On 18 May 2006 17:34:27 -0700, "
wrote:

Bruce Remick wrote:
...
I do consider myself more a collector, but with these mint packaged sets,
there's not much cause to ever open the box and look again once you've made the
initial ogle/error/defect check. Unless you plan to sell, and I never expect
to. Any other collectors feel "guilty" about this?

It is the lot of the coin collector -- to own but not enjoy. Many
collectors even forget what they have in the collection.

Anita

I guess I would qualify as a "used to be" collector. My dad died in
January of this year and in his will I got his coins. The interesting
thing is that all his coins, with just a few exceptions, were coins
that I had given him over the years. Buffalo dollars, proof sets,
gold soverigns and stuff like that. It meant something to me but I
found that he just stuck it in a box and probably never looked at it
again after I gave it to him. Since it meant nothing to him, it has
made me relook at how and why I collect stuff. It's kind of like
having an OCD disorder or something like that, the drive to accumulate
and collect. I looked at all that I had collected, be it coins,
stamps, baseball cards, comics, trains, guns, etc, etc, etc and
realized that the drive was in getting the item, either because it
caught my eye or was something I was after at the time. Now I realize
that it really didn't matter why, I have a ton of stuff and it really
doesn't mean anything to me. So, I made the decision to stop
collecting, rid myself of a ton of stuff and maybe someone else who
becomes a collector will enjoy it now that I know there is no longer
any joy in any of it for me.

You'll probably see me still bid on this and that, sometimes it's a
compulsion I can't over come and when I win, whatever it is will
ldisappear on my desk for a while and then come back out, I'll wonder
why I have it and away it will go.

I believe my biggest mistake in all this was spending so much time
accumulating material things instead of spending time with the ones I
love and now realize that every minute I missed spending with them in
pursuit of someting else is a minute I'll never get to spend with them
again.

The family gets smaller as the years go by.
Cliff