I guess there's one like me in most every crowd. Believe me when I say I can't stand strife. But I love a good debate as long as both party's agree that facts are key. And that they want to argue their case with facts & not fantasy.

Greetings Collectors,

Nothing like a good controversy to take one into the weekend. I have spent most of the entire week raising cash from every available source to put into one pile and to be used to snipe as many silver deals as I have the money and the time to do over the next 72 hours or so. I will also be on the lookout for coins that I have had on my wish/want lists for what seems like eons. I want to thank those of you that wrote me personally who were in agreement with me based on what I said in my previous post. My opinion on the "points" system in general has been all over the page over the last 5 years of being a member here. At 1st the points meant nothing. Then as I would add each additional coin to my sets, I would see my ranking change and for a while, the lure of points began to cloud my collecting & buying judgment. When this aspect reared its ugly head, I viewed "The Points" as the enemy. Once my mind displaced previous thinking that would have me adding a newly purchased coin to my sets just as soon as I could possibly get to it. I mean I would be at Teletrade from 10:01 to sometimes 11 pm, or later, refreshing the "track & bid page" just so that I could see when the word "pending" change to the most beautiful 4 words "you won this lot". Then to quickly add that particular coin to its respected set even before the ink dried on the Pay Pal transaction. I have even added coins that I knew I had won before there was any confirmation of the "win". I actually left two Morgan dollars in my set for a couple days after I found I "DID NOT" win them, just because I felt like I should have (won them). I did however remove the two silver dollars because the other thing that upsets me more than anything is that people who don't own the coins, have them listed in their sets just like one that did own the coins. It was around this time that I was running into instance after instance of buying certain coins, only to find that the person who sold them, didn't want to delete them from his or her set. Then seeing a Sac dollar get 600-800 points while gorgeous proof coins I owned from the early 1950's garner in some cases less than 50 total points. The NGC CS did address the imbalance to the Franklin proof series a year or so later which kinda put out that numismatic forest fire. But the more I delved into more and more purchases, I began to see a pattern I did not like.

One of my fellow collectors wrote me earlier today or last night after my previous post and said something that made a lot of sense to me. Both NGC & PCGS make a pile of money on grading modern coins. And to pay those back for their devotion, I'm quite certain that the high points are just one of the ways they re-pay those collectors/customers. I've never thought about it that way but it does make a lot of sense. Someone had just mentioned and made the comment as to "what if" they actually used "rarity" and actual census populations as the base for which all points were allocated. Wow! Wouldn't that be refreshing. I think that would be great. My whole "BEEF" in a nutshell has ALWAYS been, I can't for the life of me see, how a coin that costs nearly $2000 is on equal footing with one that's worth $100 And "points wise" that coin is not made from precious metals, and is a coin that was minted 100 years later and lastly is a coin that unlike the older gold coin, this cupro nickel piece has seen tens of thousands graded at the same grade whereas in comparison the older coin is one of 16 in the same grade with 57 graded higher by all grading services. Also lastly, the fmv of the over rated modern piece is one "twentieth" of the other comparison piece. Comparisons like this run rampant across the registry and it is only issues like this that really gets me to screaming, "It's just not right".

I'm a collector. Have been for many years. Actually I have graduated with many degree's down through the years, studying many different series of coins, some series of coins more so than others, all the while attending the various schools of "hard knocks". I try to always learn from my mis-steps and mis-haps that I run into along the way. But having been a collector for so long, as much as I don't want to admit it, I'm not only a collector, but an investor too. And you may as well throw the title "hoarder" into the mix too. I mean really, what's wrong with the concept of wanting to buy that which will appreciate, while passing on those coins that will not. I love all of my coins. Some more than others. Yes, the modern ones too. I think my reasons for buying the mint issue stuff was originally an admirable one. For about 25 years there, I wanted to have one of each of those mint items to be able to leave one of each to each of my three kids. Of course, I would count myself and the wife in the mix if it was something I needed justification in the buying of FIVE of any said item.

For the last 10-12 years, hoarding has played a roll in my purchases. What spurts of hoarding I exhibited prior was accidental, but thinking back, it was really the same kind of mindset. If one coin was nice and was worth "X", then two or three would be that much nicer and be worth 2 or 3 "times" "X". I think the term greed has a place in the whole scheme of things and really always has. I just was not that aware of it many years ago.

As far as the "multiple sets" go, yes I'm guilty of having six different sets in the Franklin MS series and two in the proof. I really think this hardly compares to having 10 or 20 sets of Sac dollars. Half of them or better in MS-69 and the remaining in MS-70. I guess I mean, what is the use of having 15-20 2002 Sac dollars in MS-69? A couple of Franklin dates that come to mind that has been partly responsible for my having multiple sets is the 1955 which is the lowest mintage half of the entire series (this date I own 6 examples in MS-65 FBL & 1 in MS-66 FBL), along with the 1958-D which is probably the most common of all Franklin's in grades north of MS-65 (this date I may own 15-20 different examples of, buttt... only have 6-8 counted in my overall sets thus leaving aside a half dozen examples that if the points were that important, I'd have another 1/2 dozen Franklin sets with just the one coin I have 12 of inserted. Again all different and all having something about the piece that caught my eye and vied for a portion of that particular weeks coin budget. I continue even to this day, with my never ceasing buying of ANY Franklin half that is solid for the grade, just because I know just how scarce and rare these halves really are. Having multiple graded examples of the same date coin has been part of my collecting life for as long as I can remember. Both in the Franklin & the Walker half I originally started the sets with a goal of getting the entire set in MS-64. But this goal was up-graded to wanting the sets in MS-65 and then one last time wanting the best set I could muster by going for "all in" with MS-66's in both of these half dollar sets. So one can see why someone would end up with several different sets to one series. In the Walker halves, I have a short set number one. And for duplicates and upgrades made the need for an additional short set along with a Walker middle set (1934-1947) That's three sets. But every coin entered is not a duplicate, but a separate individual choice coin, that stands alone on its own merits. The numerous Franklin sets, the same thing. Each coin was carefully stu