Why I Quit Collecting

Collecting

Hi all,
I agree with Mike to a point, I also agree with many others in this thread. I had collected as a kid like most, just small stuff from change. Stopped,, I started back into collecting in the 80's an 90's,,, I quit again, because I saw all dealers as HAWKS just waiting to prey on unsuspecting customers. I'd attended a few big shows and the bigger the show the worse it was. It sickened me. I started back into collecting last year and am enjoying it alot. I don't expect to get anything out of my collection other than enjoyment and love of the history. Like Mike I love books all books!! I spend at least 90% of my time reading and a small portion collecting and buying.

Since I have been back in the hobby I have not bought a coin for more than $50.00, sure I could but I get just as much enjoyment out of the coins I do collect as I would from multi thousand dollar rarities. I think I still have a beautiful collection.

I am involved in several noncoin hobbies, I build and show military armor and vehicle models,I also write about the builds. In the scale modeling hobby I have seen it go from just a group with similiar interests to a cutthroat hobby where everyone is out to win or they act like kids. The accy's from the kit vendors have gone through the roof. It is very expensive to build a model if you go for all the aftermarket goodies. We have professional modelers who build everyday competing wih hobbyists. Everyone must win!! It's real Bull s&%t.. Like the coin collecting hobby it is what you make of it. So I do participte, I build and I show and I go home, if I Medal good if not, so, I enjoy building and enjoy the research as long as I enjoy it then it's good!!

Collect to enjoy history and the coins produced because of it.

If the collector enjoys his collection that's all that matters regardless of weather it's a Lincoln collection or a Saint collection!! Collect for yourself!!!

Well just wanted to voice my opinion, Tony

 

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Replies And Comments

Obviously, they are related: they happened within me and to me. Deeper than that, though, my awareness of my addiction came early in collecting. I had a feeling that I associated with coins, several feelings, really, like flavors. I would put on certain music when I inventoried and graded and I felt a certain way. It was not a feeling of desire, but a feeling of satisfaction. Walking onto the bourse floor brings feelings of anticipation and excitement. Then, about early 2000, I remember sitting at my desk, reading the numismatic periodical, seeing the ads and NOT feeling something. I realized that I no longer felt that way. However, as you note, the two were related -- the disenchantment and the emotional dissociation.

A generalization about people is not a statemnt of physical law. Obviously, I am speaking of my own observations. The internal state is the subject: why I quit collecting. Even so, you understand. Why is that? It can only be because what I perceived is broadly accurate.

(1) According to the U.S. Mint, perhaps 50 million people put coins in jars. The US Mint sells only 1 or 2 million Proof or Mint sets each year. A mere 100,000 people subscribe to Coin World. Just 30,000 belong to the ANA. So, I am not suprised that you have not heard of me.
(2) Perhaps you could cite some of these 10,000 numismatic magazine that were launched since 1995.
(3) A. I am telling you that my grandfather found this Confederate dollar while walking the grounds at Chickamauga. Are you calling my grandfather a liar?
(3) B. Ask any dealer about the coins they have seen from old collections.
(3) C. You are satisfied with your inventory and there it rests.

Keeping a cool head is important. Knowing yourself is important, too. We share the same basic motivations. Had I kept to that, very likely, perhaps nothing would have changed. It was coming into the great mainstream of U.S. Type and Moderns that caused me to re-evaluate what I was doing.

Among his 60+ credits, the ones I know and like are
Family Business (1989)
The Verdict (1982)
Network (1976)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Serpico (1973)
Fail-Safe (1964)
The Pawnbroker (1964)
12 Angry Men (1957)
"You Are There" (1953) TV Series

That was excellent, QD, and right on target. Yes, it is similar to other events in life, certainly not unique to numismatics. I am glad that you returned to playing.

Ozland Tiger, I did not say "all." I did make a sweeping generalization, but it was just that, and quite clearly intended not so much as statement of fact as a description of perception. That said, look closer; be objective. It starts with self-deception, typically, over-grading a coin: "It is a better Fine, maybe a Very Fine." Then listen to a collector try to sell the coin to a dealer. "I know it is in a Fine holder, but you can see that it is undergraded. Look at that detail."
Pricing is another great deception. Read the small print. Not only do the guides do not actually buy and sell, only "report," but even so the prices published do not mean that a sale took place at that price. Price guides allow us to deceive ourselves that we got a bargain and that the item is worth more than we paid for it. We brag that we can "cherrypick" a great bargain from a dealer -- but of course complain if the dealer does the same to us.

Have you? Measured how? Economists know that an item is worth exactly what it sells for, in the moment it sells, After that, it is worth only what it sells for in the moment it sells. You got a great deal only if you believe a "price guide" -- or if you are able to sell for much more to one person something you paid much less for from another.

