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Author Topic: On Starting Over...  (Read 1433 times)

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Metrodorus

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On Starting Over...
« on: February 15, 2017, 02:36:22 am »
Greetings fellow FORVM Members!

Long story short, for financial reasons (finishing my secondary education and the annoying matter of college application fees in the States), I am compelled to sell off 90-95% of my collection's contents. :(
Now, I'm not complaining, merely stating facts. I was on the trend towards a collection of fewer coins but of higher quality for the last three years anyways, but this was an unexpected curveball, which got me thinking: "Have other collectors been compelled to start their collections right at square one or nearly so, all over again?"; at the very least it seems like an interesting topic for discussion. ;D

So here's what I want to ask:

Have any of you had/wanted to start your collections all over again?

If so, (and you care to share), what were the circumstances, etc., that prompted or inspired you?

How were you able to "bounce back" or "start over", and your collection begin and grow anew?

Thanks to all who respond in advance,

Metrodorus

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2017, 12:21:45 pm »
Great topic!

Over the past few years I've been trying to follow that principle.  Fewer nicer coins rather than many mediocre coins.  I think it takes a few years  of collecting to get to this point. I find it's easy to sell off some coins that don't fit my collecting goals anymore but it's a balancing act because  I find I'm attached to some of them.  Recently I've been selling off coins (Forum Auctions) and trading them in to get better ones.  Just last month I sold about 10 coins to get 1 gold stater... totally worth it! I'm really trying to focus my collecting on my areas of interest but like I said, it's not always easy.  What helps is putting the money from the sales into the new ones!

Offline Jordan Montgomery

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2017, 01:30:04 pm »
I'm going on 3 years of collecting ancients now and I actually had a reset right in the middle myself where I sold just about everything and went in another direction. I decided I wanted to only collect Roman Republic coins and sell everything else to finance that, and I only had 2 or 3 RR coins at the time so it really was everything that I had collected over a year and a half or so as well as US coins I had collected since I was a child. As part of this new collection direction I also decided to collect better quality coins where possible. My collection went from 100 or so coins worthy of individual flips(+ some bullion) to something like 5 or 10 by the time I got done making my "sell" pile and while it still hasn't recovered numerically I now have a collection of coins where I know much more about each individual coin and I enjoy them more than I did at that point.

The only thing that I kept from my previous collection was the library I had begun building. Important references like Hendin, while no longer applicable to my collection, are still useful when I'm speaking with other numismatists and are still good reading on things like how we can glean information from coins, so I kept all of my books that it made sense to keep.
Gallery of my collection with notes and discussion of Republican history and numismatics

Offline Severusalex

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2017, 07:30:20 pm »
Interesting topic Metrodorus,

I started collecting Roman coins a number of years ago when I was a kid, with help from my dad. I collected mostly more affordable coins from the constantinian era and bought a couple lots at auctions which included some Greek coins and some other Roman Imperial coins.

I took a break from collecting for a number of years due to school and financial restrictions, but over the last couple years have started up again. When I first started up again I would buy any coin that interested me and that I could afford, but now that I have built up a fairly modest collection, and through researching the coins and the different emperors in Roman history, I have decided to downsize my collection and sell of coins from eras I am not as interested in as well as my Greek collection, and focus on getting fewer, nicer coins from the later Roman Empire which I have discovered I am much more interested in.

Much like Jay, I am currently in the midst of selling off some of my mid grade and lesser coins to replace with one or two nicer ones. I wont re-start at zero, but when all is said and done I will probably be selling or trading close to half of my collection to get some nicer coins that I are more in line with my interests.

Alex

Offline SC

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2017, 09:18:18 pm »
I haven't started over amongst coins.  But I did end and sell another, non-numismatic collection

I have told the story here before so I will be brief.  My other collection had stagnated.  I had really acquired all there was to acquire, at least all I could ever hope to afford.  I began to get into ancient coins, though still in a small way, and found that I was spending all my time on them while my other collection, which by that time had a fair bit of capital invested, did nothing for me any longer.  So I sold the other collection and put the money into a separate account and used it on coins and numismatic books.

Shawn





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(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline orfew

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2017, 09:57:58 am »
Great topic.

I have never thought of starting over, but like many here I have been going through a process of winnowing my coins down to the best ones. I have never had more than 40 ancients, I currently have 23 ancient coins with 2 more on the way. I would like to have about 20 better quality coins in my collection. Who knows maybe one day I will expand to 30. I find the focus helpful in avoiding buying anything shiny.

12 of the 23 are the 12 Caesars in silver. I am always on the lookout for better quality 12 caesars coins. At the moment 9 of them are in vf or better condition. I would like to have all 12 in vf or better and I am willing to wait for the right coins.

Best of luck to everyone else on their collecting goals.

Offline Meepzorp

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2017, 01:01:43 pm »
Over the past few years I've been trying to follow that principle.  Fewer nicer coins rather than many mediocre coins.  I think it takes a few years  of collecting to get to this point.

Hi Jay,

I've been doing that too during the past few years.

Meepzorp

Offline areich

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Re: On Starting Over...
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2017, 03:11:01 pm »
I've just done something similar, I've sold more than 90% of my collection. I don't have the time now to give the coins the attention they deserve attention and having hundreds of coins feels like work. Actually, I still have hundreds of coins that were never part of my collection. For example, I wanted to collect small greek bronzes (again) and for a while just accumulated them, without ever doing much with them.

What I consider my collection at the moment consts of 16 coins. I still buy coins occasionally that I know will never be part of that core collection (all Greek silver) and I can still appreciate a nice bronze.
I can easily take out and enjoy my whole collection of coins.

This is different than 'buying fewer and nicer coins', most of the coins I sold were already the 'nicer coins'.
Andreas Reich

 

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