Pre-midlife crisis when it comes to coins

I would advise that unless you need to free up cash, perhaps put away the family collection in a safe place so you can revisit it years (decades?) down the line. You may find your passion for that particular stuff rekindled and find the connection to family more compelling. Or, you may find you still hate it, and in the light of more life experience, decide to sell then.

I agree with the statement from Stork noted above. I've "HAD" to sell coin sets & single graded coins in the past and still rue that to this day...hang on to Grandpa's coins (you may have some treasures of value in "future" years even if only G3's you never know) and do what YOU want now...down the road when you have your own Children or Grandchildren who knows what you might "need" or want to leave as an inheritance...just a thought.

 

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That's a good point. I haven't personally invested too much in the coins (gramps did the heavy lifting there!) so it's not like I'll be feeling the loss. Plus there's enough there to get a dozen kids started!

 

Exactly. I am approximately twice your age, and went away from collecting for a long time, but I came back with the mindset that I would only pick up 1 example of any desired design or series, and that would be sufficient. Maybe try something like that, instead of obsessing over every date and mint mark. You may not have a complete set, but who cares? You would end up having a more diverse collection, and with me, that is good enough. Good luck, hope these responses helped.

John.

 

Thanks everybody! You folks have been a great support group

 

There's nothing wrong with that, and frankly, I don't like them either, at least as personal collectibles. Never have and never will. Unlike, say, a vintage lens that offers a unique rendering or an antique pocketknife that could function today as originally intended, coins just sit there and is something I've never been able to get past. My point is one doesn't have to collect to enjoy and/or be a part of this hobby, so don't think you have to collect something/anything to do so. If the mentioned notes genuinely interest you, that's great and go for it, but don't search something out to collect only for the sake of collecting. If you do, sooner or later you're likely to end up right back where you are now.

 

To be honest, I didn't really really really enjoy collecting coins until I actually had some extra money to play with. Then I could purchase things that I wanted rather than things that I could merely afford. But then the guilty pleasure syndrome crept in. The first time I paid over $300 for a single coin filled me with both glee and dread. I could more than afford it at the time, but I kept asking myself "why should I afford it? Shouldn't I be using it for sound investments, saving it, or putting it towards something that won't fill me with anxiety over the chance of it getting stolen?" Something just felt wrong.

I have to admit the desire to own expensive coins makes zero sense to me. Yet I own some moderately priced ones. As such, I've found myself passing through phases where the thought of coins made me almost ill to times where I could not stop thinking obsessively about coins or buying them no matter what I did. Sometimes it feels like a disease.

Regardless, when I was younger I did end up selling almost everything I owned. Though I had nothing supremely valuable, I nonetheless now regret it. I wish I had just put them away as others have mentioned and just forgotten about them for a while. Little did I know that a decade or so later the almost debilitating disease would return to conquer my senses once again. Though after a year or so of repeated obsession I'm starting to get weary of the entire subject again, so I've tried to pace myself, seek other interests and limit my exposure to coins to small periods once or twice a month. I don't have this issue with anything else in my life, only with these little historic discs of metal. I have no idea why.

 

TO EWOMACK: You hit the nail right on the head! Of course the mint doesn't help any when they have years where they just flood us with all kinds of desirable coins!!! Me thinks it has become overkill at this point.

 

Any undergrounds?

 

I am 6 Coins away from completing my 20th century type set. After that is the "United States quarters decade by decade type set." 1800-present.

 

This is just bizarre. Disturbing even.

 

Don't worry - she shaves befor I rent her out - LOL!!

 

20th century coins are totally underrated. A full set of mint state 20th century toners with superior eye appeal is a sight to behold.

 

I did have some Crumb comics at one time but sold them. I just have an underground Italian adult comic left. Extremely lewd. I think it's called Oletrombo.

 

That's the reason I jumped to ancient coins. No dates, mostly no mint marks (and whenever there is a mint mark, in most cases the mint marks hardly have any effect on price), no issues over whether a coin is MS-60, MS-60+, MS-60* or who honestly cares, and thousands of different coin types to chose from instead of the narrow number of coins in the U.S. coin hobby.

Not to mention that in ancients a variety is not worth mentioning unless you can clearly see it with the naked eye, and in most cases it is not really a different variety unless there is outright a different symbol, legend, reversed letters, or something substantial...and even then most people could care less about small varieties within similar themed coins of the same ruler or can't be bothered to pay anything extra except for die hard OCD collectors.

A few years in the crazy US Coins market is enough to suck the fun out of coins except for the more die hard collectors. The coins are basically the same for decades at a time, there is no high relief or anything really interesting these days (same old presidents and same old themes), and the obsession with microscopic varieties and condition, and slabbing, is just out of control. At least that's how it seems to an ancients/medieval collector like me.

 

The US Mint needs to take a deep breath, pull back and take a close look at what it's doing and why.

 

I suppose, Doug. It is one collector's opinion. I know I groused about the 100th anniversary coins not being in silver. And it seems to me that a reverse proof for the 30th of the ASE would have been a natural. But based on your observation, I guess they are being successful.

 

Follow the money gentlemen follow the MONEY!!!

 

This seems correct to me. Unfortunately, the Mint can't achieve this type of success creating collectibles; they have to pump out commodities. This is why we have modern commemoratives with mintages in the millions.