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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2917649, member: 112&quot;]You can find it by opening your eyes and just looking around. In other words the evidence is all around you and always has been. But you do have to have the ability to recognize it when you see it.</p><p><br /></p><p>But what you want is some article or something, some written reference, that corroborates my comment. Well, just suppose I could point one out for ya - what then ? Would your thoughts then be - oh OK, I guess you&#039;re right. Or, would your thoughts be - that doesn&#039;t prove anything, that&#039;s just one person&#039;s opinion and there are a hundred others who disagree. Which way would your thoughts go ?</p><p><br /></p><p>Do you get my point here ? Ya see, what I am trying to get across is that there is no way I can prove anything to you unless you have an open mind and are willing to accept the evidence for what it is. Otherwise you will simply believe whatever it is that you want to believe. And on a subject like this most people already have their minds made up as to what is true is and what isn&#039;t. And no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now I don&#039;t know which way your thoughts run David, which side of the fence you are on. But if you lived through the last 50 years, and you had an open mind as opposed to a preconceived notion, then you would already know what the evidence is because you would have seen it - you would have lived through it. And if you were aware of that evidence then I would have a hard time even imagining how anybody could even ask a question like the one you asked me.</p><p><br /></p><p>But OK, I&#039;ll point a few things out for ya. 50 Years ago, what happened ? The US Mint quit minting Mint Sets because according to them collectors were hoarding all the coins. Now that&#039;s evidence that 50 years ago the hobby was growing, otherwise something like that could not, would not, have happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now let&#039;s move on an additional 20 plus years. In the late 1980s coin collecting had become so popular, grown so much, that Wall St. got involved and started selling investment instruments based on collectible coins. That&#039;s evidence that the hobby had grown even more.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now let&#039;s move on another 10 plus years. In 1999 the State Quarters program began. At first it moved kinda slowly, but withing a few years you could not pick up a magazine, newspaper, or watch the news, or read on the internet - without seeing something about how popular that program was. That&#039;s evidence of how much more the hobby had grown.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now let&#039;s move another 15 years, that brings us to today. And do I really have to point out the evidence available today ? There are literally thousands of numismatic websites - all of them growing and becoming more and more popular. With thousands of people reading each one each and every day. Mint sales are larger than they have ever been. Just one auction house sells 500-600 million dollars worth of coins a year - just 1 of them - and they have been doing so for years. The numbers of coins being slabbed are higher than they ever have been. In the first 15 years of the TPGs only about 20 million had been slabbed. In the last 15 years that number has grown to well over 50 million. </p><p><br /></p><p>All of that, and a whole lot more is evidence that the hobby has been growing by leaps and bounds for at least the last 50 years ! And none of what I have just posted about is a secret. Every single bit of it is well known knowledge. And yet, in this thread there have been those who claim just the opposite - that the hobby is dying. The very title of the thread says it. </p><p><br /></p><p>So I ask you, and everybody else, given the evidence, how could anyone possibly believe that the hobby is dying ? Let alone ask me a question like the one you asked me ?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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