Widgets do you avoid them?

The concept of widgets never crossed my mind until I started reading coin forums. I certainly understand buying the best coins, but now I'm doubt and purchase I want to make. I guess I like widgets. A nice Ike or $35 common Morgan are awesome to me. Now I can't get myself to buy one. I don't want to get stuck with widgets.

 

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Please define 'widget' the way you are using it. Do you intend it to mean "a very common coin or bullion with little or no numismatic value"?

 

The don't buy them ...problem solved.

 

Hmmmmm, never saw the term "widget" applied to a coin.

 

It is the one thing I dislike buying more than anything. Unfortunately I have to buy them. It just goes with the territory.

I even use the phrase in my title.

 

No, I've been reading a lot on the web and there are some strong opinions about this. So how does one not wind up with a collection of Widgets? Lets take the Morgan series. What counts and what doesn't? What if I wanted to collect Sac's. Do they need to be MS68, PR70? I'm confused how one enjoys the hobby and avoids these things? Unless your rich?

 

Buy what you and collect what you like. I guess most all of my bust coinage would be widgets - low average grade coins. I like em and I'll keep em.

 

ok....so, umm....whatsa widget?


stainless

 

Amen to that. Funny the only other time I have heard mention of widgets is sitting in on the Microsoft Seminars. Thought it was something that they made up. Guess not.

 

When I was in college over 30 years ago I remember professors using the term 'widgets' to help clarify a point. For example, "ABC Company makes 10,000 widgets per day. Their material costs are $9.50 and labor costs are $3.50 per widget. . . . "

That is the only use I have known for the term 'widget' until today.

 

Neither have I. A widget is the little plastic thing inside a bottle of Guinness.

 

I thought widgets were the leftover hardware to the furniture from IKEA, at least that's what I tell the wife.

 

I didn't know what they were, but it is starting to sound like I am a widget collector and didn't even know it.

 

Seriously, there are plastic things floating in bottles of Guiness called "Rocket Widgets"
As for coins that are "widgets" I guess a large percentage of my collection is made up of them. Oh well, they keep me happy

 

OK who drink's Guiness from a bottle anyway? Draft only if you please! And I remember a little plastic scraper thingy from about 25 years back called a widget. Yellow with a clear plastic safety cover over the single razor blade. Worked pretty good.

 

I live in a small town where Guiness is only available in a six pack. The back of the bottle has a little story on it about how the plastic thing inside the bottle is a "rocket widget" which somehow helps keep the beer fresh on its journey here from Dublin. I guess we're getting a little off topic from widget coins though. But this is the first I've heard of coin widgets, lol.

 

I guess this is another example of the discussions regarding investing versus collecting.
If you are buying coins that you want to collect, whether a set of proof Kennedys or common Morgans, and the set or coin pleases you as a collector, then all is good. If you are worried about only buying what you think you can sell for a profit down the road, then there are all sorts of considerations to make. I personally, buy most of my coins based on my interest in them as a collector and the research I do on them...widgets or not.
John

 

Nah, those are Jube Jubes.

 

Can? Amateur. I have an IV!

Seriously.. what I consider widgets... stuff like circulated 40s Walkers and Mercs, F or worse 25+ SLQs (Excepting the 27-S), most any circulated Washington Quarter, Roosevelt Dime, Franklin Half.

Low Grade BU Common Date Morgans and Peace Dollars

Any circulated 40s and 50s Wheaties

Cull 19th Century type stuff, the kind of things you find in junk boxes.

Typical AG Common-Date Barbers

Basically, stuff like that. Coins that are super easy to find (Technically that is, I'm STILL looking for a solid F 25-D Walker if you can believe that) and basically sold as commodities.

Does that mean it's bad to collect them? No. I have loads of widgets, but mostly they be silver and mostly they be purchased for melt. I have loads of circulated SLQs, but most of them have oddities like die clashes, teardrops, RPMs, etc. Still, if I ever went to sell my garden variety Die Clashed VG 1929 SLQ I'd get whatever melt was for it.