Very Personal CT Question

I'd like to ask you all this VERY highly personal question and if you don't want to respond, there is no expectation to.

Do you feel that in your years of "error detecting" "clean, scratch, ding, spot, and every other nuance" detecting it has made you more cynical as a person?

Just a theory but I think the more we look for the errors in coins, we also start to see life through the same prism.

 

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Wth?

 

i was cynical long before i started looking at coins. i started looking at coins around 6 years old.

 

Like I said, if you don't want to answer, that's fine. This is for my own personal learning experiment to see if all this coin grading/spotting fakes & grading disqualifiers makes us more cynical in life or if we are born this way..

I just notice i don't have such a desire to spot every single flaw in a coin, that's probably what keeps me as an investor/collector than a numismatist however, I notice the ones who do very well in this hobby are also very skeptical people in life.

 

I don't know about cynical, but "flaw detecting" has definently carried over into my daily life. For example, I will often be asked what the condition of something is and I will be tempted to say "About Uncirculated" and then I remeber that I'm not talking about coins.:mouth:

 

lol. see! there is some truth to my point!

 

since i haven't been around much since BNB joined, i'll let you know i'm the son of a coin dealer.

 

agreed.

and also agreed.

I donno, or I must be cynical, 'cause I don't undertand the concept as proposed.

I guess that I was born cynical.

 

Well I think the concept is very simple.

Put plainly, it's "Did your own coin grading make you more cynical as a person in life?" Some will answer yes, some will say it has made them sharper, some will say it has made them a bit more negative, but usually I rarely hear that it has made them look at life with a more positive outlook since all we do when we look at coins is evaluate the flaws it can have in respect to how it actually looks.

 

What's he doing here?

 

i'm a tougher coin grader than many, but only because when i was cutting my teeth in the mid 80's, the standards for many things were much tougher. as i've learned more about certain coins, i have only become tougher. i know what i want to see in a canadian silver half or newfie 20 cent piece.

there is something in the person that draws them to coins and the analytical. engineers aren't made, they are born and then molded (fermented?). this is an avocation of a specific mindset.

with that said, i am not a coin collector. i collect art. art that fits in my pocket

 

I wouldn't call it cynicism, it's simply grading. In order to grade any coin properly you have to identify all the "problems" with the coin. So, does that make you more critical of coins? Yes. But I don't believe that is a bad thing. In fact, I think it helps you find the best coins (within the grade you are looking for).

So, imo being critical of coins, or "cynical" as you call it, is simply noticing the flaws of the coin, and correctly grading it. And, to not be critical, or "cynical" of a coin's flaws, is to ignore the facts.

That is all based on the coin aspect of things. As for does grading coins correctly make you a cynical person in general? Absolutely not.

 

that's not what the seller of the coin you're grading says

 

ditto

 

Heh, discounting?

 

this post makes me feel awkward... kinda like this guy

 

ditto that for this thread

 

Or are cynics drawn to coin collecting? Reviewing the definition of cynic:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cynic
I'd say a more appropriate word would be a critic.

PG

 

That was me back in the 80's. I love Warrant, White Snake, and Twisted Sister!