Again, it is a generalization about people, not a physical law. However, I have worked professionally within the hobby and met many collectors. They came to me with their hopes, dreams, plans, and schemes. I have seen dealers no better. They look at something right in front of their eyes and declare it to be something else that they want to see. It goes beyond "optimistic" gradiing and pricing and includes doctoring items to make them more saleable. Of the millions who collect, buy, and sell, there must be many exceptions, and you might be one. If so, congratulations. However, I assert that judging yourself different from everyone else might be the first self-deception.

That is an insightful observation. Thank you for sharing it. I recently switched from coffee to tea. I still drink both, but now much more tea and much less coffee. I have no reason for it, really, just a subjective taste. Within collecting, I have had different interest areas, again, perhaps capricious, but certainly not moral revelations. In this case, however, I am speaking of something more fundamental. Though even in that case, your standard applies. So, thanks, again.

As I said, I still participate, and I still buy material. I am working on an article, and, when I pitched it to an editor, we discussed images, so I went and bought a couple of examples. I have done that in the past and today am happiest with those purchases. However, I do not grade them, or look them up in price guides, or see what others like them sold for recently. I do not hold them up to the light and turn them in little circles to see if they are better than I paid for. They are what they are: historical artifacts, evidences of times and places; no less, no more.
That said, the reason that I am working on this article is that reading about these items, I find that the authorities we enjoy are simply wrong. We immerse ourselves in fairy tales and claim that we are reflecting on history. It is part of the self-deception. I recently published an article about "copper Owls." Supposedly, at the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, when Athens lost control of her silver mines to Sparta, Athens issued silver-plated tetradrachms as "emergency coinage." Even if we allow that this happened (which I doubt), most of the coins sold on the market simply do not qualify by the accepted standards. Dealers sell any plated coin from Athens as an "emergency issue" and people are happy to pay hundreds of dollars without knowing a thing about them, except to take it for granted that history was as recorded in a dealer's catalog. It is not just deception -- perhaps the dealer believes it and could even substantiate it (which I deny) -- but deeper and worse, it is self-deception. See my comments about coffee vs. tea. That is a matter of taste, not delusion.

Right, Mike, I agree that a new attitude can be a new beginning. It is important to understand that collecting anything opens up the same opportunities and threats. World War II Memorabilia is probably twice as bad as numismatics (if not ten times) for all of the ills and sins I cited: self-deception, pricing, counterfeiting, mythology versus history. You can find these problems but perhaps less so in other areas, not so given to emotionalism, rock collecting, perhaps. Numismatics is a very mature and large marketplace so these problems are starker with us.

Clifford Mishler called collecting "a gene you are not born with." He said that collectors are a kind of person and as such we should not be exclusionary. You hear it in numismatics: "How can you collect that junk?" But that is the wrong attitude: all collecting is collecting; and people who collect one thing typically collect something else. While PCGS does quip that there are twice as many 1916-D Mercury Dimes in collections as were actually struck, ancients are a collecting study that reflects every problem I cited. Counterfeiting is rife and the so-called histories would be humorous if believing them were not so expensive.
That said, there is nothing like possessing a lovely ancient. The book and movie Possession (author: A.S. Byatt -- actress Gwyneth Paltrow) reflects something of that passion to own and understand a piece of the past. If you read the book (or, easier, watch the movie), you will see a scholar steal a manuscript from a library.
We revile Dr. William Sheldon not for his quack psychology or for photographing Hillary Rodham and Warren Beatty naked, but for stealing coins from the American Numismatic Society. That overarching rejection of morality quickly moves from being quaint to being self-destructive.

Good advice, Steve!

Thanks for everything you said about who is buying and selling. As I noted above 2 million people buy Mint sets, but only 100,000 subscribe to Coin World and only 30,000 are in the ANA -- and 2,000 are in the ANS. These numbers underscore everything you wrote. I purposely avoided saying much about the ethics of bargain-hunting. Above, I did note that we think we are clever when we cherrypick, but we condemn dealers who do it. I could dissect that more closely, perhaps in another post at a later time. I do agree that I am unusual in voluntarily paying more for something than the dealer asks for. I am not foolish, but if I want something and have a relationship with the dealer and the price is $23, I will say "Twenty five dollars." And I have gone farther than that. Most collectors think I am nuts for that, but to me, it is just the flip side of the coin from expecting them to accept a lower the price.

You do not understand the definition of market value. You do not understand the basic dishonesty in all price guides. Those problems are secondary to the self deception that in sniping, you have "won" something.

One of the realizations that I came to is that it is silly for me to want to own an example of something when (a) a much better one exists in a museum (b) I could never afford that (c) it is described in complete detail here in this book. What sense does it make for me to buy one? You are better off buying the book than the coin. But there is that attraction, that desire to own, to possess (the synonyms mean different things) and I think that passion clouds reason and turns a hobby into something ugly -- not only at the social level, but inside you. So, I understand about military modeling. Sports cards quickly went that route and suprassed numismatics for (ahem) "problems."

