I get so sick and tired of being told "when it comes time to sell your coins"...

[James_OldeTowne]

Sorry to rant, but I get so sick of seeing and hearing this phrase. It always seems to involve somebody criticizing someone else for cracking their coins out of slabs, perhaps for placement in an album, perhaps for placement in a 2x2, or for some other reason. Why is it that for some people, it ALWAYS seems to come down to money? Can't someone enjoy a hobby for reasons that have nothing to do with profit motive? And then, they try to put me on a guilt trip by saying "when it comes time to sell, your children/family/heirs/whatever will need the coins slabbed to get fair value." PSHAW!

 

I personally find coins far more enjoyable in general when raw. And if its a coin I intend to keep for a long time, I simply do not care about financial motivation.

 

What about "when it comes time to enjoy my coins"? Why must profit motive trump everything, including my enjoyment of the hobby?

 

OK, take your shots now, the short rant is over !

 

[gmarguli]

Can't someone enjoy a hobby for reasons that have nothing to do with profit motive?

 

Sure they can. Bird watching = hobby. Coins = multi-billion dollar a year industry.

[Bugmann1974]

I don't like birds they poop on my cars.

 

Yes James, some collectors can enjoy the coin hobby without worrying about the profit.

 

I am sorry but if my children/wife/grandchildren don't know where and how to sell my coins when I die, then I have failed. You cannot blame it on a lack of plastic. It is my hope that my wife/children/grandchildren would actually continue on with and build onto the collection to be passed down for future generations. Preserving the specimens of a hobby I love, that is the motive of my collection, not profit.

 

 

I guess I better work on getting a wife/children/grandchildren

[ant]

good rant!

[zrlevin]

James I agree completely.

[bsshog40]

I enjoy the hobby, and I emphasize hobby, myself. I buy my coins for me and nobody else. If I die and they go to my kids, which are grown btw, then I hope they get some good out of them be it collecting or selling them. I prefer raw coins myself but do buy my slabs for my registries and some coins that are just in a slab and I like them. I don't buy to re-sell but I also don't pay more money for a coin then it'll ever be worth to me or for resale. I agree with you james as a collector, but I also see the reasoning behind the resale value when it comes to a dealer/seller. Glad I'm not one of those as I don't have much of an eye for making a profit on coins.

[okbustchaser]

Sorry to rant, but I get so sick of seeing and hearing this phrase. It always seems to involve somebody criticizing someone else for cracking their coins out of slabs, perhaps for placement in an album, perhaps for placement in a 2x2, or for some other reason. Why is it that for some people, it ALWAYS seems to come down to money? Can't someone enjoy a hobby for reasons that have nothing to do with profit motive? And then, they try to put me on a guilt trip by saying "when it comes time to sell, your children/family/heirs/whatever will need the coins slabbed to get fair value." PSHAW!

 

I personally find coins far more enjoyable in general when raw. And if its a coin I intend to keep for a long time, I simply do not care about financial motivation.

 

What about "when it comes time to enjoy my coins"? Why must profit motive trump everything, including my enjoyment of the hobby?

 

OK, take your shots now, the short rant is over !

 

 

Great Googly Moogly, someone else actually gets it!!

[James_OldeTowne]

Sorry to rant, but I get so sick of seeing and hearing this phrase. It always seems to involve somebody criticizing someone else for cracking their coins out of slabs, perhaps for placement in an album, perhaps for placement in a 2x2, or for some other reason. Why is it that for some people, it ALWAYS seems to come down to money? Can't someone enjoy a hobby for reasons that have nothing to do with profit motive? And then, they try to put me on a guilt trip by saying "when it comes time to sell, your children/family/heirs/whatever will need the coins slabbed to get fair value." PSHAW!

 

I personally find coins far more enjoyable in general when raw. And if its a coin I intend to keep for a long time, I simply do not care about financial motivation.

 

What about "when it comes time to enjoy my coins"? Why must profit motive trump everything, including my enjoyment of the hobby?

 

OK, take your shots now, the short rant is over !

 

 

Great Googly Moogly, someone else actually gets it!!

