Demise of numismatics

I don't collect stamps, but it is cool to see a letter that was sent from Germany yo Argentina in the 1930s via Zeppelin. Or a cancelled letter from Carson City, Utah Territory - before Nevada was a state in 1864. They actually preserve history better than coins.

 

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Personally, I'm not a fan of the official meetings and whatnot mainly because I don't want to spend my precious time with unyielding old folgies. cough cough

 

We don't have many major national coin shows due to our location - Salt Lake City. There just aren't enough people to make it viable. We have 3 local clubs that are all ANA member clubs with 50 to 70 people coming to monthly meetings. Very active in volunteering the two times we did have an ANA show and put on some of the best local shows in the country. Friends in other states, in New England, the Midwest, mention that their club membership is 10 people or so, and no one wants to help out. And a usual meeting is an auction. We do two auctions a year with 10% of proceeds going to our youth program. So there are other reasons than the ones you listed as to why a major show doesn't come to a neighborhood near you.

 

The US market is much the same. Most of the decreases are in things that are just to readily available at any time with puts some downwards pressure on prices. The great pieces for the grade and the harder to find things are doing just fine even if they did go through some down period when people had less spending money.

Honestly that's just proof that you don't have any idea about the internet market. Registry players aren't even 1 percent of internet buyers. Of those that do participate the majority use it as an organizational tool and a way to share their collections such as the PCGS digital albums. The overwhelming majority of users know they would have to win the lottery to try and approach the number 1 set and would have to try and pry some coins out of it to ever get to it and aren't doing it as a competition.

Sometimes I wonder what came first, collecting or stories that collecting is dying

Which just shows how out of touch some of them are. Many coin shows are dying, there are just simply too many that always insist on having several days during the week and traveling to them isn't free. Weekday shows are fine for people who are retired but the working age crowd can't get there until the weekend if they don't have a family event and pretty much everyone knows it isn't worth going to a show on a Sunday.

People who pay to subscribe to the magazines is also dying as are physical stores in general which are the measurements they use. If you use the wrong measurements like that of course you come to the long conclusions.

If you look at the online market you see a healthy market. There's a reason why collectors of the age which would be considered the future of collecting all say the same thing about the future being alive and well and bright with the online market. Why some people refuse to accept that I do not know. TPGs are doing record numbers, thousands of coins are sold everyday online ect ect, a lot of people have brought up a lot of good points about the large disconnect between the younger generations and people who refuse to accept that collecting is changing

 

It's only fair to both keep in mind and acknowledge the fact that much of what collectors end up buying online still exists as the result of an in-person transaction. Not that this changes or impacts the greater point, though, and it will be interesting to see how things play out (for this hobby) in the long run due to the direction in which it's heading. That said, and based mostly upon personal observations and experiences, I have to agree with Mr. Bellman in that in many (but not all) respects, the hobby is headed down an unfortunate road.

 

That's certainly an interesting way to look at it and one I could agree with. Hubris and/or being blinded by a potential windfall do seem to play a role if not a large role in questionable decisions by people that should know better.

With that said I do think we all have our strengths and weaknesses with what kind of doctoring we are the best at identifying and strengths and weaknesses in grade ranges and series. As collecting has moved from series collecting to more type set/buy what you like the opportunities to try and slip something by someone have remained for the shady type sellers

 

I think the key to coin collecting surviving is Young Numismatists. If people watch the coin shows on TV they are not being exposed to coin collecting, they are being exposed to people trying to make a profit selling coins that are really not collectable. One show, AAN, has gone under and Rick is aiming for the high end collector, and HSN survives because people don't know any better and they have those stretch pays. There are countries out there that survive by pumping out coins and more and more other countries are following suit. Our club focuses on YNs and tries to show them truly collectable coins. Put a Morgan Dollar in their hand and they are amazed that people carried them around in their pocket. Put an ancient into their hands and tell them it's two thousand years old and they stare at it and ask is it really that old?. I think it's the only way to keep the hobby going, at our last show we had a coin hunt for YNs. The vast majority of dealers present participated and it was a great success. The kids that came Saturday told their friends and even more showed up on Sunday. I don't remember who said it, but the quote that the announcement of my demise was premature, I think the same is true for coin and currency collecting.

 

And I don't suppose that could have ANYTHING to do with the way a 20-something collector feels walking for the first time into a room full of 70-year-olds who have known each other for decades?

