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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 287454, member: 112&quot;]Coin collecting has been around as long as coins have. The first book ever printed on coin collecting came out shortly after the Gutenberg Bible. That&#039;s how important coin collecting was back then. And of course there were plenty of examples that were written by hand long before the printing press was ever invented. </p><p><br /></p><p>Why do you think they call coin collecting the Hobby of Kings ? It&#039;s because only royalty or the nobility could afford to collect coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Jerome asked a very valid question. It&#039;s the same one I asked myself several years ago when I gave up collecting US coins, sold my entire US collection and began collecting world coinage, primarily world gold. Why did I do it ? Simple, because I became convinced after 40 years of collecting US coins that they were overated - they were overpriced. And that I could collect coins with a hundred times the history, the romance, the interesting anecdotes, greater rarity and for much less money. Of course a few years later I ended up stopping collecting at all. But that was because it took me that long to realize that what I really loved about the hobby was the knowledge that I had gained as a result of it. So I decided to pursue only knowledge instead of coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, we still have the original question however - why ? Well, there is one thing that in over 5 pages of responses to Jerome&#039;s question that nobody has touched upon - bragging rights. Every single one of us loves to brag about his or her new coin and show it off to all of our collector friends.</p><p><br /></p><p>As little as 10 years ago, that was all but impossible to do. To be able to show off our new coins or any of our coins for that matter we had to either go to a coin club meeting or a coin show. Face it - how many of you actually have a friend that lives close by that you can share your coins with ? I&#039;ll wager the number will pretty small.</p><p><br /></p><p>But within the past 10 years something has come along that has changed all of that. Now we have the internet and digital cameras and technology and we can share our coins with other collectors the world over in a matter of minutes, hear all the ooooo&#039;s and aaaaaaw&#039;s and read about how much they all wish they had one.</p><p><br /></p><p>So why are US coins thought of the way they are - why are they so expensive ? Bragging rights just about sums it up. It&#039;s the American Way. And it is much less of a way in the rest of the world.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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