What happened to coppercoins.com

[corroded]

I don't use paypal. I would send a check or money order. I really don't want to
use my credit card since it is for emergencies as to when something breaks down
and we need money quickly. To donate to this site, I can send donation via
another member/user who will probably know where to send it to right person.

[coppercoins]

I agree with Brad that my site is worth every dollar spent on it. I have received hundreds of messages over the years from collectors who have found it to be an invaluable resource for their collecting needs, which is exactly why I started it.

Back when I started the site, however, the forecast for what it would eventually be was a LOT smaller than what it has turned out to be. I had also planned to have it completed by 2001...and it's still not complete. Missed that mark by a little, eh? Anyhow, it started as an $8.95 per month hosting space site with 45Mb of disk space to use. Now it has its own VPS with a 100Gb hard drive under the hood and costs over $100 a month to run. I now understand why sites charge money for admission.

Anyhow, although worth every dime I've put into it, I simply cannot afford it on my own. Bottom line. I chose to make numismatics and numismatic photography and art my business back in 2004 and stepped away from a corporate job to work in coins full time. Nobody held a gun to my head and forced that move, I chose it on my own. Unfortunately with things being so slow in coins at the moment, making a living selling inexpensive coins and purveying information about coins isn't the hottest income generator around.

As an aside, I have also rather recently incurred huge expenses to move from Florida back to Missouri and lost the second household source of income a few months later when my wife moved into her own house. To add to that, my son asked that I fight to keep him when he came to visit this summer, so I now owe an attorney a very hefty sum, and have my son to feed and clothe. Things are just expensive, and the business I run was originally geared to be one of two incomes for this house...not the sole form of income. Things just catch up, ya know?

[jcuve]

Chuck:
I would hate to see Coppercoins.com go the pay route, but maybe that is the only option. As a suggestion, you could try a simple formula where you provide the first 5-10 listings per year and mintmark for free and have the expanded listings cost a nominal fee (of lets say $5 or $10 for a calendar year). You would likely generate some needed funds and also cut down on bandwidth used as there would certainly be fewer overall visits.

If it doesn't work because collectors feel alienated and thus won't join, you can end it or if $5 isn't enough raise it to $10 (or whatever seems necessary) the following year.

You might also try selling some of your coins on eBay where you can generate additional interest in Coppercoins.com and your Lincoln cent store. You would have to charge more for each coin to balance out the fees and maybe only list coins with a minimum value but a lot of others do it successfully.

[fugnchill]

Hi Chuck,

I was admiring your artwork again when this topic started and am going to purchase some of them. I was curious if you already have them drawn up or do I place an order? If the latter is true, then I wanted to give you a heads up. Beautiful work by the way. I really like the Augustus Saint Gaudens, Longacre and of course V.D.B.

Thanks again,
Lestrrr

[JeanK]

Hi Chuck and LCRers,

Yesterday I spoke with my hubby about the costs incurred in keeping his website, The Steel Guitar Forum, online. He started this site for steel guitar players and musicians before the internet began, in the era of the 'Bulletin Board', or 'BBS' as it was known.
He has since made it into a world wide website where people talk about music and their instruments, where they can buy or sell instruments, and all without any outside advertising. His cost above and beyond any computer equipment and utilities to maintain the site is at $800.00 per month. Fortunately his membership is world wide and the members are so grateful for the forum that donations come in regularly.
He now requires new members to mail in or 'paypal' a one time non-refundable membership fee of $5.00. This fee is waived if the new member orders any products
from the site with the value of $10.00 or more.

No matter how you look at it, any website, even a small one, is expensive to run.
If you take into account the cost of the server space you will need to rent, and the equipment and utilities to keep the website running, it isn't always affordable.

A small donation from the website users can help a great deal in keeping LCR, coppercoins, traildies, and others online.

Thanks for listening,
Jean

[mustbebob]

I don't need to caveat anything Chuck has said. Times have been rough for a lot of us recently, but Chuck has taken a harder hit it seems to me. The work that goes into keeping coppercoins up and running is a labor of love...especially for me. You needn't worry about coppercoins going anywhere. As things get better (and they will), we will update the site. The domain fees will be paid, whether by me or Chuck, or by donation. The attributions will continue. (Kinda makes you giggle about the guy who complained $3 was too much for an attribution huh?)
You folks are the reason why Chuck and I do what we do for coppercoins. You are also the reason why folks like Billy, John and James do what they do for their sites. We are all one big happy family...aren't we??

[coppercoins]

Fugnchill - When you buy my art work, you are buying signed, numbered, limited edition prints - not original drawings. They sold for over a thousand dollars each a couple of years ago. All I even have is prints to enjoy.

[hasfam]

I was actually eyeballing Chuck's art work the other day and since we are moving out of our apt and into a house in a couple of weeks...and, I get a desgnated coin area...not a whole room mind you, just a nice large area of the den... I was thinking the print of the Victor David Brenner art work would go great in there.

Rock