the practice a little strange and incomprehensible. So we&#039;ll see.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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