Events that effected Coin Collecting

I did come accross a hoard of old coins at my parents house when I was a kid when we were doing some rennovations. It was nothing particularly exciting, the oldest coin was a florin from 1922 and a lot of them were just bog-standard old decimal issues from the transfer to decimal coinage in 1971. Still, it was kind of cool....

 

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The invention and wide-spread availability of the metal detector increased the number of ancient coins found. As did the fall of the Iron Curtain. (Bosporan coins were RARE before!)

 

Where it all began, at least here in the USA--the Mint Act of 1792.

 

Why? You think no one collected colonials? And a lot of collectors in the US in the 1800's actually tended to collect ancients. US coins were considere too new and "unimportant". In fact when the ANS was founded in 1858 it concentrated almost exclusively on ancient or medieval coinages and very little on US coinage. Even today US coins are not a major subject for them.

 

The introduction of US Silver & Gold Bullion in 1986. (and I second TopCat)

 

The introduction of the euro cash. And as for coins from elsewhere, I think that the Polish 2 zl collector coins have influenced collecting, the US state quarters (already mentioned here) and, generally, every change to a currency "setup" that follows a major political change ...

Christian

 

Two more I think is the great silver melt of 1979-80. And the Internet.

We are still just beginning to realize the ramifications of this major coin destruction event.
millions upon millions of silver coins were melted down during that time
when silver prices ran up to $50.00 per ounce. I personally witnessed moving boxes of 40% silver Eisenhower dollars being brought into just one coin shop
not to mention the bags and small boxes of silver coins of all denominations.
Then they were stripped of there various packaging material( Brown Boxes,Blue Packs,Whitman books and such)repackaged for shipping and sent to the smelter.
I went to this shop 2-4 times a week to purchase coins for my collection.
Spent many hours at a time in that shop after school. That was just one shop, in one town. This same thing was being repeated in coin shops across the country at the time.
Now with the advantage of having the internet coin collectors can share information immediately across the country and the world.Roll searchers regularly post there finds and those threads are very popular. They regularly post percentages of silver coins being found along with dates and mint marks sometimes. Where as before the internet and the wonderful Coin Talk Forum the exchange of information between collectors took place through the mail and at coin shows. Which leads us to get a better understanding as to true populations of coins. Mintage figures from the U.S. Mint are almost useless for silver coins after such a devastating event. There was a frenzy of melting activity at this time. Dates and mint marks were seldom even looked at.Just the edges for silver content.

This is an example of my thinking using one coin from one series:

1974-S Micro "S" 40% Silver Proof Eisenhower Dollar
Estimated Mintage 10,000

This is a one die coin, which means this variety was produced from one die.
Average mintage from one die in the Eisenhower Proofs is 10,000 before the die had to be replaced. This variety is one that has been discovered recently.
Back in 79-80 nobody new it existed, so to collectors and dealers alike it was just a 1974-S Ike brown box proof. Nothing special At $45.00 an ounce in 79-80 that coin would get someone $14.23 not hard to figure out what a dealer is going to do with that coin.

The price for silver ran up to $50.00 an ounce before it fell.
That is just one example from one coin series. there have been many many discoveries of rare varieties across the board in all series of coins since the availability of the internet and digital photography. we are just starting to really understand how really rare some of these coins are.
It is a very exciting time to be involved in numismatic studies.
When I first started in coin collecting back in 78-79 the discovery of anything was in print publications the information was actually a month or more old before it was spread to the general collecting public.
Now a major find in Texas is known about across the entire planet and collecting public within a 24 hour time span depending on when people enjoy getting on the internet.
How many people knew about the 1974-S Micro "S" Ike?
How many more people know now?
It is largely ignored by the powers that be (Major Coin Magazines and third party grading services) Yet is real,It is rare and it is out there.
The majority of information is shifting to the collector.

Stewart