לא יותר מ - 1000$ בחודש...בד"כ
? טוב, הכותר בטח גרמה לכם להכנס. יש בעיקרון מספר אסטרטגיות איסוף - ואני מתכוון לא לאוסף של דברים חינמיים למיניהם - מבלי לזלזל בהם או באוספיהם. בתחום העיקרי שלי - מדליות ועיטורים מברה"מ - הפריטים שחסרים לי מתחילים ב - 500 דולר (הזולים מאוד) ומגיעים בקלות ל 100,000 דולר. אז מה? אכין תקציב קניות ואקנה עיטור פעם בכמה שנים? לא! הכל תלוי בשאלה עד כמה אני רוצה את הפריט, והאם זו הזדמנות טובה. המחירים בתחום עולים כל הזמן, ופריטים שיכולתי לקנות לפני שנתיים שלוש - אוכל לקנות היום רק אם אמכור את המכוניות שלי. (האמיתיות, לא הדגמים...). אני מצטט כאן מתוך אתר האספנים של עיטורים מברה"מ: The best advice I ever got when I was starting out (ca. 1965) was, in the first few years, to set aside 80% of your collecting budget for reference materials, books, subscriptions, and so on. (I must admit to having a problem with that advice: even after all these years I do not know what the term "collecting budget" means!) Every year, shift 5% of your "budget" from books to medals, but never let the "reference" category drop below 15% (even as your budget grows). The second best advice was, once you have "been at it" for a couple of years and have some knowledge, experience, and scars, keep in mind that the common stuff will always be around, but the "once in a lifetime" item probably is just that and will accelerate in price (and way out of your reach) faster than the common material. Go for one $2000 item (even if that is your whole annual medal budget!) rather than twenty $50 items. At about the same time, you'll need to find a focus, for, like it or not, you can't buy everything. But bear in mind (a) that your focus is likely to change over time and (b) that you'll always have a "magpie" tendancy (that, after all, is part of the fun in all this). Checking off boxes in a checklist may be OK at the beginning, but it needs to be replaced by something more sophisticated. Many have alluded to this process. Personally, I have never sold any medals from my collection, but I have traded a few. In each and every case, it was agonizing, but I rationalised that my interests had shifted, so "I don't need that". Can we be honest: we don't collect things we "need", we collect things we want! Never have I ever traded an item away that I didn't come later to regret that and, in some cases, I have bought them back, feeling like a dunce. Research, research, research and knowledge, knowledge, knowledge is what sets us and the real joy of what we do apart from someone who collects hubcaps. (Not to denigrate their knowledge, but . . . .) Never forget that this is not about an investment, but about fun and history.