 

this comes down to - I hate collecting because I'm compulsive, and it is no longer any fun..

Fine, don't collect

Ruben

 

Mike, your last post brought to mind a comment/question from one of my journalism professors back when I was a young college student, clad coins were an artifact of the distant future, nobody had heard of Walter Cronkite, and people still read newspapers:

 

I am sorry but what utter rubish if I take part in a live auction and bid on a item as I said previously it matters not when I bid, also if my bid is the highest then yes I win the item what do you think I am bidding on 'Scotch Mist'
Also kindly loose the patronising attitude and stop decieving yourself as to your own importance, all I have heard here from you is that you know best and the rest of us live in a little world of self deception.
Again I will ask you how you can possibly comment on what I know and this time it was not a genralisation on your part.
'You do not understand the definition of market value. You do not understand the basic dishonesty in all price guides. Those problems are secondary to the self deception that in sniping, you have "won" something.'
A price guide is not Dishonest as more of a 'GUIDE' it is not the law set down in tablets of stone but something to work round it is a aproxomation. the market runs on what folks will pay for a item and not what the guide says it is, if there is no demand then prices will drop if demand is high then prices will rice. It is possible to artificialy manipulate any given market if you have the resoures.

De Orc :thumb:

 

You know, I enjoy reading Mike's work a lot, but I enjoy reading the reactions to his work even more!

 

well, I've read this, and I will admit that I don't quite understand point "A", but I guess you meant point A to be specific to A1. - A5.

A1. I don't believe that collectors are lying, scheming con artists. I believe some people are lying, scheming con artists, and some people are collectors, so by the law of averages, some people happen to be both. I know you did not mean "all", but my point is that the two are not corelated. People consume food, and some people are con artists - but you don't stop taking in food because it's a habit of con artists.

Really this point follows through A1-5, because people, in general, delude themselves, and everyone earns a hard living. I think it's interesting that you brought up economics in your second post because A4. is a result of economics, specifically capitalist economics, not really a flaw of numismatics in particular, but numismatics in a capitalistic environment. A5 relates again to A1. The two are the same, just another possible manifestation resulting from A1 being true of some people.

B is much more understandable. Economics again, as a system of utility. You live in an evironment of choices. Some people will choose to spend their money on A, while other people choose to spend it on B-Z and so forth. Some people who did spend it on A will later change their mind, because they find better utility in choosing B-Z. It's personal taste, and either you spend money on one thing or you spend money on another, or you don't spend it at all, and you purchase a savings account of some fashion.

C isn't really a reason why you quit collecting coins. It is how you decided to stay involved in numismatics even though you chose not to purchase coins, specifically. You found that spending money on the actual coin was not so important, but you still think the hobby is interesting enough to devote your time and knowledge on. In spending that time, though, you have still remained just as vested in the hobby as those who activily purchase coins - afterall, what's the difference between spending X hours researching and preparing writen materials or spending X hours making money which is used to purchase the subject of that material?

It's all aspects of the same game. Realisitically, I don't think you have quit collecting. I think you have quit purchasing. Your mental catalog vastly outweighs mine, even though I am still avidly purchasing. Although, that has a little bit more of a philosophical slant than your probably intended.

 

For the past couple of years I've read Marotta's articles & posts. And for the first time in my life I'm about to use the "Ignore Button".
The condescending attitude & self important exhortations are all to prevalent with the "upper crust" of the A.N.A. And the biggest reason that I will NEVER have anything to do with them again.

 

I haven't read all of this thread....as I'm still collecting and don't want to get a reason to quit.....

The people who are buying these coins are uneducated buyers....and that is what drives the market UP...People paying high prices...just wait for the same people to start to flood the market with these coins...what will happen...I see a price drop.

Speedy

 

You can write something like that and talk about "condescending?" Physician, heal thyself. I wish I were as virtuous as you.

 

Originally Posted by SuperDave,
Quote;

I wish I were as virtuous as you.
---------------------------------------
There's still time

 

Mike, I'll assume you have considered the possibility that your disenchantment with collecting came first and that the justifications you cited came later. The strong tone with which you expressed them indicates your initial frustration in having lost the inclination to collect. The loss of such a joy can cause similar grief as to the loss of a friend. Denial is a stage of grief.
The importance we place upon the minutiae of our hobby would place it pretty high up in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have been both gifted and cursed by the fact that I am jack of too many trades to have mastered even one. To do so might provide me with boundless joy, but it would be an dizzying height from which to fall. The collecting I do at the level I pursue gives me great joy. If this is the level I am granted then I am quite content to be a sheep among wolves.

 

Mike wrote:
"C. As you know, I still participate in numismatics. However, I have not collected in over five years. I still buy numismatic material, but only in support of actual research for specific projects."

Readjusting your jusitification and narrowing your scope and purpose for acquiring doesn't support the idea that you've quit collecting.