Has anyone done a poll on here as far as gender and age goes???

Has anyone done a poll on here as far as gender and age goes???
How many males, how many females, what ages?

I too, as a show owner am very concered about the hobby being mostly men from age 45 to almost dead. (I am in that catagory)!
Truthfully we do see some young folks and females, even some young family's but not a lot. I would estamate our show is attended by men 45 and older at the 70% to 80% range.
Maybe this has been talked about before on here and it's not at all an uncommon concern but I'd like to know what CoinTalk members think.
I'd also be interested in anything that would pull more young persons and ladies to coins - we need that infusion badly.
We as coin collectors owe a certain amount of gratitude to assuring the hobby will continue for others.
How can we do that???
The things I do now are I offer free coins to all children, also free magazines, old coin boards, albums etc. I advertise that same thing and get the shows schedual in front of main stream media. I have given talks to schools and have sent free stuff out to people. I always feel like there is so much more "I could do".

For instance if there was a way on CoinTalk to help the teenages with free coins sent to them if we could.
I think I mentioned this to Peter last winter but my computer went down soon after for the 1st of 5 times this year and it got shelved.
We need to develope a venue through this site to activly help others and there is no good reason why we should not.
Any thoughts???????

 

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Good Question- Male- 48

 

21, male.

Although often times I feel when I walk into a shop, the older guys there must think I have absolutely no experience in numismatics, because I'm so young. I've always wanted to work in a coin shop, but I just wish I was older (and wiser) as some other members on here.

I asked one dealer in a shop what it takes to work there, and I remember him saying "Years and years of grading experience."

Bummer.

 

Don't know if it's been done before, but I'm sure you could start two threads that have polls.

Title one poll: "What's your age" build in some ranges for the choices.

Title the other poll: "What's your gender" and give them a couple of choices.

The local shows I go to are mostly older men too, but when I go on the weekends there are quite a few kids and families, especailly when the show has activities for kids like a treasure hunt, YN auction, etc.

And if you decide to not start a poll, I'm 29, male

 

I'm a 28-year-old male who began my adventure in the hobby at age 11....Long before the youth movement driven in by State quarters!

 

I've heard this issue discussed since I was a 14 year old kid starting to collect. It's not new. It is real. That doesn't mean it should be ignored or that it can be eliminated. I think one should get kids involved, not just in checking dates on pocket change but by helping them to understand the link between history and coins or paper money. Offer to give a presentation at a school or after-school club or to a Girl Scout troop. At some elementary school event (international night, world culture explorations, the name varies but lots of schools will have some such event) give away cheap world coins with the instructions that the kid should try to figure out where it's from. Have a poster-sized map there. Getting free money is nice for a minute but they may get hooked for longer...

Why are there fewer women involved? Collecting by date seems to much less interesting to most female collectors I've known. Not to generalize too much since individual collectors vary regardless of gender, but I've known more women who collect for history or beauty or stories than pure rarity or 'completing a set", etc. It may be coins of 100 countries, images of female rulers, art medals, or some such theme, but if my observation is somewhat generally true, then getting women involved would require different events or PR than a campaign to attract more male collectors. PLus, many men are coming back to collecting after having done it as a kid. Most women I know who collect seem to have started as adults.

 

Male, 19.

I've noticed the same thing out by me, at local coin shows. I would say around 90% fall into the category Ben mentioned (male 45+). I've also felt the same way GoldCoinLover. I feel like sometimes dealers I'm not familiar with think I must know very little just because of my age.

 

I'm a 50 year old male. I started collecting when I was 10 but seriously over the past 10 years. I do believe that older males are probably the largest group to take this hobby seriously. When I was younger, I had many other things distracting me away from collecting. When I was a little older, I was struggling to make money and keep food and shelter over my family. After my daughters went off on their own, I had more spare time to return to collecting and more money to buy coins. I think younger collectors are still out there but may not have the time and/or money yet to be serious collectors.

 

16 male I think I may quit collecting wanna send me some coins to get me back in the game? lol just kidding but yah I only know 1 other person around my age that collects coins

 

Concerned ? Why ?

