Taking the plunge

[declanwmagee]

In 1977, as a nine year old boy, I found an 1873 halfpenny in a stream. It was green and smooth but just legible. I still have it, of course. I gradually built up a British pre-decimal collection, but had still never sold a coin till 2004. Even then, I had no duplicates, so tried to sell my worst coins to finance buying better ones. That doesn't work, of course, and was never going to. So the Pwincess came up with a brainwave - why not buy better examples of the coins you've already got, and then sell the worst? Brilliant. You can see who's got the business head - I'm just a coinie, what do I know?

So, tentative steps at first - started selling on eBay (I know, I know, but nothing touches it for exposure), set up an eBay shop, started paying a few bills with PayPal, started cutting down on the amount of time we had to spend labouring for money (I mean really labouring - farm work, building sites, etc), and now here's the thing - in a couple of weeks we're going to live in an old bus and really try to survive on this hobby that started with that 1873 halfpenny.

Can it be done? We'll keep you posted - it's a brave experiment...

[Chris Perkins]

Unless you have decent capital it's very difficult.

I am self sufficient in 'coins' but couldn't survive on just the coins themselves (mainly because sourcing them is hard where I am), hence I publish a range of books and sell a good number of accessories. All coin related, but still not all that easy and very much a full time job for all the daylight hours at least!

[Hussulo]

It is a brave move, I wish you the best of luck.

I think most dealers I've seen are already retired and have a pension therefore any money make from the sale of coins is an added bonus. To do it full time with no other income is a risky move but sometimes it does work, and I hope it does for the both of you.

[declanwmagee]

Unless you have decent capital it's very difficult.

I am self sufficient in 'coins' but couldn't survive on just the coins themselves (mainly because sourcing them is hard where I am), hence I publish a range of books and sell a good number of accessories. All coin related, but still not all that easy and very much a full time job for all the daylight hours at least!

Thanks for the reply, Chris.

It's been quite a gradual process for us. Over the past couple of years, the coins have made up a greater proportion of our income - not because the income from the coins is increasing massively, but after a few occasions where we came in from a hard days work only to find that we'd earned more from the coins that day than we had from the hard labour, we had to sit up and take notice. The universe points you in the right direction sometimes.

We came to realise that I didn't HAVE to spend eight hours a day bent over a pickaxe, and frankly, we're not getting any younger and won't be able to for much longer! So we deliberately started cutting back on hard labour, deliberately started cutting back on our day-to-day overheads too, and started skimming off from the coins to pay a few bills, and it seems to be working.

We still haven't managed to persuade our local petrol station to take our PayPal but we're working on it!

We don't have huge ambitions, really. We don't fancy having a bricks and mortar business - even the term "business" is over-egging it a bit. We just fancy living in our old bus, growing our own food, building up our "pension fund" (the coins) and skimming off what little cash we need from it, whenever we need to.

we won't know till we try it, and the thing about dreams is that they'll always remain dreams if you don't give 'em a go.

all the best

Declan & Suze

[Red Riley]

It's probably not the best time to start, but if you do go ahead, then I wish you all the best. I bought a couple of coins from you for the grading guide, and thought your service and grading were both excellent. So you've got my vote!