26 Sep
1997
26 Sep
'97
3:24 a.m.
Uncle Roger Wrote:
At 03:17 PM 9/24/97 -0600, you wrote:
^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^
lifetime! Once it gets to this point, it will
cease to be a 'fun'
hobby, and will turn into a commercialized, over-marketed
'investment vehicle'. Coin & Stamp collecting, Baseball cards, and
Not all coin collecting is like that. Certainly, modern US (with the
grading services and all) is like that, but there are still many areas of
numismatics that are still open to hobbiests. Large cents, Fugio Cents (my personal favorite), colonials, canadian, a lot of
foreign, tokens, and so on
^^^^^^^^^
still offer lots of opportunity for learning,
research, and fun, without
being so sanitary and heartless as a lot of such hobbies.
Important note: Buy the book before you buy the coin. Know what you are
doing, or you *will* get burned. (There's a company ala QVC that sells
coins on TV at night -- Things like 3 Susan B. Anthony dollars for $10, when
you can go to the post office and get the exact same thing for $3.)
I think that even if the collecting of original PC's and Imsai's and such
becomes too mainstream, there will still be plenty for the rest of us.
Whoa! Yer talkin' about some high-dollar items there, guy! But really
the point I was trying to make is that 'Vintage Computing' still
belongs to 'us', the hobbyists. I've seen supplies dry up, prices go
up, and overall enjoyment factor go down when a hobby officially
becomes 'a business'. For me, the real draw of 'Vintage Computing'
is that you can get alot of really cool, historic stuff for next to
nothing (Apple I prices notwithstanding, of course ;-).
Last time I priced a Fugio (a fave of mine as well), they seemed
expensive to me. More than I could spend on just a 'hobby'.
That's was about when I called it quits in 1978. The 'hobby' had
become a bit rich for my blood, with even 'common' issues overpriced.
I just don't want Marketing and commercialization to ruin yet another
hobby . . .
Jeff