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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 3358435, member: 15588&quot;]Probably the best way to find out if the ANA works for you is to join for a year and find out. As others have already said, $28 doesn&#039;t exactly qualify as a financial risk.</p><p><br /></p><p>I joined about 4 years ago and my experience has been mixed. <i>The Numismatist</i> does often include fascinating articles, but they rarely apply to my interests or level of collecting. It reminded me a little of when I read &quot;The Space Shuttle Operator&#039;s Manual&quot; a number of years ago - it was utterly fascinating to read about how to operate the Space Shuttle, but I&#039;m never going to actually get a chance to do so. Articles about billionaires buying $300,000 coins for their enormous collections makes me feel a little the same way. Interesting, but it doesn&#039;t apply to me at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>The magazine&#039;s auction ads and listings often feature five and six-figure coins that I wouldn&#039;t buy even if I had the money. I also agree that the entire enterprise does seem geared more towards the high-end dealer than the average collector. As for the focus on youth, it&#039;s similar to the McDonald&#039;s effect: hook them when they&#039;re young so you can sell to them when they become adults. It works. All of that is more or less okay as long as you know what to expect. But do realize that the agenda around increasing interest in the hobby has quite a bit to do with increasing the number of people that dealers can sell to. If people stop buying coins, they go out of business. It&#039;s very much worth their time and money to keep the hobby going. Again, that&#039;s fine as long as one&#039;s fully aware of what they&#039;re getting into, which is a business like any other.</p><p><br /></p><p>The ANA also gets criticized for their focus on American coinage, but they are the &quot;American Numismatic Association,&quot; after all, though I agree that more information on non-American coins would make the organization a lot more interesting.</p><p><br /></p><p>After 4 years of membership I find myself reading <i>The Numismatist</i> less and less and I seem to get less and less out of the organization because I&#039;m just an average collector with not too much stake in the coin game. I did visit the Money Museum and saw the impressive library and the rarities on display. It was all very nice and interesting. I even attended a seminar. Yet, after all of that, I&#039;m still not sure if I will continue my membership when it expires sometime this year. I don&#039;t think the ANA is directed at people like me, which is fine, but there is no obligation to the hobby or coinage or anything to be a member. One can still play a healthy role in this hobby without joining. It&#039;s up to you.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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