 

By the way... did I mention that I do own about 150 certified coins ? (But far more un-certified, though !!!!!!)

 

[jackson64]

I built my Franklin album almost completely with NGC and PCGS MS64FBL coins...I found that a small C-clamp and a dremel work quite well...

 

They look great all together in the album..3 pages of beautiful coins..

 

 

 

 

PS: I also have 200+ slabs...but when building a quality album, often crack-outs are the way to go to insure undoctored and authentic coins...

[EZ_E]

I've cracked over a dozen slabs for my circulated, classic commemorative half dollar collection. I agree that one must collect in a way that suits their goals and objectives.

[michael]

i agree

[123cents]

Can't someone enjoy a hobby for reasons that have nothing to do with profit motive?

 

Sure they can. Bird watching = hobby. Coins = multi-billion dollar a year industry.

 

 

 

[physics-fan3.14]

I agree James. It all comes down to collect what you like and how you like it. Nobody should tell you how to enjoy your collection.

 

But for me, personally, I also view my collection as an investment. We're talking hundreds (and starting to get into thousands) of dollars in each coin, and its foolish to completely ignore the financial aspect of the hobby. To me, this is a lot of money and a large percentage of my investment portfolio. It also happens to be something I thoroughly enjoy (as any of you can attest). Birdwatching can be enjoyed for the cost of binoculars because there is no buying and selling - as Greg pointed out its a multi-billion dollar industry.

 

There is some validity to being aware of the financial impact of our decisions. A true hobbyist will not care how much he pays for his coins - as long as he enjoys them and they are needed for his set. A pure investor won't care anything about the coin - they are a number in a spreadsheet to be bought and sold like stocks. Most of us fall inbetween - we have a care for the financial, but we enjoy our coins. It is a balance, and we each need to decide the point on the scale at which we choose to participate.

[World Colonial]

I agree with you that coins should be enjoyed but disagree with you on the importance of financial considerations.

 

Everyone can spend their money as they see fit and if they view their collection as an alternative to other forms of recreation or consumption, then the sentiments you express are fine.

 

I am at the other end of the pendulum and will admit that I obtain less enjoyment than many others because of it. My motives for it arise from the effort it takes to earn the money to buy the coins in the first place. Its not that I dislike my job but I would consider it irrational to waste my time to earn the money I do and then dissipate it needlessly when there are other things that I would rather be doing and which I am working toward. Losing money on my coin purchases would in my mind be a waste of my life for the time it takes me to earn the money I do to buy them.

 

I like my coins and intend to keep them if I am able to do so. But there is no question that I would (and have) buy less of them or would collect something else if I considered them a poor relative value or (as I expect for the near future) that they would fall in price. The latter if for no other reason than I would prefer to buy more of them later for the same or less money.

 

 

[Jim Beam]

I like what you have to say about the hobby and the enjoyment it can provide. Just for the record, I have been a collector (not a dealer) for 49 years. I have yet to sell a coin! I have made trades but have never sold. My collection will be handed down to my kids/grandkids who may sell it someday. Profit is not even an issue for me.

[TomB]

I could write a post to side with what will most likely be the popular majority on these boards and state something like I heartily agree in all cases and instances or that a true collector does not care about possible resale, but I do not want to post under false pretense, do not want to post out of ignorance and do not want to post from the heart and not the mind. Truly, one can be a quite intelligent person, compassionate family man and expert numismatist and still disagree with me on this point and that would not only be their right, but they would be correct in their disagreement of it as an informed decision.

 

However, the brutal truth is that in most cases I believe the hobbyist is a poor numismatist and has a very good chance of making unwise financial decisions relating to the hobby with respect to their family. Certainly, enjoyment of the hobby goes a long way to justifying a complete lack of accountability for possible resale value. This is especially true with those of us who buy only with completely discretionary funds that would not affect us in the least if they were lost in totality. The reality, though, is that most folks would feel the loss of their funds as well as the nonquantifiable sting to their passion should their collection evaporate overnight. Additionally, many folks express various degrees of wanting to pass not only the collection, but the money the collection represents to their heirs at some point in the future. Making ill-informed decisions can reduce the enjoyment of the hobby as well as the financial performance of the tangible investment over time.

