When the hobby inevitably dies, who should bear the blame?

1) How can you blame the Mint when it's Congress that dictates coinage?
2) Sportscards never really died as a hobby. Yes, cards from the 80s/90s (which were printed in the billions) never really had much value, but the hobby as a whole is very healthy.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

at the minimum, coinage is still worth face value. Much more than the sports cards paper were printed on.

The Mint still produces bullion coin in ASE/AGEs and Commemmoratives. The bullion has value beyond their stamped face values too.

Thus I don't see US coinage deflating much over time unless bullion prices also crash.

I hope my baseball cards from the 70s aren't worthless. I was going to sell them and retire and buy an island in the Bahamas with the proceeds.

Other hobbies have ebbed and flowed over time. Car collections, paintings, etc all seem to ebb and flow in valuations.

 

Me either.

The hobby is never going to die but old timers have done a great deal to drive off the next generation of collectors. It's not the mint making too many coins as much as bust half collectors telling newbies their collections are worthless modern crap and aren't even true coins.

Ironically the survivors of this hazing have thick skin. There'd be a lot more newbies today and far more newbie bust half collectors if they had all been encouraged. The hobby has done so many things that discourage newbies that instead of looking through their 2017 Redbook they are playing video games. Rather than a trip to the local coin shop they're out looking for the hot new album.

The hobby isn't going to die. It's just undergoing a demographic shift.

 

True coin collectors are never going away...it,s a lifelong passion that,s a part of us, but those who just see the hobby for making a fast buck, there is usually an end in sight. I could go years without ever buying a single coin, but my hobby is etched into me forever. Some others never had the addiction in the first place, so they will come and go with the wind, but for me, it,s till death do we part. Are you in?

 

Amen, brother!

 

To paraphrase the misquoting of Mark Twain, reports of the impending death of coin collecting have been greatly exaggerated.

The urge to collect (anything and everything) is hard wired into the DNA of a large percentage of humankind.

I think the only real risk to coin collecting will arise if/when coinage becomes obsolete. When a 12 year old boy looks at a photo of a coin and asks, "Dad, what's that round metal thing?", then there will be cause for concern.

 

I started collecting in the mid 1950's. Lots of Buffalo nickels and the still occasional Barber quarter, that sort of thing. You could have a great hobby just from some grandparent's change jar. The coin dealers were selling coins graded just VG or XF, even the old Redbooks often gave just those two grades. When I started teaching high school in the 1960's every junior and senior high school had a coin club. What changed? I must admit I became annoyed at the change from collecting interesting numismatic material when collecting coins went from a hobby to a major investment field. The minutest differences in grading changed a $20 coin to a $90 coin and darned if I could or was interested in telling one from the other. The rapid rise in prices drove the kids right out of the market. Once coins went from interesting hobby to smart investment (and for many it became neither) I backed off and though I collected historical coins for my history classes, numismatics receded into the background as other less competitive hobbies kicked in. In other words, when collecting coins went from an interesting hobby to an investing business it lost me, and I suspect a lot of others. PS. What kept me in the hobby at all was going into Ancients where interest seemed to trump profiting.

 

It may fizzle for a while but it will never die.

 

In my humble opinion, I think some commenters may be mixing apples and oranges in this thread in regards to coin collecting and coin investing. I am a coin collector and know of other collectors that are very passionate about the hobby of coin collecting. They may have a niche that they collect in (ancients, moderns, commemoratives, US silver, etc.) and they study coins in that niche and become very knowledgeable and have built impressive collections. Some have never sold or traded a coin, some only collect circulated coins, and a wide array of other approaches are used by others to build their collections . I know of others that collect out of habit and know very little about the coins they collect. They may have a jar that they put coins of interest in over the years. My point is that collectors will always collect regardless of trends, outliers, or other market influencers. The collectors I have been privileged to know could care less which "way" their hobby may be trending but they do remain passionate about their hobby.

 

True, the only way the hobby will fully die is if the entire world makes owning coins illegal. But with the number of collectors out there, I doubt that will ever happen. It may go down to 5 collectors, but those collectors will make sure to pass on the trait.

