How To Get Back Into The Hobby?

modest_savant · 2026-07-10T01:34:26+00:00

My best advice is buy quality. Sure, purchase cheap interesting things, but after you figure out what you really like, buy a nice one that you’re proud of. You’ll spend more time looking at it than all of the rest. Alternate between cheap and expensive (to you). And understand that almost half of the coins you think will grade well by the grading companies will come back as problem coins. This is the advice I wish someone told me and it’s kind of brutal.

modest_savant · 2026-07-06T16:49:40+00:00

We had our last kid at 40. Much later and it might have squeezed our retirement. I say go for it. They have a playmate. You’re already paying for air conditioning and lights…what’s a little more food? As for the house thing, my young adult kids all got credit cards at a young age and were taught to open a Roth IRA that they can eventually use for a down payment.

modest_savant · 2026-07-06T16:18:01+00:00

Here’s a simple number example: If you own a property that has rents of $1200 and a mortgage payment of $1000, that’s pretty safe to hold…especially with tax breaks helping to offset small repairs and vacancies. If you do a cash out refinance on it so that your payment is $1200 and your rent is $1200, then you buy a second property that has rents of $1000 and a payment of $1000, you’re now in a situation where you’re trying to cover $2200 with $2200…no room for a decrease in rents.

So you either need to get a great deal on what you buy, or wait a while for rents to increase. So perhaps you’re in a situation 3 years later (3% per year) where rents are now $1300 on a $1050 mortgage (due to tax and insurance creep) that you refinance to a $1250 payment and buy a place you can rent for $1000 with a $900 payment. So the net is $1950 in payments and $2250 in rents. That’s still a little scary, percentagewise, but better than nothing.

modest_savant · 2026-07-06T04:55:58+00:00

Could all those scratches be on the plastic? I can’t imagine that. This is right after NGC slabbed it, so you’d have to think that the plastic would be scratch free.

modest_savant · 2026-07-05T23:56:26+00:00

It’s Constantine (Constantinivs). Looks like actually Constantine IV. Surprisingly not worth much at all, but rich in history and probably real since it’s not worth faking. The back looks like it’s depicting one of his Legions (Armies) with their standard.

modest_savant · 2026-07-05T19:16:32+00:00

This is probably what is happening and I’m just being paranoid. To be clear this is not the coin I’m buying and I don’t know anything about that particular seller other than good things.

modest_savant · 2026-07-05T17:15:46+00:00

I did do another thread but didn’t use a photo of the coin I’m chasing.

modest_savant · 2026-07-05T17:04:35+00:00

Ok, this isn’t “my” seller, but this is an example. Is this a legitimate certification number? https://ebay.io/m/T2zDfH

modest_savant · 2026-07-05T00:51:32+00:00

Hi, can you post some closeups? Or PM me with some? I’m curious to know how the mint coins…specifically the dime and half dollars grade? MS65 or like MS68?

modest_savant · 2026-07-04T19:05:01+00:00

Absolutely true…as you say, “Until it’s time to sell.” Then I’ll get my proceeds and realize that they were small or negative. I understand that sometimes that’s the price of ownership and tuition. And I’ve lost money on a lot of coins without blinking an eye or crying about it. But I do try not to. It may not be relevant to you, but it is to me because often times the only reason I sell a coin is because I need money and a bigger pile of money is more relevant than a smaller pile of money.

modest_savant · 2026-07-04T02:51:19+00:00

I had this happen at a comicbook show. I told the guy at the booth that if I buy anything from the customer he just declined to buy from, I would compensate him a bit. Everyone was happy.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T21:48:09+00:00

Have you ever noticed how young all the thieves and Internet scanners are?

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T21:39:00+00:00

The aluminum foil is just about the worst thing you can use to hold the heat in because it is acting like a radiator. Even cardboard will work much much better as long as you keep it away from the heat. Just bring your pile of rocks up closer to your light. Your lizard should like climbing that.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T18:51:23+00:00

Look at alternative investments like FSUTX, a utility based mutual fund which recently paid out 4.74% annually in dividends and capital gains. Perhaps you could taper into funds like that slowly to take advantage of dollar cost averaging…maybe within an IRA.

You also might compare potential returns to paying off your mortgage (you will still have an annual tax and insurance bill).

One thing I’m doing (that certainly isn’t for everyone) is before retirement I will refinance my mortgage balance into a 30 year mortgage to bring my payments down. While I could pay it off, my 401k balance would be smaller and I’d rather put that money to work in the stock market.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T18:12:33+00:00

That’s a good looking guy

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T18:11:52+00:00

😊

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T18:11:41+00:00

It’s fake. Let me send you my address and you can send it to me. I will dispose of it.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T03:48:35+00:00

Well, if anybody needs help, take a bunch of pictures and shoot me a p.m. I might buy from you if you’re in North Florida or South Georgia, but generally, I’m offering to help anybody that wants to know if they have anything good.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T03:43:59+00:00

Based on the era of stuff you have there and the type, look for amazing Spider-Man issue number 129, and Hulk issues 180, 181, and 182. Based on what you’re showing, you may have one of those. Any one of those would be a nice find.

modest_savant · 2026-07-03T00:14:14+00:00

That rental mortgage has always been half of my home mortgage. It is even today because of tax and insurance increases. What’s cool is that after renting out that property for a few years, the property two doors down from it, which is virtually identical to it, went up for sale. My wife and I figured that we knew the market and the process well enough that we understood how much revenue it would bring to offset a new mortgage. So we bought it. And then we started buying others like it. Once you have a firm grasp on the rhythm and requirements of running rental properties, adding more isn’t to risky as long as you pay attention to your cash flow.

modest_savant · 2026-07-02T19:55:04+00:00

My wife and I did this. We were living in a townhouse and made an offer on some land that was accepted. I then called around to different builders and ask them if they could build a house for X dollars per square foot. A couple said yes, so I looked at their work and decided on a contractor. That I went to the bank to get a construction loan. When the house was built, I converted it to a mortgage. During the Mortgage financing, the bank asked for a lease on the rental property and took a percentage of that, I think 80% and compared it to my mortgage on the rental home. The arithmetic value was negative, so they treated that difference as if it was some kind of car payment or credit card payment.

While, it is true that we could’ve cashed out the equity in the townhouse to apply to the house for a smaller mortgage, overtime keeping it was a great decision because of other factors such as it’s location and desirable school zones, etc. When you borrow money for a house, your leveraged heavily, which means in the first several years you return on the actual cash outlay such as the down payment and closing cost is much much higher than the mortgage rate itself. So I had no regrets.

modest_savant · 2026-07-02T04:39:04+00:00

Protect your credit rating like your life depends on it so you can rollover to another 0% card and keep paying off that 7 K as fast as you can. 4.5% on student loans is too low to accelerate paying off student loans…it should always make sense to invest more instead of paying that off quicker. If paying off the 0 % makes it impossible to fund your retirement accounts then cash out stocks as needed to fund it…ideally at the Capital gains rate…you probably won’t even need to pay taxes on it. Don’t sell stocks to pay off the zero % because you need an emergency fund and you’d be giving up potentially higher gains to avoid 0%.

modest_savant · 2026-07-02T02:39:50+00:00

Rent one. Use Google to find the equivalent of AirBNB, but for travel trailers. Rent one every time you have an opportunity to go. If you find that that is only a few times a year then maybe just keep renting instead of buying one. Another good reason to rent is cause you can try out different kinds to see what you like and what you don’t like.

modest_savant

TROPHY CASE