sometimes you have to pay a little extra..

A friend of mine, who works for an auction house, recently said something that must have planted itself in my brain. I didn't give it much thought at the time but it must have germinated until the proper time and then his offhand remark blossomed up into an enlighting bit of advice.

His comment? He was discussing some coin images that someone had posted and he said " oh yes, I remember that coin. I had that in my collection for almost 10 years."

What is significant about this you may ask? Well I later started thinking about my own collection. My screensaver is a screen-wide image of my 1941 Walker that Coindude ( Sam) photographed for me. I would recognize this coin 10 years from now even if I sold it tomorrow.

However that coin is more of an exception..except for just a few coins in my collection, if I had to sell them all off and try to re-build my collection in the future, only a handful would I recognize as a coin that I used to own.

Really, the fact of the matter is, I wouldn't recognize any of my proof or MS70's from the tens of thousands of other ones. Even in my older-dated coins, if I had chosen to buy a white coin with good luster and good strike, then that coin would be almost indistinguishable from the masses of similar coins.

Which brings me in a round-about-way to the Title.

I was recently surfing auctions, rapidly clicking through listings and images...when suddenly a coin "Jumped Out At Me". I'm sure that many of you ( if not all) know what I mean. Two-three seconds per glance and then on to the next lot and then WHAM..you find yourself drinking in the detail, color, luster of some unique coin that has bedazzled you.

Well I shook my head to break the enchantment and promptly entered a max bid equal to Full Retail Value !! I was stunned and disheartened to find that old familiar.." you are currently the high bidder, however the reserve has not been met"

This is when the voice and comment of my friend sprouted to the surface..this was one of those coins that I would recognize ten years from now. Instead of navigating away from the page, I promptly raised my bid another 3 increments and passed the reserve. Now I haven't yet won the coin but I feel alot better about having given it a real shot.

Sometimes the truly special coins cost more than list price for a reason, it doesn't mean that we've paid too much.

Latest "upgrade" is actually the same grade as I already had but was too pretty to pass on..