Baby boomers

Those billion population markets will be insane once they get to the forefront of numismatics. I guess you're stockpiling the good stuff like I am

 

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As long as Gold has value people will collect Pre-33 gold coins. Interest in those dates should spill over to older silver coinage as well. I will say I wouldn't mind gold returning to early 2000's prices and common $20 Double Eagles back at $400-500 each. I would love to pick up a few rolls.

 

Which studies exactly? I’m not questioning the premise, but I’m sure some of us would be interested to see the data.

 

I don't think you need a study to prove common sense. Boomers were born between 1946 - 1964, meaning they are 54 to 72 years old. You look around the hobby, that is a significant chunk of the coin collecting population - well over half, I would surmise.

 

Even if the world goes to digital currency, you will still find plenty of coins in flea markets and antique shops. Then they will be curiosity items that will spark a revival in collecting for whatever reason.

 

Collecting in general has a couple of big types -- lifelong collectors (can become hoarding) and later-in-life collectors.

Some lifelong collectors collect for investment, and some collect for fads (things with little value to people not in that fad -- beanie babies, wrist bands). But collect they must.

The later-in-life collectors may be looking for a retirement hobby, or they might be be lifelong collector personalities who lacked the time or money when they were younger. They can create weird bubbles in valuation as they collect things to recapture their childhoods (e.g. muscle cars). But people often become more interested in history as they age, and some of them are attracted to items that show the flow of human history.

You can reconcile everyone's opinions above pretty well if you divide coin collecting into types
1. Investment collectors of valuable metals (gold, silver) or rarities (low numbers minted, some error coins and some ancients).
2. Historical interest collectors.
3. Compulsive collectors (fill Whitman books, one coin from every country, 12 Caesars, every Roman emperor, etc.)
4. Recapturing childhood collectors.

My guess is
1. will continue forever since the coins will always have "melt" value or "fine art" value.
2. will continue to revive the hobby a bit as new waves of older folk become interested in history. The supply of historical items is fixed and limited.
3. is hard to say. It used to be you would pick a topic to collect, then wander around to coin shops or coin shows searching for item that matched your topic. Now, you just click on eBay or an auction house or a dealer site, and you could complete most collections in a week with enough money. Now, to get that "thrill of the hunt", you would have to be seeking something very specific. Will those collectors pick coins or something else?
4. will not be much of a factor since Milennials will have little attachment to coins.

So, precious metal coins and fine art coins should stay attractive to those who can afford them, ancient coins should stay attractive to those who value history, coins with something that attracts the collecting urge (state quarters, errors, emperors) should stay mildly attractive, and normal US coins minted in the billions on low value metal should have almost no attraction to those who did not experience them as kids.

 

Then the "good stuff" you are stockpiling better be Chinese or Indian material. Most collectors tend to collect the coins of their own country.

 

You took a couple of swerves there in that last sentence.

First, I don't think there's a big interest in collecting cryptocurrencies. People are getting into them in hopes of profit, except for those using them to avoid real or imagined government surveillance.

And buying into cryptocurrencies, coins, or precious metals is speculation. You're speculating that what you buy today will be worth more tomorrow, and that you can turn that into profit. In reality, since there's overhead when you buy and when you sell, it's already hard to make a profit -- and those values can go down just as easily as they go up. People think they're "investing", but really, it's gambling.

A lot of people are interested in coins as a way to make a profit. But I think more people are interested in them for the same reasons that drive collectors of anything else -- the compulsion to get and have something that's hard to find, or that's beautiful to look at, or that reminds them of their childhood.

We're likely to lose that last motivator over the rest of this century, because I'm pretty sure electronic transactions will take over and drive cash out of circulation. That, if it happens, will have an impact on our hobby -- but it still won't kill it. After all, people still collect ancients that haven't circulated in hundreds or thousands of years.

 

When coins no longer exist, coin collectors will start collecting "CoinStar" machines to see if there is anything left in the reject trays.

