Poll: The social aspect of collecting

I think in my 38 years of collecting, I’ve bounced around in all three categories.

One period that stands out to me is my first marriage. She got into coins (errors) and her and I attended many shows together and spent countless hours talking about coins. When she passed away, I put the hobby to the side for a number of years.

Now, with a new family, I’m steady in my collecting and am content in doing so by myself. The bit of socializing that does happen is with the guys from my LCS, coin shows, and here on CT.

 

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I did collect coins for nearly fifty years entirely on my own. I don’t do social interactions at all. Goes back to my teenage insecurities. Reckon I never got over them. I knew my local dealers well and still do. I never realized just how “in the dark” I was until I joined this site. I have learned more and made more friends the past five years here than my previous fifty years playing with coins.

 

Same here on the idea of security. I interact on the forums. My LCS and a friend who also collects coins are the only two people who know that I collect coins. I even asked a couple of dealers to not send me catalogs.

 

N/A

 

I have never known, via a face-to-face tangible personal relationship, another coin collector in my entire life. I've collected completely in isolation for that entire time. I was the only one I knew who bought coin magazines, or went to shows, or went to coin shops. Sure, I ran into other collectors at shows or shops, but I've never made any personal connections in either venue (we were all probably too focused on the coins). In this way I fit into category "1."

My interest in the hobby had waned pretty much to nothing before I found out about coin forums. Many virtual interactions, a great number on this forum, fueled my second phase of collecting. I highly doubt that I would have started up again had I not joined the coin forum community. The ability to buy coins online didn't hurt that resurgence, either. In this way, I arguably fit into category "3."

At many times in the past, I've tried to find non-virtual "coin friends," but I have never found a single person who showed the slightest bit of interest when I mentioned the subject. In fact, some people seemed to think I was a little strange for bringing up coins in that context. One or two told me so outright. As such, over the years I've become pretty shy about coins with people I meet. The only other collectors I've ever known to this day were virtual. In this way, I identify somewhat with category "2."

Given all of that, and given how my interaction with coins has changed over time, I think it's fair to say that I'm likely now a "3," in that I don't think that I would enjoy collecting entirely alone in complete isolation. If the internet vanished, I think I would completely lose interest, similar to the way I did following my first phase of collecting. Without the Internet, I don't think I would have bought a single coin in the last 20 years.

I think my second phase is starting to wane. My interest in the hobby feels weaker than ever over the past few years and the Internet interactions feel less meaningful than they once did. Other things have begun to draw my interest and I feel coins moving more into the background. Perhaps I'm more like GDJMSP in that I would prefer to talk and read about coins, but the desire to actually buy and possess them no longer appeals to me.

 

Prompted me to go back and look at some of my earliest posts….. Man, I was not a fan of slabs at all. My narrow viewpoint was that they were nothing more than a tool to authenticate the piece so my wife could liquidate once I leave this party. I attribute that completely to my lack of understanding of TPG’s and slabs. Boy did I learn my lesson….. Danged country come to town is what I am.