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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ewomack, post: 3196104, member: 15588&quot;]No one knows the future, of course, and extrapolating from the past to the future doesn&#039;t always work out how one expects. Such future projected ruminations can only involve guesswork.</p><p><br /></p><p>A couple of cultural and economic changes might occur in the next 40 years that could greatly effect the hobby in ways that it has never before seen. If all money becomes electronic - the world is already slowly moving in this direction and it will admittedly take some time - then people will not get exposed to coinage in the way that they used to. Children won&#039;t find wheat pennies or buffalo nickels in change and form a sense of wonder about them. They may only experience change in museums, in antique stores or in movies. What would drive a person who rarely or never uses change to a coin show? It seems like people need exposure to the substance of this hobby to become interested. Limited exposure will likely result in limited number of interested people overall.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for me, I almost never use cash or coin in transactions today. I have probably used tangible cash less than a dozen times in the past 2 years. Receiving change has become a rare novelty that I really enjoy, but the frequency of these events has plummeted.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is my guess: if the above happens, and nobody knows if it will, then numismatics will likely greatly diminish. It will become a specialty hobby like old phones or cameras but continue as an academic pursuit. I don&#039;t think it will disappear completely because plenty of people collect hordes of obsolete things. But once coins stop circulating, assuming they do, it&#039;s hard to imagine interest surging. I have absolutely no idea what this could do to coin values. The extreme rarities will likely always possess upper class distinction as expensive things to own, but the vast mass of commons and easier to obtain coins may become even easier to obtain. It&#039;s hard to say.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another distinction to consider is the much debated and controversial difference between &quot;numismatics&quot; and &quot;coin collecting.&quot; The two terms often mean the same thing in everyday use, but Numismatics also refers to the study of coins rather than their mere acquisition. Coins have a rich cultural history and I don&#039;t see this sense of numismatics disappearing at all. What I&#039;ve said above refers mostly to the concept of coin collecting. Some coin collectors become numismatists and some remain collectors. The vast majority straddle the line between these two senses.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think the hobby will ever vanish, but I have a hard time believing that it will greatly expand in a digital world of increasingly electronic commerce. But, as has happened in the past, the world itself may change in ways we could never expect and alter the entire fabric of how we live.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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