 

And yet the recently concluded ANA show in Philadelphia was the best-attended since the 1970's, and there was a literal overabundance of volunteers from coin clubs to do all jobs needed. Even exhibiting was up greatly, and the easy majority of exhibitors were from the tri-state area's numerous coin clubs. They literally had to TURN AWAY people from the ANA banquet and the Sundman Lecture Series luncheon. The ROOMS were full.

Even Cindy Wibiker, from FLORIDA, Farran Zerbe Award winner as Numismatist of the Year, took well-deserved potshots, during her remarks, at Internet numismatics. I literally stood and cheered.

The YN Treasure Trivia RAN OUT OF some prizes for the kids who participate, and the "show bags" ran out by noon on Friday. Philly area schools don't open til after Labor Day, instead of this August stupidity. Most schools do NOT have A/C here.

The Happenings did NOT sing "See You in Mid-August".

Shows and clubs in trouble? Hardly. Not when you know where to put them.

 

It would be interesting if, at the large coin shows, someone does a survey of attendees as to what and why they are collecting. Doing surveys and polls would be a good way to check the health of the sport.

 

Dinosaurs haven't been around for 64 million years but there are many collectors that hunt them for a hobby. Civil war buttons, bullets and belt buckles stopped being made but people still hunt them. Coin roll hunting is simply artifact hunting while sitting on you butt. Someone will always hunt them.

 

"The world itself may change in ways we could never expect and alter the entire fabric of how we live." (ewomack). None of us can know absolutely the future of numismatics. But the internet does it's fair share of increasing interest, not just commercially, but culturally and historically. In such ways, the hobby is invaluable. With Euros, other modern coins will become rarer, which may make them more sought after. I, personally, cannot foresee the day when numismatics becomes extinct, although, as in finances, we will, very likely, continue to have the yo-yo effect. Imponderables is something, in many areas, that we have to live with.

 

Of course, I did not mean that to be a carpet/blanket view Kurt. It's always been tougher in rural areas for all coin collectors. I would need to travel an hour just for a mundane event in Springfield, Ma. at the Dante Club. A two hour round trip for 10 tables would not excite me very much. The few I have been to also included sports cards, ephemera and other kinds of collectibles that watered down the available coins. And it's a 1 1/2 hour round trip just to go to the one coin shop in my area and the guy is more interested in his antiques than waiting on me while I search his coins. There are no coin clubs in my immediate area and I'm really too old and tired to start one at my age.

 

Yes, rural life has always been a fundamentally different matter from urban/suburban life. I call where I came from "rural", but the fact is I could be standing in the middle of Times Square, New York within 2-1/2 hours after helping with an Amish barn raising, and standing on the steps of the United States Mint in about 2 hours.

For all of our time, rural has been different. In the 1950's, it was the difference between the Sears or Penney's catalog and going to the stores. I never bought a single coin by mail order, before the Internet took over. Think about that. Not one! I have ALWAYS been able to, and have preferred to, do business face to face. If I tried to live where I couldn't routinely get to an urban place with the merest of whims, I would probably open a vein.

One other difference - where I lived before, there was NO hardline broadband - no cable, no DSL, no nothing. Three miles farther north, they had Verizon, err no, Comcast cable, and 5 five miles the other way, they had Verizon FiOS fiber optic.

 

And yet it just might be the rural areas that save us. Just think, once hard cash goes away, the only real coins and currency will be out there, where the people who can't make it to coin shows and dealers will still have their own little hoards.

 

If in fact our transactions become totally electronic and coins cease to be minted, scarcity would promote interest. So no, coin collecting and numismatics will always be with us.

 

True, but as it has from the beginning of time, specific areas will rise and fall in popularity.

 

I too grew up a country boy and was reminded of that when I traveled home last week. And as outlandish as it may sound to lifelong city dwellers, electronic commerce is not practical for rural or low income areas. Having had a credit card number stolen years ago, I choose use cash currency for the bulk of my transactions as well. Perhaps years down the road when we are flying our cars to work then cash may become an antiquated idea. But not in mine or my kids lifetimes.