As far as age is concerned... for many collectors, this sport requires money. It's common for folks to look up when they're in their 40s and have more disposable income. Kids are raised (or well along), college savings has been going on for 20 years and is maturing nicely.

Folks in their 40s often have more time as well. We're well established in our careers and don't have to work the 70-hour weeks anymore, plus the kids are more independent.

Our bodies are slowing down, so slower hobbies like coin collecting are a natural alternative to more physically active pursuits.

It's quite natural for a coin collecting to have more appeal to this age demographic.

Those concerned about "dying off" miss the obvious... as folks leave the "45 - death" bracket, folks enter it as well.

The key is to get youngsters interested. Some, but few, will be avid during early adulthood. More importantly, many will return in their 40s... a common story.

 

Male, 21-26 years old I can be. I'm sure you can get the exact age somewhere but I usually give a range since age is just a number but is something that is heavily judged upon.

 

Male, 46.

I used to run tennis tournaments, and while we could find enough men to compete in the various categories, we always had a hard time finding women, since, as we learned:

(a) they don't like their competition to be publicly visible (gave them distant courts);
(b) there needed to be some sociable aspect (so we gave out chocolate M&Ms);
(c) didn't seem to like the definitiveness of it, the definite "Shirley-is-a-better-player-than-Mary" thing that results from competition.

Mixers and roundrobins worked much better. In my book, sometimes the genders prefer different things, not that that's bad or one is better than the other. So it goes.

 

Interesting the number of young responders on this thread.

 

Sort of as already stated, what difference does it make for a dealer, show owner, shop owner as to the ages of their customers.
How old a customer is should make little difference to a seller of anything. So why not wonder about a customers religion, race, size, location, etc. None of those things really makes a difference in buisness and never should. I've seen this question of age pot up all the time. People that attend coin shows notice the massive amounts of sellers are middle aged and the massive amount of customers are elderly. Also, mostly male.
However, as you notice many of the on line individuals are of a much wider range in ages. And with good reasons too. Many elderly individuals are not computer smart so they stick to real life. The elderly go to shows, shops, etc. Younger people have grown up with the computer age and find everything they need, want, like on the internet.
The very young have a problem getting to a coin show or coin store by themselves. Not old enough to drive. Many younger individuals find thier friends think coin collecting is for Nerds so they try not to publicize these types of hobbies. Many younger people just don't have the money to be a coin collector yet except what they find in change.
Elderly people just don't care what you think about what they collect or do with their money. Elderly people also need something to break the boredom of sitting around waiting for the end so they go to places like coin shows, car shows, gun shows, etc. Great to walk around just looking you know. Elderly people have spent a long, long time making money and now want to have fun and coins are fun to many.
As to the ages at coin shows though, I too noticed the ages of the greatest amount of customers over the years. It is slowly changing a little but still, the manority of customers at shows are males of from about 50 and way, way up.

 

28, Male.
I don't believe you have too much to be concerned about, because boys and teens and young men will always be turning into men from age 45 to almost dead.

 

13-male

In my experience rolling I am one of the youngest, self-driven (not parents collecting for you) collectors. I like talking with the coin dealers at flea markets, they always seem suprised at how much I know !

As for others this young, I've only met them on these forums. I did see a younger boy at the coin shop I go to, but his father seemed to do all the talking. Oh well, another collector in the making I suppose.

 

Easy admin, relax with the attitude, of course I got nothing else

Easy admin, I hope that was not asked with an attitude, of course I got nothing else in mind but promoting the hobby. You probably didn't mean it the way it came across to me when I read it, lets hope for the best, I'm sure you didn't, - all I ever want to do is get folks involved and share knowledge.

 

I'm 24 for a little over a month. I started collecting last year, and I am here to stay. Male, too.

Edited to clarify: I will be 25 in October, I didn't just turn 24.

 

Male/ over 60, but started setting some funny coins aside before I was 10.

Now I have some time to try to sort them out and mix them into the family set-asides that came my way.