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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3859498, member: 27832&quot;]I don&#039;t know what to think about demographics.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the one hand, we have a lot of aging collectors whose collections will soon be returning to the market.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, we&#039;ve <i>always</i> had a lot of aging collectors. Collecting has always been weighted toward the folks who&#039;ve had enough time to accumulate some discretionary funds, and <i>have</i> enough time (due to retirement) to devote it to the hobby. As older collectors die off, younger people get older, and move into the hobby.</p><p><br /></p><p>Back on the first hand, it really <i>isn&#039;t</i> like the old days, when collectible stuff was still circulating. Nearly <i>every</i> circulating coin is minted in the billions, and a &quot;rarity&quot; like the 2009-P nickel or dime has a mintage of <i>only</i> forty or fifty MILLION.</p><p><br /></p><p>Back to the other hand, you have the &quot;close AM&quot; Lincoln varieties, various inconsequential (to me) chips and gouges and outright illicit die modifications on state quarters -- and YouTube, to convince people riches might already be lurking in their pockets.</p><p><br /></p><p>To me, though, the biggest shift is that <i>people are losing interest in cash as a part of daily life</i>. It&#039;s now quicker and easier to pay with a card or a phone than to pay with cash. For illegal or private transactions, or in disadvantaged communities, cash is still king -- but not <i>coins</i>, I&#039;d think; only paper money, and probably mostly in larger denominations. Coins haven&#039;t kept up with inflation, and cents and nickels are hardly worth <i>anyone&#039;s</i> time at this point.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sure, people still collect ancient coins and foreign coins that don&#039;t circulate locally. But that segment of the collecting community has never been as large as the segment that gets started by looking at pocket change, or by discovering that a dime that looks just like the ones you spend every day is actually worth hundreds of dollars. I think the cashless society is going to shrink our hobby sharply and permanently.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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