Sometimes I see people in various places ask about how to become a coin dealer, what it takes, etc on various forums. I guess maybe it is the desire to combine something they enjoy as a hobby with their livelihood.

At first blush, it seems kind of neat to me in some ways but I just don't think it would be for me when I really think about it. Every time I think it might be fun, I think of dealing with customers and such. I am sure many of us have heard the stories of people going into a shop thinking they have found a million dollar coin and they get irate. The ones who think the delaer is always trying to rip them off. The haggling. And on and on. Then there is the fact that you actually have to sell coins (somehting I have a hard time doing Buying...now I am a master at. ).

I think for me, being a dealer would also take some of the enjoyment out of the hobby if I had to look at it as a business.

'Vest Pocket' of occasional seller might be kind of fun but I don't think I would be able to handle full time or store owner.

So what do you think?

Obviously this doesn't apply to those of you who already are dealers but feel free to answer "Do you like being a coin dealer?"

I think it would a fun thing but I would have to be retired. No way I could spend the time needed and work a full time job too. I would probably just do the "Coin Show" circuit and not a "Brick-&-Motar" shop. Too much overhead.

One drawback for me is I'd have a hard time selling the better coins. (Always the collector)

I'm with you Stu.

But I wouldn't mind working for a dealer PT. That would be fun, educational and maybe I could get some deals.

Sure thing I wouldn't mind giving it a thought, but I guess I would fear of starting costs and sometimes horrible cases like coin robbery can happen :/

You know, you might be able to get some neat coin, but often, you can't just keep every single one of them because you don't have that much of a capital to being with and to maintain :/

That might just be fun! I wish I would have had that opportunity as a youngster. Maybe when I am retired. It would be a lot more fun than being a Walmart Greeter, I think.

I spoke with one of the local "Show" dealers about what he collects and I was surprised when he said he doesn't collect anything any longer...everything was for sale. He collected years ago, sold it all and has been selling/trading ever since.

His hobby changed from collecting to dealing.

I remember a reading something by a famous dealer (I think it was B. Max Mehl) who, when asked what he collected, said that he didn't collect anything because you couldn't collect and be a dealer at the same time. That may not be 100% accurate but I can see collecting being a difficult thing if you were a full time dealer.

I found out I was ruining my jewelry business by trying to sell coins part time. Coin dealing would be way too much for me to handle as a full time profession, I think. You have the people who won't even try to learn anything about coins wanting you to pay them MS60 book value for their aG coins who get huffy when you tell them what the coins are worth in the grades they have.

You have the people who buy a coin, take it home and scrub it with silver polish, then want to sell it back to you for what they paid. You get the ones who regard anyone in business for themselves as crooks, and those who think you should stand and talk to them and ignore the paying customers crowding around your cases.

I just sold off the inventory of common US coins last Sunday because I'm too busy with my regular business to devote the time to it. I'm also tired of flea marketing which was the venue in which I was conducting my little coin business.

Nah, I don't think I'd want to be a coin dealer. It's fun hoarding and acquiring and selling off my excess, but I can do that without trying to run a part time coin business.

I wouldn't ever want to be a coin dealer. I have personally known several whom have wished they had done something else in life.

No. I guess I'm technically a vest pocket dealer, but the selling's mostly because either my tastes changed, or I had to buy multiples or a group of coins to get one I wanted. There's way too much to deal with.

Nope, don't think I could do it. I have a hard enough time letting myself sell off my doubles. I'd rather give stuff away.

Is there a line forming somewhere?

Generally in the contest thread.

Sounds like similar advice that was given to Tony Montana in Scarface; albeit not in terms of collecting.

same here ... being a coin dealer sounds too much like work to me, and i'm glad to leave work at the office.

imho, it's definitely much easier to buy.

I would never be a full time dealer I would say I do it part time though, selling off coins/currency I don't collect in favor of buying coins/currency that I do collect.

I think you could deal in one area (say US coins) and collect somehting very different (Hunnic imitations of Sasanian coinage) and be O.K. You just can't collect things your customers like because you will sell those pieces.

I think there is a definite issue of temperament and then there is the time/money/skill side. On the first point I am more like a dealer. I tend to get bored with any given coin or set of coins over time. Selling and then buying new ones is much more fun. I also like to do research to pique my interest.

By now I've sold coins part time and online (mainly ancient Sasanian) for many years. I've gotten to the point where I can make some small profit but never enough to live by. There's a lot to learn in dealing and it's a lot of time and effort. The competition is pretty stiff as well. So now I'm working on my coin value web sites plus I will add some of my other content as well.

First off, from first hand experience as I gave it a try a few years back, one can not be a dealer and a collector at the same time. No matter how hard you try one interferes with the other. Secondly I found that ANYONE can sell coins all the time, as long as there are collectors frequenting your place of business but BUYING coins is where the problems arose. Finding quality coins to sell is really tough as most collectors, after acquiring key date or semi-keys, are not in the market to sell for years. Buying coins took me out of the business very quickly and I have been content to be a die hard collector ever since. Dealing has head aches one can't imagine and tying money up in coins that NEVER sell is not a real profitable past time. All I managed to do in that year and a half is sell off key dates that are almost impossible to locate and purchase. I really hurt my collection with that little enterprise and won't ever do it again. Dealers can not collect and really do need a lot of capital to do it right. No more dealing for me!

I've known many dealers for many yeas and the majority said [paraphrased] that collecting what you dealing is bad for both the collection and the dealing. One cannot make the proper business dealings with items that one has an emotional tie. One wants to keep the goodies for the collection which makes the business suffer.

