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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 4025569, member: 15588&quot;]I think many collectors, myself included, like to think of the &quot;investment&quot; side of the hobby only when their pieces rise in value (i.e., rarely), but they don&#039;t like to think of it when their pieces stagnate or decrease in value (i.e., usually). </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve fallen back on this when I&#039;ve discovered a few very bad past purchases on my part. Back before I knew better, I bought more than one &quot;problem&quot; coin, in most cases ones that had suffered bad cleanings. When I discovered this years later and realized that I don&#039;t actually have that advertised XF 1900 Barber Half in my collection, for instance, I tried to medicate myself by saying that I wasn&#039;t in this for the money and it&#039;s a coin I wanted despite it&#039;s condition, coins aren&#039;t an investment, etc., all the while <i>not at all enjoying</i> the experience of having clearly lost money.</p><p><br /></p><p>This attitude starting ringing hollow pretty quickly and I realized that to <i>not</i> be taken again I had to treat coins as at least <i>somewhat </i>of an investment, i.e., I need to know what I should be paying for such and such a coin in such and such a condition and what such and such a condition meant. If you don&#039;t know these things, you will lose unfathomable amounts of money buying undesirable coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Why do we keep telling people to &quot;buy the book before the coin?&quot; Why do we continually tell people to learn how to grade so as not to buy under-graded or over-graded coins? Why do we tell people not to buy based on advice from over-hyped YouTube videos? Because we want them <i>to invest their money wisely</i> in this hobby. We know that if they continue to get ripped off they won&#039;t continue in this hobby for long. Everyone, I think it&#039;s fair to assume, wants to buy what they want for as little as they can pay for it. Conversely, they typically want to realize as much for something as they can when and if they go to sell it. People look for &quot;deals.&quot; If that isn&#039;t <i>investment style thinking</i> or an example of <i>an investment strategy</i>, then I really don&#039;t know what is. And if you aren&#039;t using such thinking when buying or selling coins, <i>even ones that you fully enjoy</i>, I would argue that you&#039;re not using (i.e., investing) your money, or even engaging in the hobby, responsibly. Collectors do themselves a great service when they at least entertain an investment philosophy while collecting. It actually makes the hobby more enjoyable and potentially less degrading and deflating.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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