Elaine, I am sure it is no where close to that number 140,000,000. That is half the people in the country. lol. Most of the people i know collect coins just long enough to spend them.
the mint and those coin weiners on tv say its around 140,000,000. If you figure thats everyone who has picked one of the quarters out of change, okay maybe. but if you want serious collectors, say the ANA boasts somewhere in the 32,000-35,000 range in terms of membership, if that is 1% of collectors, serious students all the way to change pickers or kids that save their allowance to hit the local shop once a month I'd say there are about 3 to 3.5 million REAL collectors in the U.S.; with 70% of them only collecting U.S. coinage