Seems nothing has changed in past 20 years!

Remember that your home page with your Wabi Sabi attitude made people like me who were sitting at home, scrubbing our small lots of LRBs, feel like ancient coin collectors, Doug.
I think it’s quite important to not get into defining what is «real» coin collecting or not, but to let everyone and their little or large purse define how the hobby can work out for themselves, and come together and share that experience on a place like this.

Ten years ago, the last coin shop in my county closed down. Now there are two new ones coming up. Both owners told me they had had a lot of customers this last year, and that the kids had started collecting again; both stamps and coins. We should encourage those that proudly show up with a common date modern coin in VF or come to ask if their fallen horseman bronze is authentic, and perhaps to a lesser degree admire the collections of those that are privileged to aquire whatever coin they’d like to put in it. But I guess that’s what you’ve been up to for quite some time now.

As for the joy-bringers, I think that one mans trash is another mans treasure. Assuming that the coins that you feel like letting go won’t bring joy to others becomes egocentric. I, for one, would like to own one just for the provenance.

 

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I'm happy to aggressively ignore people looking to score a lottery ticket without understanding what they're holding. I suspect there are relatively few of these collectors who make it more than a year and therefore they don't represent an overly strong influence on the hobby.

Knowing the numismatically intriguing coins you've posted over the years, I think you might be surprised by the level of interest in your coins (from real collectors). As they're largely pre-cataloged, it would be an easy job for most auction houses/dealers. I think you'd do rather well, especially as I suspect you have fairly detailed records of where/when the coins were purchased over the span of several decades.

And while many coins have become more expensive during COVID, the volume of desirable ancient coins is enormous relative to the collector base. Especially for beginners, there will always be coins available.

I never spent more than $50 on a coin for my first ten years collecting ancients (I still have my ~150 coins from this era, and it took me another 5 years to spend more than $500). The prices of the coins I bought then haven't materially changed today, save for a few aberrations that are easy to over-extrapolate but ultimately statistically insignificant.

Once shows open up and it's easier to buy in person vs shipping, I think the less expensive coins will continue to be available to collectors at all levels without pricing out beginners.

 

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