More than a $10,000 decision

I began coin collecting when I was a kid.

What if on that fateful day my mother had been told that what I was undertaking would cost $10,000?

She probably would have hustled me out of the hobby shop right there and then, leaving the brand-new Whitman folders on the counter.

Happily for me, I was off on the adventure of my life, and no such statement was made to my mother about costs.

We collectors have been having internal discussions about the future of numismatics.

What will bring newcomers in?

Certainly telling them that it will cost a lot of money will not help our cause.

But the statement is true.

In point of fact, I have spent more than $10,000 on coins in the past 50 years.

So many zeroes might be shocking at first, but in the 55 years I have been collecting, that works out to an annual average of $181.81.

In point of fact, I have spent much more of my time in the hobby.

But all those affordable purchases I have made from time to time add up.

Some of those buys have gone way up in value.

Some have plummeted.

On average, though, I am feeling quite happy with my numismatic involvement.

So how about you?

Are you happy with your life choice?

Have you been spending more than $181.81 a year on it? I hope so.

To think I would be limited to less than the cost of a three-coin commemorative coin set each year would have frightened me more than the $10,000 figure would have scared my mother.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."