So, usually, their collecting urge is solved non-numismatically, or in an area of numismatics that is not a part of the dealer's business. IIRC, Q. David Bowers collects coin operated nickelodeons from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I sell stuff in order to buy other stuff. I trade stuff for other stuff. When my collection can support itself, it doesn't subtract from my 'necessaries'. Occasionally, my collection has been useful in making my 'necessaries', such as utilities and rent.

What I really collect is information and friends. No one can steal these from me. I can lose them, but only through my neglect of them.

My immediately previous post was written before I looked further down in the posts and saw that QDB collects Statehood Quarters...

Oh, well, so much for pontificating...

I think you are still ok. I doubt he (or ANR) sells many State Quarters.

I belive MS70s are condition rarities

I agree. Being a coin dealer would be pretty fun but I could only do it if I was retired. Meeting new people and seeing coins for the first time (say in a trade) is exciting to me. Just going to a coin shop is fun enough, I could only imagine if I owned it.

No i wouldn't. I think there are two kinds of people in this world, natural 'buyers' and natural 'sellers', some people are naturally inclined to buy things (they think nothing to selling), others are natural sellers (even when they buy something they've already figured out the right price and how to sell it at a profit, these people generally don't like spending money).

As it stands i'm a natural buyer. I don't get much joy out of having money in the bank, i get more of a kick out of spending it. Actually i like spending it more than i like getting it.

Me a coin dealer, i'd be bankrupt within a fortnight.

Remember the age old saying, "don't mix business and pleasure".

I beg to differ!!! I make more than my friends who work at supermarkets, and I have lots of fun with Kirschnotes.

I see there is some consensus here. However, is it not true that many collector are really dealers? Do we not all buy and sell? And when we buy, are we not fully conscious of value? Yes, it is a hobby. Yes, to get the one you need you will pay "anything." But, really, you will not. At some level, you could spend your coin money on any other hobby or on no hobby. This is an economic decision.

We commonly say that there are businesses with employees and the employees are consumers who are tallied as households.

I say that this is socialist propaganda from public, tax-funded, governmentalist schooling.

I say that in reality, we are all in business. We sell our labor, mostly, but truly all goods are just services. You could build your own car. But it might not be a very good car and you might not have a lot of fun doing it. So, you hire the service of car-building from other people. Service is the basis of business.

That applies to coin dealing. The coin dealer serves as a middleman, a conduit between buyer and seller. We could do without dealers, if we could all be in complete communication with each other -- and we are! ebay has worked a miracle in making it possible for anyone to sell anything. eBay is a service, of course.

But there is more to it than that. And we know that. Authentication and attribution are additional services that dealers provide. Recommendations are a special kind of knowledge that dealers have. "I see you like Large Cents. Do you own Newcomb? You do! Great! Do you have the book on 1801 2 3?" The coin dealer provides the service of nuturing your hobby.

We do these things for each other for free. We could do them for pay.
I would say that for all the headaches and heartaches of going fulltime as a professional -- and there is no argument on that -- just about every collector is a dealer.

Would you want to be a numismatic writer? We write for free. Here I am -- but I get paid, elsewhere, also. I say that anyone who comes online to chat about coins is a numismatic writer.

Yes i Do like Selling Coins And banknotes Helps me Learn About The types of Coins

Now i'm A Small Time Dealer Selling Low to Mid grade Coins Nothing Like The MS-60's and Above

I agree with Mr. Marotta in the sense that as we buy or sell, we are technically "dealers." However, he alludes to an even more important aspect of our numismatic business relationships, in that there are broadly two types of dealers. The first type I would label traders, as they exist mainly to buy or sell coins from inventory. They provide a convenience, as you can liquidate coins quickly (although perhaps not at the best prices) and you can usually buy quickly (even if it's a major rarity, there is likely a trader that has one). These dealers truly are "middlemen" who are there to make the trade. I would also put many auction houses in this camp. The second type of dealer is really more of a numismatic consultant. They do more than buy or sell, but often have deep relationships with their clients. They build up trust, and get to know exactly what interests you. They can recommend books or other resources to enhance your hobby experience, and they know the exact type of coin you are looking for, so when they find it, they know it will find a home quickly. For both types of dealers, you can probably make further distinctions, dealers specializing in types of coins, bullion, certified, raw, you name it. But in generally I would guess that most dealers fit in either of the two categories.

Now, back to the question at hand, would I want to be a dealer? Not in the traditional sense. I certainly wouldn't want to own and maintain a retail location, but I could see myself doing some shows, or perhaps having an internet based coin business. That is one area no one said much about in this thread. With the advent of the internet, it would be much easier to launch a mail order type business, where customers could peruse your inventory on a web page or "eBay store" and you don't have the hassles and expense of a physical location. To me, that might be the ideal way to go if I wanted to be a dealer. The problem would still be acquiring inventory to stock the online store, but that might be overcome with local inventory from shows, or even putting an ad in a local paper to buy collections. Once acquired, an online outlet brings the world to your store everyday! Of course I am probably looking at this too simplistically, but then again, I'm not a dealer!

Many good points!

Anyone here can be a part time dealer by selling and buying coins, but to become a full time dealer might be another story. Honestly, I don't know how full time dealers manage to buy and sell enough coins that will nett in enough cash as compared to an average worker in any field and be able to pay the taxes etc.

I guess that's a real good reason why dealers only pay approximately 40-70% of the real market value... or they can't possibly afford their own expenses.