Why do you collect coins?

Aside from nostalgia, this is utter nonsense! A 5-10 year old child is perfectly capable of appreciating art, enjoying the thrill of a hobby, and most certainly of possessing an appreciation for history. Just because not all will or do, this is no way means they're incapable, or that there's any contradiction in said claims.

 

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No? I've got two boys in that age group - 5 & 7 years old.
Hobbies: Judo, swimming, soccer, skateboard, reading, music, piano, coins, etc.
Art: they paint pictures every day and sometime visit a museum with their school/Kindergarten
History: they know a lot for their age (WW2, etc.)
Nostalgy: okay, maybe that's a new one for them ;-)

 

I became interest in coins back when I was five. I was drawn to them because of the designs (art) and their age (History). Over fifty years later that still hasn't changed.

 

I got started in numismatics late in life, just over 40. I knew about inflation and hard money as a teen from reading conservative political materials; and in 1971, I bought my first sovereign. But I never could get into the numismatics per se. It was 20 years later that two things happened.

(1) My company was preparing for a trade show. I wrote up a suggestion to the marketing department that we make tokens good for one dollar toward an installation of a work cell. The work cells cost $100,000 and above and the trade show attendance for the previous year was like 10,000. So, I figured that no one was going to gather them all up and cash them in for a free work cell.

Also, my other point was that we all clear out our desks of unwanted business cards. No one throws out money. If our business cards are coins with value, people will hang on to them longer.

Well, they turned me down.

But, to get information, I joined MichTAMS, MSNS, and the ANA.

(2) Coin dealer Patrick Heller had two teenage daughters about my daughter's age and they worked the conventions as YN pages and he invited my daughter to work a show. (She did that for five years and it ruined her for college. She learned that numismatics requires a ton of knowledge, none of it from school, and you can make a ton of money at it without a college education.) Anyway, dropping her off and picking her up, I walked the bourse and saw that ancients cost no more than US coins. I had started with "classic" American coins, Mercury Dimes, etc., but I knew that they were just copies. I never knew that ancients were so available and interesting.