Editor’s Note: Long-time collector and former award-winning Chicago broadcaster Donn Pearlman joins COINage as a monthly columnist. He is a recipient of the American Numismatic Association’s Farran Zerbe Award and the Numismatic Literary Guild’s Clemy, the highest honors given by those two organizations.
Missed Opportunities
The old phrase “hindsight is 20/20” is certainly true in numismatics. It’s hard to predict the future, but easy to know what should have been done after something has already happened.
Numismatics is filled with missed opportunities, like saying to yourself, “I should have sold my complete set of 1984 Los Angeles Olympics transit fare tokens before the games started.” Or, “Why didn’t I buy that 1913 Liberty Head nickel in 1967 when it was only $46,000?” Or, “Gee, I sure wish I had $46,000 back in 1967, and come to think of it, I sure wish I had $46,000 stashed in the socks drawer now so I could buy coins.”
One of the few frustrations I have about coin collecting—aside from lacking $46,000 stashed in the socks drawer—involves missed opportunities. Not just looking back at the times when I should have purchased or sold something, but also seeing opportunities that others have missed in the hobby. Here are a few examples.
Read the complete column in the January 2018 issue of COINage.
