Not sure what you mean by "how big." According to an article in the Orange County Register in 2006, the "collectible coin and currency" market in the U.S. is a $15 billion industry. Before the state quarters were released, I have hearsay information that the Director of the Mint estimated there were 2 million coin collectors in the United States. Does this help?
2 million collectors of coins is rather on the low side I suspect. Considering there are over 300,000,000 people in the USA, Even only 1% would exceed that and with all the latest hype from the Mint, newsmedia, TV adds, articles in magazines, etc. I'm sure there are a lot more than only 2 million. Some examples of how large this hobby has become is to just go to Google and type in TPGS. There are about 100 of those grading services now and still more poping up every day. Coin albums, Coin folders, cardboard and plastic flips, plastic rolls for coins and lots, lots more storage type devices are also poping up all over the place by newer organizations all the time. If there was only 2 million collectors out there, I think most of them were at the last coin show I was at. Sure was growded.
if you actually counted all people who make a type set collection ,series collection (such as the state quarter program by putting in those state quarters maps) and bullion coin collectors, also the truely hard core collectors which would be to insert any of the veteran collectors on this website and also simply anyone that just in the public that collects $2 bills and half dollars cause if the urban legend that are not made anymore :bigeyes: I bet we could be looking at a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 ratio to the population of the usa.
I'm sure there are plenty more than 2 million today. That's why I made the distinction of "before the state quarters were released." The population of collectors has certainly grown, both as a function of increased population and the popularity of the new series. How much, though, I cannot speculate.
I'm sure you're right, Carl. $15 billion / 2 million = $7,500 average per year per collector. That's way, way high. If it's really a $15 billion industry, there must be way more than 2 million collectors.
I'm not sure what you mean by "industry". The first thing to clarify is this : "industry" connotes ALL activity directly related to numismatics. It certainly is NOT restricted to the gross sales of the coins themselves. Rather, it includes much more, including but not limited to sales of supplies and materials of all kinds, including books and magazines salaries of all sorts of folks such as publishers, photographers, clerks and staff at coin shops / auction houses The guys who mix margaritas. Dealers love 'em.
You forget that that 15 billion also includes all the back and forth buying and selling between dealers and dealers with collectors. That will lower the spending per collector considerably. Personally I think 2 million is a pretty good estimate, and a whole lot better than the Mints current claim of 147 million.
According to the HSN and who would argue with them, we have over 100 million people collecting the state quarters. Depending on the definition of collector, we must have more than a 100 million people collecting at least one series of coins.
That's what it boils down to. We're comparing apples and oranges. What information would be the most valuable for the OP here to know? I could believe there's around 5 to 10 million serious, dedicated collectors. These would be people who think about coins daily, are well educated in coins, think nothing of buying a coin for $100 or more on a regular basis, subscribe to publications, talk on forums, have purchased several hundred dollars or more in supplies alone, etc.... Now, do you lump those people in with the people who are only concerned with completing a state quarter set from circulation, who otherwise never think about the hobby? Or somebody who has a stash of circulated Kennedy halves or common date wheat cents? There's obviously a big difference here as to the true impact different groups would have on the hobby. How general is the term 'colletor'?
The value of the annual coin business will only partially be covered by the serious collectors. My guess is that the serious collectors are only 25% of the total. I would also question the definition of "serious". My definition is most likely different from someone else's definition. Furthermore, some of the less serious collectors will most likely become the future's serious collectors, barring a total collapse of the coin hobby.
I think you are basically just saying that every Numismatist is a collector, but every collector is not a Numismatist I think since they are just looking for a the maximum answer of collectors, including the Numismatist, Hoarders, and even the people that just threw together a quarter set all count towards that maximum number.
I wonder how coin compares to other hobbies like stamp, curriencies, etc. I imagine coin is the larger one.
You are very, very seriously over-estimating. The coin mag with the largest subscription base there is is Coin World, and they only have 100,000 subscribers. The next largest has under 30,000 and more than half of them subscribe to Coin World as well. Even David Bowers only estimates that there are at best 1.5 million coin collectors such as you describe.
I went back to this thread evaluating what everybody said about the size would stack up against the recent Lincoln 2009 set. Seems like if we assume 1.5 million coin collectors (some serious and others are drive by serious) and the mint sold 55,000 of this limited time set, with some buyers getting multiples to flip, that maybe 1.5 is too much. Anyhow that's just my 2 lincoln cents of an opinion. Also why does the mint chose 55,000? is there some magic to that?
