Not to be Racists but....

you will see a lot of young ladies in the show good looking too but chances are unless you have tons of money they wont even give you a second look the older ladies are nice and kind more often thannot but the younger ones think they are gods gift to the coin show really bugs me as i am always there for serious work

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

We here at our Waynesboro Coin Club have no members of any color other than white and 90% of those are 70+ years old. I dont even recall seeing anyone of color at any of our local coin shows either here in Waynesboro, Chambersburg, PA or Hagerstown, MD. There are plenty of Blacks, Hispanics and Eastern Indians in this area but I guess none that are seriously interested enough to collect regularly.

 

Yea right..lol...we all know you're there to stalk the women....haha

 

thats the problem if you are funny guy people think you are making jokes even when you are dead serious. my dear indianhead if you only knew most sellers recognize me at the shows i cannot let my guard down security or not

 

Yeah, at 20 years old, Im one of the youngest at any coin shows... lol

I see very few women, and very few blacks as well.
I remember at the ANA show, I think I only saw a few (i.e. 2-3) blacks (I was only there 1 day though). And only slightly more women.

 

what worries me is that even at my age i am one of the younges tif not the youngest at any coin shows :

 

Of all the shows that I have gone to, I have never seen any black people at all. A couple of women. And very few kids. Mostly middle age white guys like me. The no kids part scares me. That's the future of our hobby.

 

How old are you spock?

I haven't any black collector's to be honest with you. Actually, I don't know any other collector's other than the one I met at my dealer, (and the dealer himself, lol), and here on cointalk and other forums. So, I don't know, lol.

Phoenix

 

I think you need to factor in the income discrepancy between different races. And you know that does affect how much money one has spare funds for hobbies.

 

If I was living in a country where most of its history was unkind to my race, I don't suppose I'd collect coins of the period given the lack of nostalgia. And not seeing anyone who looked like me in the designs would serve to insulate me from the artistic side of collecting. So for me, its easy to imagine a generalized black perspective on this hobby. To take it even further, a black might see the old US coin as the object most epitomizing the slave trade, since one's ancestor may have been traded for it, if not at least defined in terms of its value.

Perhaps the broader question, though, is what does coin collecting offer, and what is the average youth looking for? I think that they are in general, diametrically opposed. Action, excitement, respect of peers and being the desire of the opposite sex.. coins won't be your avenue to such things, generally.

Unless you're Indiana Jones freeing Atocha finds from the evil Mel Fisher: "Those coins belong in my pocket, ahem, in a museum!"

 

hmm so you dont know any other collectors otherthan the one

 

My kiddies and I must stick out like really sore thumbs at shows, not because of colour, but because we usually jabber in another language. That way we can gripe about stupidly high prices, cleaned coins, ripoffs etc. We only have to be good at Alex Basok's table.

 

Carry around some cheaper but nice Indian head pennies & Buffalo nickles , I often give to young kids of colour or white , with their parents permission hoping it will kindle a little interest in the kids . I always walk away feeling good .
rzage

 

My Grandfather really got me into coin collecting. He grew up with silver dollars and Gold Eagles and he kept them close because the depression.

Im sure he looked at those coins everytime something bad happened and wondered who would buy them if things got worse. But some how he held onto a few of them to share with me.

So... I think it is the up-bringing that you had that starts one collecting. Someone gets you excited and the next thing your doing is hunting for coins or cards or what have you. The African american culture in the early 1900s was well...bad. Very high poverty and so forth, so I think there were less African American's who held onto coins for very long. Coin Collecting to them ment keeping food off the table which in-turn leads to less trickle down the family tree effect.

My opinion anyway. :hail:

 

A Common misconception/ethnocentrism is the thought that black people are impoverished, and have to spend on the necessities, instead extra hobbies. Through history, they have been dealt hard times because of their color, which has definitely hindered and slowed their adaption to this hobby.

But eventually, the African- Americans and the Hispanics of our country are going to be very well presented at coin shows, meetings, etc., but saying that today, that they need to save every cent they make, is just plain ignorance. It's also wrong to say that there are income discrepancies among races. There are plenty of white, middle class families in worse conditions than African-Americans or Hispanics.

The hobby of coin collecting is adapting to the different ethnicities and races, which has a direct relation to the Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama. We are going to see changes in the many years to come, and All i can say is Bring them on, and since this hobby is growing, the variety of people will change as well.

 

Your standards must be really low or you are at the wrong show!

 

Well said greglax45.

 

I resemble that remark!!

 

Oh wait, now I remember, but let's see if you do. I mean, those meds can really do a doozy on you. Lol, sorry about getting off topic, I couldn't resist.

Greg, very well said! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

Phoenix

 

I remember a time back in the late 60's where you never saw black people in the work place, unless they had a mop or broom. In 1969 Nixon signed "Philadephia Order" which extended Affirmative Action beyond the realm of government contracts and into the every day work place. I think was sorely needed at the time. We are only now seeing a large share of black people who grew up middle class, and the number is increasing. My grandparents got off the boat in the 20's and weren't afforded much being from the wrong side of europe, their kids fought a war and took advantage of post war opportunities. Give it a generation and you will start to see more black people "going mainstream" and becoming interested the hobby. This melting pot thing still does work.