 

Please note that I don't consider it inherently wrong to crack out a coin and place it into an album or flip and I don't consider it inherently wrong to pay whatever it takes to obtain a piece for the collection. What I do consider potentially foolish is when folks make any number of decisions without having the requisite knowledge of what they are doing or if they make these decisions without first thinking about their possible longterm commitment within the hobby-industry if it is beyond a level that might cause them regret at a later time.

[World Colonial]

However, the brutal truth is that in most cases I believe the hobbyist is a poor numismatist and has a very good chance of making unwise financial decisions relating to the hobby with respect to their family. Certainly, enjoyment of the hobby goes a long way to justifying a complete lack of accountability for possible resale value. This is especially true with those of us who buy only with completely discretionary funds that would not affect us in the least if they were lost in totality. The reality, though, is that most folks would feel the loss of their funds as well as the nonquantifiable sting to their passion should their collection evaporate overnight. Additionally, many folks express various degrees of wanting to pass not only the collection, but the money the collection represents to their heirs at some point in the future. Making ill-informed decisions can reduce the enjoyment of the hobby as well as the financial performance of the tangible investment over time.

 

An excellent and commendable post. And I also find the comments in your opening statement particularly relevant. I sometimes wonder what people are thinking with some of their collecting habits and practices, and this is independent of the fact that they collect something other than what I do.

[DC Dawg]

Please note that I don't consider it inherently wrong to crack out a coin and place it into an album or flip and I don't consider it inherently wrong to pay whatever it takes to obtain a piece for the collection. What I do consider potentially foolish is when folks make any number of decisions without having the requisite knowledge of what they are doing or if they make these decisions without first thinking about their possible longterm commitment within the hobby-industry if it is beyond a level that might cause them regret at a later time.

Aside from heartily agreeing James, Tom, and everyone else here, I think the problem Tom makes above is not made out of ignorance but out of believing the hucksters who pass themselves off as experts.

 

At least twice a week I work from home. Usually, I have MSNBC or CNBC on in the background--both channels are next to each other on the cable. While watching CNBC, there is a commercial for someone selling gold coins, "real US Mint gold coins." His pitch is in front of a vault with guards standing around the pitchman who puts his hands on what looks like a pile of one ounce American Gold Eagle coins."Real US Mint gold coins And we will sell them to you at our price of..." and the screen flashes something ridiculously low. They are showing one-ounce coins on the television and selling tenth-ounce coins.

 

Forget the over-graded moderns being hawked on those television shopping channels, what kind of losses did those who invested in "rare coins" with Robert Stanford get for their money? Stanford, like Bernie Madoff, was well respected and considered a good judge for investments. Yet those who invested in coins from Stanford's rare coin company have found they lost money. And this does not include Tom Noe, who defrauded the Ohio Bureau of Worker's Compensation, who only recovered less than 10-cents on the dollar when the rare coin "investment" was liquidated!

 

These were alleged experts who steered investors into doing foolish things in the name of making money.

 

Sometimes, you just cannot win!

 

Scott

[Schatzy]

I agree 100% James!!

 

 

I am a young collector so I try to make educated purchases. I collect what I like

and don't worry about what other people think of my collection. I don't buy coins

with the intention of selling them right away for a profit but sometimes I change my

mind later down the road and decided to sell a few coins to start the search for the

new coin. I buy what I like and could care less if I could sell it for a profit later.

[MarkFeld]

Get over it, already James. You and some others might not give a thought to "when it comes time to sell", and that's perfectly fine. But plenty of other buyers (whether you want to call them collectors, investors, whatever) DO care. And there's no law that the speaker needs to address the entire coin universe all at once.

 

In addition to that, you said that "It always seems to involve somebody criticizing someone else for cracking their coins out of slabs....". You must not get around or listen much. Frequently, there are other references, such as by auction companies seeking consignments, sellers of coin storage products, sellers of coins in certain holders, etc. So your gripe isn't nearly as complete as it could be.

[BillJones]

James, part of the trouble is if you are going to put together a really nice collection, that requires a lot of money. And these days a lot of that money is tied up in the grades that appear on the slab. All others and I are saying is, there is financial risk to pulling things out of holders.