Especially if some of those more experienced collectors give off a vibe of "anybody born after 1985 is still wet behind the ears"?

 

My single COUNTY once had four coin clubs. It now has only two.

 

I am still fully and fairly lucratively employed and I still go to ALL ANA national shows. All it takes is the commitment to it.

 

In SOME VERY IMPORTANT WAYS, stamp collecting is in BETTER shape than coin collecting is. Competitive exhibiting takes up easily 80% of a major stamp show. The bourse is only the tiny appendage. The 2016 World Stamp Show at the Jacob Javits Center was amaaaaazing. Better than any coin show I've ever been to.

 

Not everyone has that option with their jobs. Not to mention the majority of collectors have families and would rather use their vacation time with them. If the main days of a show are during the work week the show has already set itself up for the main crowd to be older and/or retired. A lot of the demographics that are seen at shows and clubs are self-fulfilling prophecies because that's how things were always done.

 

That's true, but it's more than that - it's the only way I'd ever WANT it to be. The Red Rose Coin Club of Lancaster, PA (a town of just 50ish thousand people) was The Host Club of the 2012 ANA Philly convention, and our typical meeting attendance is juuuuust shy of 100, and we meet TWICE a month. Red Rose (Lancaster) was chosen because Philadelphia (2 million-ish population) had no viable clubs.

That Lancaster club attendance blows even Chicago Coin Club's clean out of the water. It has to be "a thing" and it has to be looked after and strengthened.

 

Which seems to be the prevailing attitude. That's fine, but that also just shows that anything seen at those venues is irrelevant to the future of the hobby

 

And what happens online is irrelevant to me. Why? Too much bad information, that's why. And that INCLUDES this very site.

NOW, if you'll excuse me, I have a 574 lot auction tomorrow morning to prepare for in Ono, Pennsylvania, and there will be NO Internet bidding, and lot viewing begins at 7:00AM, and all but a small handful of the coins have never even been THOUGHT of going to a TPG, ever! And there WILL be four-and-even-five-figure coins. It's okay, @baseball21, we know what we're doing and we can handle it.

"We know a thing or two because we've SEEN a thing or two."

 

Oh come on. If that was really the case you wouldn’t be spending so much time here...online.

 

Maybe you didn't get the memo. I'm a troll. (Actually, I'm learning to write iOS apps, but I have a healthy skepticism of the Internet-this, Internet-that, the Internet will change EVERYTHING butt-stupid meme.) I've been writing code in Assembler since before you were born. For my living? Nope, just to learn. I'm a student of life.

So what have I learned?

I've learned that I've met more complete dopes online than anywhere in "meatspace".

 

Wish I could be there

 

You see, attitudes like this is what causes this view that the hobby is dying. This "old guy" mentality that pushes new blood away from the hobby hurts the hobby. You know nothing about me other than I was born in 1985. But I have over 2 decades of study in this field and passionately love it. I am exceptionally educated and accomplished for someone who is 32 years old but more importantly, I make an effort to invite others to this field and hope to help it grow.

Your behavior does the exact opposite. It pushes people away and is self serving to your prophacy that the field is dying.

You have made multiple comments about my age in this thread alone as a way to somehow undermine my comments...but my age has no relevance here. I have never made any comments to suggest that I am complete numismatist. I try and learn something new everyday and share it with others.

I'm sure you attend a lot more shows than I do...and that's OK. I have a couple jobs, a wife and 2 small children...and I'd rather spend my free time with them than at a coin show with a bunch of stuffy old guys. That doesn't make me or anyone like me less of a numismatist.

 

Its true that people love big coins, as a sort of talisman. Especially if its their birth year.
My dad used to carry an English penny around with his birth year on it, until it was worn smooth, and I got him a replacement.
He never collected though.
When I travel, especially out of the country, I like to take coins as gifts. 40% Kennedys, Eisenhower dollars, even golden dollars, and actual Silver Eagles for friends and family.
Most people are thrilled to get them, even fellow Americans don't recognize them.
But I do believe the hobby is slowly dying. The 50 State Quarters invigorated it, but the govt just had to overdo it. Rising commodity prices helped too, but gold is out of reach for most, and the pricing schemes, with markups of several dollars a coin over melt for silver, plus additional fees for insurance, shipping, etc, you have to be a sharp operator and well heeled enough to buy in large quantities to just break even.