What drives you to collect coins?

Holding history.

 

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Must. Fill. Holes.

 

Getting away in my “Coin Room” my Wife, telephones, cell phones, oblivious to most everything except what my beautiful Hobby holds.
What drives any of us to collect coins or Exonumia objects is like asking why do we have two feet, two hands, two eyes, two ears etc. It’s just what we are made of, Lol
“Collect” on friends!!!

 

YouTube.


nah, I like history and coins is one of the few things that is is a consistent thing to collect with about anything, except Dinosaurs.

 

Used to be my mom a long time ago.

 

I love Ancient History... nothing like holding a placemarker from an incredible event that changed history:

Struck last two weeks of Julius Caesar’s life before being assassinated...

Roman Imperiatorial
Julius Caesar Lifetime
P Sepullius Macer
AR Denarius, 1st 2 weeks-Mar 44 BCE, 19 mm, 4.03g.
Obv: CAESAR – DICT PERPETVO Veiled and wreathed head of Caesar R.
Rev: P·SEPVLLIVS – MACER Venus standing l., holding Victory and sceptre resting on star.
Ref: Syd 1074a Sear Imperators 107e Cr 480-14 Rare

 

I have been an accountant for over 35 years and love to see, feel, and/or smell currency, but my father helped me when I was a Boy Scout, trying to earn a Merit Badge. My collection was small, but interesting. I would take them out (wearing white cotton gloves) and lay them out my type, year, and mint. My first interesting coin was an Indian Head Penny that was so worn out, I could barely make out the date. That drove me to find a better one. When my father passed, he left his coin collection to my brother and me. That's when I really fell for the art of coin collecting. I tried to buy my brothers coins, as he was not interest in a coin collection, but he did love my father. Now I am trying to collect one coin of each type. Fun. Thanks to you, I am learning more.

 

+1

 

The perfect answer!!! Lol

 

I think I am really hooked. I need to get 5 or 6 new coins a day or else I go into withdrawal. There seems to be no limit or end to my craving for more coins. I collect everything from ancient to world to US, you name it, all over the place. Not seeking help or advice, just that sometimes I wonder at myself.

 

It seems all your answers had the ring of truth,for me anyway.
The more I learn about coins(the more I realize how much I dont know)and im drawn in.I have many franklin halves,but I will still add to my collection if I see a nice one!!
Im fascinated by the whole coin making process,im trying to learn as much as I can about it.I guess im saying this...Im glad im not alone in this awesome hobby/lifestyle...

 

I just love being able to hold the history in my hand. As someone already pointed out, its an interesting thing to hold a well circulated coin and wonder who else held it and what it was spent on.

 

This is one of the few ancient Roman coins I have, Vespasian denarius, 64-79 AD. I like to think about it changing hands way back then, and wonder if some Centurion used it to buy wine and food, perhaps the tavern wench as well? Not sure how much a small silver coin could buy back then. From the wear it is obvious that this coin served its intended purpose for some years.

 

History and the hunt.

 

It used to be for there intrinsic value. Now I enjoy and value the history and information that coins and tokens hold. As I do research I get to study places and learn things that I have never thought about. The coin may go away but I get to keep what I have learned from them.

 

If only we could find out,that would be awesome.I create little scenarios of who had it and how it was spent.The possibilities are endless

 

I started collecting coins at a very young age. My parents bought me some extremely worn Liberty Nickels at a coin shop in the back of a vacuum cleaner store not too far from what was then home. I apparently took to them because I kept getting more. I don't remember why I liked them, but I remember being fascinated by their age. They were very worn and probably really cheap. I still have these worn slugs. Then I found myself collecting coins from circulation into those little plastic holders that held the cent, nickel, dime, quarter and half. I remember showing a completed year to a friend and he said "good for you" in a very sarcastic tone, which was my first hint that not everyone appreciated this hobby.

Then I quit for years until I had disposable income of my own. Something pent up must have burst in me, because I would literally empty my checking account at a coin shop about a 20 minute drive from my then apartment. I look back at it with some horror, I had no savings at the time, because I would literally spend every possible cent from my paychecks to purchase coins. Sadder still, I had no knowledge of cleaned or altered coins or really any knowledge of grading apart from the basic F, XF, AU. After a nasty life change, I quit collecting again and sold all of my non-gold coins for far far far less than what I paid for them, which now makes sense to me because I was probably inadvertently buying mostly problem coins.

Then more years went by and I found myself studying English history, particularly the era of Elizabeth I. A book I was reading mentioned her coinage and I wondered if one could possibly purchase coinage from her reign. I was shocked to find that, yes, one could go on the internet and readily purchase Elizabeth I coins cheaper than I ever imagined. That initiated my recent obsessive wave which is just settling down now. My disposable income had greatly increased by this time and I found myself buying coins that my previous self would have found unimaginable. I now have a decent, but not award-winning or excessive, collection of various types of coins from many countries, some graded, some not. When I added up the amount I had spent on coins over a spread of some years I was utterly shocked and this stunned me out of whatever phase I had been in since purchasing an Elizabeth I three pence. I began to ask myself why I bought these things at great expense to myself. They were by no means bankrupting me at this point, but I didn't think twice about spending $200, more than I pay weekly for groceries, for a nice coin. I no longer think that way and I haven't purchased a coin, apart from the Apollo 11 commemorative, for months now. Right now, I'm not sure if I ever will purchase another one. I will definitely purchase far fewer.

I realized that coins served as a distraction and an escape for me in various points of my life. Perhaps I was reliving some early childhood fun and the act of purchasing a coin stimulated my unconscious pleasure centers? I don't know, but I realized that my coin buying was not always "rational," it was closer to an addiction, though thankfully not a destructive one. I recall times when I wanted to purchase a coin with so much passion and fervency that I thought "this is what alcoholics must feel like sometimes." Then I knew I had a problem and I began to address it. I realized that a chunk of my collection comprised coins that I didn't really treasure. I had bought them simply to "buy something." I was rationalizing the irrational. I sold a number of these coins on Ebay recently and I plan to sell even more. Having come out of my spell, I plan on keeping maybe a handful of coins that actually mean something to me. The rest will likely go.

Again, what led to this? I'm not sure. I do have extreme alcoholism in my family history. Both of my grandfathers basically drank themselves to death. I've heard of some studies that suggest that descendants of alcoholics tend to become addicts or gamblers. I don't touch alcohol, so perhaps that energy had to go somewhere and it went to coins. Coins of course are a much healthier addiction than booze, but that doesn't mean that I should keep purchasing these things merely for the sake of purchasing them. I want to have only what I actually and truly want to have and no more.

I think I'll get there.

 

Instinct. Man is an instinctive hoarder and coins are the logical objects to hoard. I hide it behind the term coin collection.

 

Primordial urge.

Like salmon swimming upstream...

 

I like like holding ancient artifacts in my hand, marveling at how they are more than 1800 years old. I love holding this sestertius, for example, its heft filling my palm, and I imagine how its surfaces contain traces of lamp oil, pagan altar smoke, centurion sweat and gladiator blood. Did it buy wine? Almost certainly. Did it buy a pair of sandals for a five-year-old girl to wear to a festival? Could be! It bought food and wine and clothing and knickknacks and entertainment for thousands of people in antiquity. And that's just a really cool thing to think about!