 

Now there is a school of thought that you will get the money anyway if you put your collection up for auction. The smart buyers will see the nice coins and they might speculate as to what grade the coin will get when it's slabbed. That speculation could lead to higher prices.

 

The trouble is decent coins don't get sold raw that much any more. And when I as a dealer buying a raw coin II have to figure (1) the real grade of the coin IMO. (2) what the slab company with grade it and (3) deduct the cost of the slab and shipping to and from the slab company from my buy price.

 

All of this usually adds up to lower seling prices when it comes to sell.

[jackson64]

wow, where did that come from?

[PerryHall]

A few months ago there was a thread started by someone on the PCGS coin forum that expressed his regret that he cracked out all his expensive PCGS slabbed coins. It seems that his interests changed and he decided to collect a different series. He got a major reality check when he tried to sell his now raw coins and had to go to the expense to get then reslabbed in order to sell them for a decent price. If someone wants to crack out their coins, that's their business but they should be aware of the downside of throwing away all those grading fees.

[RareSov]

Good rant.. its not ALWAYS about money

 

I wasted money on slabbing some items, you all waste money slabbing low value coins, because you want them in plastic.. so yeah.. ?

[Tradedollarnut]

I agree with you that coins should be enjoyed but disagree with you on the importance of financial considerations.

 

Everyone can spend their money as they see fit and if they view their collection as an alternative to other forms of recreation or consumption, then the sentiments you express are fine.

 

I am at the other end of the pendulum and will admit that I obtain less enjoyment than many others because of it. My motives for it arise from the effort it takes to earn the money to buy the coins in the first place. Its not that I dislike my job but I would consider it irrational to waste my time to earn the money I do and then dissipate it needlessly when there are other things that I would rather be doing and which I am working toward. Losing money on my coin purchases would in my mind be a waste of my life for the time it takes me to earn the money I do to buy them.

 

I like my coins and intend to keep them if I am able to do so. But there is no question that I would (and have) buy less of them or would collect something else if I considered them a poor relative value or (as I expect for the near future) that they would fall in price. The latter if for no other reason than I would prefer to buy more of them later for the same or less money.

 

 

Exactly

[Tradedollarnut]

And this does not include Tom Noe, who defrauded the Ohio Bureau of Worker's Compensation, who only recovered less than 10-cents on the dollar when the rare coin "investment" was liquidated!

 

I believe this assertion to be grossly in error. IIRC, not only did they get back all their funds, but they made a profit as well.

 

[Tradedollarnut]

Liquidators have nearly finished selling off the coins, collectibles and other items that Thomas W. Noe bought with state money, and they now have recovered more than the $50 million invested with the convicted coin dealer.

 

The professional fees, liquidation costs and other related expenses so far are nearly $7.7 million, and total expenses could reach $9.5 million, according to figures released to The Dispatch this week by the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

 

Still, the bureau ultimately expects to get back more than what it invested with Noe, causing some observers to suggest that too much was made of the Noe scandal when the bureau lost $216 million on a risky hedge fund.

 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/25/coin_funds.ART_ART_07-25-08_B1_U9ARE9B.html

[IGWT]

On the one hand, most collectors trust and rely on a reputable TPG's opinion when buying a coin. On the other hand, those same collectors won't risk removing a coin from its holder out of concern that it will be downgraded (or even body bagged) when resubmitted. That concern reveals a fundamental lack confidence in the TPGs' ability to grade the same coin consistently.

 

Why do collectors lack confidence after buying a coin, but not before?

[IGWT]

The TPGs' ability to control a coin's value in the marketplace despite the inconsistency is precisely what keeps coins locked up in plastic. Even if the inconsistency didn't necessarily spell the end of TPGs from the start, logic suggests that the assigned grades wouldn't matter so much, and that the emphasis would be on authentication. Instead, we have a counterintuitive result: one-point differences in grade bring about huge disparities in price. The hobby is engaged in some sort of collective, willing suspension of disbelief.

[IGWT]

No response here might mean it's time to try this ATS.