Coins can provide mini-vacations

Everybody needs a vacation. Getting away and recharging the mental and physical batteries is important.

But not everyone has the budget to go on an exotic trek through the Himalayas, or even to relax at a lakeside cottage.

That’s where numismatics comes in. It provides mini-vacations.

The therapeutic value of vacations is to get the mind off work and to get away from an office desk.

This hobby can do both if you will let it.

Focusing on an interesting story in Numismatic News is a sure path to get away from immediate family worries.

Updating your want list, or putting a new acquisition in an album or other permanent location, will soon absorb 100 percent of your mind.

It is pleasant to recall how each coin in a set was acquired and who it was obtained from.

Good buys elicit a deep sense of satisfaction. Ordinary buys fill holes in the album and are also satisfying.

Mistakes might get the blood moving a little quicker, but then if the lessons have been learned, they also become a satisfying memory.

Everyone buys overgraded or overpriced coins. The happy ending of learning from this makes us all stronger to face other life challenges.

Deep careful study of a coin under magnification becomes a world in itself.

Before you know it, you are relaxing.

While everything described so far is sedentary, numismatics can also provide exercise.

Go to a show. Get in the car and show up at a nearby bourse and walk around it a few times.

Sure, this isn’t quality time with a personal trainer, but if you stay away from the expensive and often unhealthy bourse concession stand food, you might find you have gotten your steps in for the day.

A variation on that theme is drive to your favorite coin dealer’s shop. Park a couple of extra blocks away and get your exercise that way.

Numismatics should become a part of your life in as healthy a manner as you can incorporate it.

Your rewards will be a growing collection and short mental reprieves when you need them most.

Had you gone to the American Numismatic Association convention in August in Denver, you could have put a mountain trek on your itinerary there as well.

Numismatics is not a cure all, but it improves the quality of life in so many ways. It might even lower your blood pressure – unless of course you are waiting for a lot to close on eBay that you just have to have. In this case, your blood pressure might just spike. But then you will be glad to go to work.

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