A few times in posting some other posters wiser than myself point out that they feel as if they are caretakers, that they know eventually their coins or currency or whatever they have will be left to their heirs. I have a hard time incorporating that view, not that it is wrong, but because I do not like to think about ending my time here and not knowing exactly what awaits after the time here is ended. After my father passed on last February I spent many hours, going thru documents and papers that he had filed away. I would think of things when I saw a correspondance dated the same day of his death and wonder if he ever had any feeling that he had one year left to live or two, or three, and if he knew would he have done things differently? I had a cousin who had some sort of precognition of his time being almost up, the week before he passed, and he passed suddenly, he was thrusting some of his treasured possessions on me, things he had always esteemed and was proud of. At the time I was pretty steadfast in my refusal to take them, those were his things, and tho they were nice I felt very uncomfortable taking them. My dad loved the state quarters, he had tens of thousands of them that he had pulled from circulation, when he passed I did not feel the same way about them as he did, but I also felt that it would be supremely disrespectful to just cash them in. So we bought albums and filled them and gave them to his grandchildren, who knows that someday those grandchildren might not be inspired to collect because of those albums? One of the ancient greek philosophers advocated moderation as being the epitome of a virtuous life. He pointed out that any virtue taken to its extreme became a vice. Writer CS Lewis also expounded on that idea, showing how Nazi Germany took the virtue of patriotism and twisted it till the virtue of patriotism could not abide any other virtue, so a good Nazi would sacrifice friends, honesty, and other virtues in favor of the main one, which in the end was also lost. So my thoughts as I drudge at work sometimes run to my own state of being a collector. Would I sacrifice the virtue of honesty or friendship because I am enamored of beautiful coins? Then I would end up losing the appreciation of the collection. The coins are a possession that we can only handle for so long, a coin minted to pay a Roman soldier may have been spent at a wine shop, the owner may have hoarded many and hid them when invaders entered the land, he may have been killed and the hoard found many years later, and so it goes, but who owns what, we have the use of things for a while, while it is ours we can do what we wish, either use it, save it, sell it, or throw it away. But our hearts can be bound in a way to things, the old family home, the first car, the mintstate coin, as many things as people appreciate and esteem can become instead of a possession that gives us enjoyment, a sort of master that takes away our happiness. If my coin collection became something I became so worried about losing would it not be better to just find some desolate hiding spot and bury it so deep that it would never be found? I have three children myself, and my wife has dna from 100 year old relatives, so I have left instructions of what to do with the collection should I someday pass on and still have a lot of coins. I have to be careful with collections and things like that, I can become obsessive with them, back in the day I would give my brothers some big trouble if they were to touch my things, now those things that were so important back then are nothing compared to my brothers. One of the seasoned posters on cointalk mentioned that selling coins was good to do, and besides the point he was making about selling would help a collector to understand the market better, it can also help a collector like myself who can become instead of the possessor of a collection, someone who is possessed by his collection. I think so far I have not crossed any lines, my wife does not complain that I am spending too much on coins, or that I am spending too much time on them, she is a tolerant saintly woman, but she still would not take second place to a 1917 type 1 standing liberty quarter. I am unsure where the line is to be drawn in things like this, I have a tendency sometimes to go overboard in things, but hopefully I know enough people that if I start to get ridiculous they will let me know, and then I can get back on a right track.
Chip, I just had to say that I have set here this mornig and read your blogs. You have a way with words that makes the reader want to sit back and keep reading. Most peoples blogs that I read dont keep my attention and before I am done, I move on to something else. I agree with your statements on collecting because I myself have done the same things in life. I have so much passion that when I start something, I do it 1000%. This can be a good thing but this can also be a very bad thing if it comes in between the ones you love. So that is my prayer as I start out in my venture of coin collecting with my son. As my dad would say, have a balance in collecting and time with everyone else in my family. Thanks for the great blog
