Never sell a coin you have bought unless it was part of a package deal you had to buy to get what you wanted.
I don't know if you meant it this way, Doug, but this one sentence of yours, read literally, is a really interesting commentary about the core of the collecting impulse.
There are collectors who simply will not
part with a coin they bought. Period.
One of the interesting aspects to
numismatics for me is trying to arrange trades with fellow collectors. In the ideal situation, and this happens maybe half the time, at least with me, the trade offer is accepted, both parties bend over backward to make the other happy, and it's entirely win-win. Warm and fuzzy all the way.
Other times the other party treats the trade situation as a negotiating opportunity, trying to get as much in return as possible. One guy
had a
type and variety of a coin on my want list, a dupe for him, and I suggested a trade for a coin I
had that was a dupe for me. We were both open, and it turned out we both bought our coins from name dealers/auctioneers at the exact same
price. But he didn't want to do a straight trade, and he turned down everything else I offered in addition to my coin. Then some time afterward he
had the gall to ask me to send him my coin so he could photograph it for some kind of photo
gallery he was creating.
Still other times collectors just don't want to
part with coins. Recently another collector told me he
had decided to change the focus of
his collecting by acquiring only coins of one theme,
his central
area of specialization. Yet he refused to consider parting with a coin of
his not in this theme
area, a coin in an
area of specialization of mine, a coin I could really put to
good use, for a coin or coins of mine that were in
his theme
area that he didn't have.
I understand completely the "I want, I want" urge. And there are coins of mine that I will simply not
part with. In one case a fellow collector wanted a Cherronesos
hemidrachm of mine, the nicest I've ever seen, a piece I have illustrated at the top of my page on these. He really, really wanted it and expressed this over the course of several emails. But the bottom line for me was that I really, really wanted to keep it, and all I was able to do was try to empathize with
his desire. Same happened with another collector with a classical
Owl of mine that
had been
test cut a whopping six times in a very visually interesting way. He really, really wanted it. I really, really wanted to keep it. All I could say in the end was that I admired
his taste.
But there is something to the maxim about some offers being too
good to turn down. I was contacted once about a high-end coin I have illustrated at my site. The company, not in the coin business, wanted to use it as their logo. We worked out an arrangement in which I licensed them rights to reuse my photo. They also wanted to buy the coin itself. I said it wasn't for sale, that despite considering myself somewhat of a scholar, at heart I'm a collector, and I really love the coin. A year later they contacted me again, asking about trademarking their new logo based upon my coin and the photo I
had licensed to them. They repeated their request to buy my coin. I entertained the possibility this time. Their first offer was for somewhat less than double what I paid. I told them this wouldn't
work for me. They asked what would. I thought, What would be an offer that would make me feel irresponsible and stupid to not accept. So I gave them a figure that was about ten times what I paid. This wasn't out of greed. It simply reflected how much I wanted to keep the coin and what it would take for me to
part with it. They said they would think about it. Three days later they called back and accepted my counteroffer. I parted with the coin very much with mixed emotions.
So, Doug, when you say, "Never sell [or
part with] a coin you have bought unless it was
part of a package deal you
had to buy to get what you wanted," there's a lot more to this. <g>
And there's also the trade you and I did once, with my getting a totally beat-up but totally interesting
test-cut classical
Owl fourree that
had maybe 99 percent of its silver plating worn and/or corroded off. I traded you in return an official classical
Owl obol in decent enough shape. You did better off in terms of market value, but I was the one who initiated the trade, and I was and
still am happy with it.
