MYCOLLECT SOCIAL NETWORK LAUNCHED

MyCollect™, a new social network for coin collectors has launched. Founded and operated by collectors and for collectors, it combines the best interactive features of the hobby and trade, such as informative message boards and set registries, but eliminates the algorithm problems often encountered with such platforms as Facebook.

The website (www.mycollect.com) is free of charge. Among the many features are competitive sets of all U.S. coin series, the ability to post publicly or only privately to selected friends, and TheftCheck™, the most extensive and timely searchable database of stolen certified coins, explained Ian Russell, founder of MyCollect and president of GreatCollections in Irvine, California.

We have five enjoyable and educational goals for everyone in the hobby: connecting, interacting, learning, collecting, and competing in a safe environment run by collectors. Also, the registry section is not limited to one certification service, so participants can add any or all of their PCGS, NGC, and CACG-certified coins to their inventory and MyCollect Sets, Russell stated.

This is going to be a game changer. MyCollect is going to be a great tool for collectors and dealers alike, stated Kenny Duncan, Jr., chief numismatist at U.S. Coins and Jewelry in Houston, Texas who was given an early look at the platform.

Within the first hours of operations on July 10, 2023, hundreds of accounts were created and messages posted, and over $250 million in rare coins were added for visitors to see in the MyCollect Sets section. The sets include the Elite Collection of Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles featuring the world's most valuable rare coin, a 1933 Double Eagle that sold at auction for $18.9 million.

The big names like Facebook and Instagram are at a disadvantage as they do not have vital coin or collectibles knowledge, and their frustrating algorithms are criticized for not permitting users to always see all of their friends' posts in real time. MyCollect is 100 percent owned and operated by collectors with the long-term vision to help grow the hobby and marketplace. We have plans to add dozens of other collectibles categories worldwide, said Russell

One important feature, TheftCheck, is a tool the coin market has wanted and needed for over a decade. By entering a PCGS, NGC, or CACG certification number, you can instantly confirm if a coin has been reported stolen, he explained.

The TheftCheck database is managed by former Texas Police Chief Doug Davis, founder of the Numismatic Crime Information Center. He will be entering theft reports on behalf of dealers, collectors, insurance companies, and law enforcement agencies.

In addition to collector user-friendly features, dealers and auction houses will be able to use the MyCollect and TheftCheck application programming interface (API).

It's been an immense amount of fun building MyCollect with our team. We added features that help collectors and will continue to add more, said Russell.

Visitors to the American Numismatic Association 2023 Pittsburgh World's Fair of Money® can see demonstrations of MyCollect at table 1200, August 8-12, in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The first interview about MyCollect and demonstrations of the platform's many features were recently conducted in Houston, Texas for the Coin Shop Podcast hosted by Kenny Duncan, Jr. and Matthew Duncan.

This will be an interesting experiment. I don't collect slabbed coins myself, but most people do these days, and the uniformity and standardization provided by third-party grading services create a solid framework to build upon. The grading sites are like the Facebooks of the world, making it easy to get in, hard to get out, and impossible to reference or import data from or about competing grading services, as if they didn't exist. But they do exist and collectors need a universal platform encompassing all services.

Creating and maintaining an index mapping competing services onto a common framework is difficult and expensive - likely why it hasn't been done before. At the Newman Numismatic Portal we considered the idea but decided against it. Getting this right will be a key to MyCollect's success.

Another key is the "cold start" problem - new users want to dive right in. If there's "no there there" and the site looks like a ghost town, users get discouraged. Prepopulating collection information is a start. Users also don't want to have to manually enter countless items from their own collections, a data-entry nightmare. If they've already entered their data on other platforms, there needs to be an easy export/import feature. But as noted, other platforms aren't going to make that easy.

There have been multiple attempts at online systems for collectors, going all the way back to the CENTS system Joe Lepcyzk created on a mainframe computer back in the 1980s and John Sallay's NeoCollect in the 2000s. Perhaps this third try in the 2020s is a charm. -Editor

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
NEW WEB SITE: NEOCOLLECT.COM (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v12n08a04.html) To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
USER REVIEW: NEOCOLLECT.COM (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v12n14a16.html)