Sent from my A463BG using Tapatalk

 

The hobby will have its ups and down, but it won't go away. Older coins are durable, fairly readily identified and authenticated antiquities. For those whose interest is in older coins (pre-WWII), there is relatively little to worry about. Although occasional hoards may surface, the number of these antiquities is well fixed. World population and wealth are growing. The average age of folks in wealthier countries is increasing too. Older people have the time, money and interest for involvement with history and antiquities. Folks are not likely to desist in their desire to have bits of history, so over the long run, truly rare coins will increase in value. Rare coins may or may not keep pace with inflation, but the collector market will always be there.

A lot of collectability hinges on perception of rarity and historical significance. Beauty and composition are also important. In numismatics, over a run of a few centuries, mainstream money (i.e. issued by governments for use in commerce) has generally been more collectible than privately issued, non-precious-metal coins or coins not intended for commerce (commemoratives, etc.). I think this is due to the historical significance issue. One can imagine historical figures or just plain folks (maybe an ancestor) owning and using mainstream coins. Not so with patterns or commemoratives. Compare most early 20th century commemorative prices with rare mainstream issues of the same era. Example: Arkansas or Oregon commems (most mintages 10K or less) vs early Walkers (mintages in the 100,000s or millions). As another example, mint state 1989-CC Morgans are valued more than many patterns created in the same decade even though the patterns are far rarer.

In the last half century, coinage has changed worldwide. Mainstream coins have become non-precious metal with mintages routinely in the billions. Precious metal coins are in the realms of bullion and commemoratives, both produced to generate profits for governments rather than for commerce. Hard to say what the collectability of any of these will be in coming decades and centuries. There may be little interest for quite a while until some become truly rare through attrition. It's also hard to predict whether mainstream coins (base metal) will be more collectible than commemorative and bullion coins (precious metal). Coins minted in the last few decades will probably see little numismatic appreciation (separate from melt value) for many decades to come. There will be exceptions and bursting bubbles.

Although there will be fluctuations, interest (= value) in older rare coins is likely to increase with time. Viva numismatica!

Cal

 

So stamp collecting has declined, right? What has happened to all of the stamp collections and stamp store inventories that existed before the "decline"? Have they been thrown in the trash?

 

Yes. Exactly.

And about ten years after the end of coin production the hobby will change dramatically and most prices will be sharply lower.

I don't believe this event is in the foreseeable future but do believe it could get into the foreseeable future fairly quickly compared to most such massive changes.

 

Most of it is used by coin dealers to send letters and packages.

Someday there won't be much left but you can still get it at a sharp discount to face value.

 

If the entire world make coins illegal, there would still be coin collectors.

Maybe even more so than now.

I use tons of postage from the 1930's on up for shipping packages and mailing letters. I cover all my boxes totally with stamps. Most of this "scrap" goes for about 60% of face. Currently, I am paying 55%.

 

You must be joking. Who sends letters anymore? Who uses stamps on packages? I'm actually serious here. I doubt I use more than 4 stamps a year.

 

Comparing coin collecting with stamp collecting, IMHO, is a non-starter.

 

I'm not even sure what you're saying here.

 

A lot of coin dealers, especially mail order, send out a great deal of mail. There are still collectors who buy, sell, and trade by mail and using old stamps helps defray costs a little.

I send out some packages just covered in stamps but I might not replace them when I run out. The post office never bats an eye when they see them and I get packages like this as well. I got one large box once completely covered in 4c stamps from a major US dealer. Coin shows often have stamp dealers who are selling these. I imagine there are still millions and millions of common stamps available for less than face dating all the way back to the 1930's.

 

I don't think the hobby will ever completely die out. As long as there are physical coins to collect the hobby will continue. The number of collectors may dwindle but whoever is left will collect, from circulating coins, if dealers are no longer around. Foreign coins could also be a source of coins for collectors if, for some reason, America no longer used coins.

The hard part is attracting new collectors. I started collecting in the early 90's. I was in my early 20's and the internet was not as robust as it is now. I started on my own and was mostly unaware of the larger coin collecting community. So I did not have much guidance. I made mistakes that I'm sure others had already made but definitely was a good learning experience.

Unfortunately no one in my family, that is younger, is into coin collecting and probably a similar situation for others. Going to be a tough nut to crack in figuring out how to attract young collectors.