I used to collect world coins by country and year, but when I got more into collecting and found out that there are quite a lot of countries that all have beautiful coins and so I tried to collect all of them .
It simply took too much time and sometimes I got really frustrated by collecting, while coin collecting should actually calm you down.
I lost control and now I've got 2,000 coins I don't even collect.
So that's why I now quit with collecting several countries all over the world and now I'm focussing at just completing the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
But I'm not really sure about what I should do with my coins from the rest of world. Selling or keeping them?
I consider selling them, but then think about their sentimental value to me, as I got a lot of coins from friends and family, who specially kept those coins for me.
So what's your advice about this dilemma?
"For by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing"
-Plato
You should keep it all ! Do not sell !
- or swap with other numismatic fans and try to complete those countries you still collect !
That is my opinion!
To be honest, I've been saying this for a long time. Whenever I go to a coin fair, I think...look at this...coins aren't rare and then I realise that collecting all the coins that ever were and ever will be is impossible.
I have got lots of coins now...and I now have a number of foci, but I am trying to be wiser in what I buy. I need to get a grip on buying coins and then selling some to make money to buy other coins...usually, I buy coins thinking...yes, I'll sell these and then sit on them!
When I stop collecting other world coins, I think I'll keep the lot in a big box. I'll let it stay in my virtual collection. That is the hope anyway!
I think swaps of duplicates and lesser grades would be the right start. I have a similar problem, not nearly 2000 coins, but a couple of large binders that used to be one binder. They are world coins, from which I've removed any lesser grade, lesser quality, duplicates and certain types of metal. For the metal types, I've started a separate binder for older and copper coins and a separate binder for my zinc, iron and steel coins. The downsizing keeps getting harder, because most of the coins are in XF-UNC grades. They aren't worth an awful lot and the sentimental value is huge. So many of them have been acquired by me personally, from change, every time I/we travelled somewhere over the last 28 years. Some are from the trips of grandparents, friends and other relatives. It's hard to discard a coin, that puts you or someone you know in a certain place in time. The less sentimental and trivial eBay purchases, are all in exceptional condition (AU-BU), making it very difficult to get rid of them for no real reason. I think I'll continue trying, but won't be able to show much progress past this stage. In other words, eventually, my two binders will become three. I do not think that my swaps and occasional ebay purchases will diminish, probably the opposite.
I have almost listed all my doublicates in my swaplist, and I think I will throw my not-double Chinese and Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian, (...) coins in the list as well. I think I keep doing this until I found out that there are no worldcoins left to swap with!
"For by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing"
-Plato
