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Message:: [QUOTE="GoldFinger1969, post: 4038185, member: 73489"]As someone who has belonged to one of the largest and most active astronomy clubs for 20+ years, I can say that people do leave the hobby and have dust collect on their scopes.  But it's much less prevalent nowadays since the inclusion of electronics into telescopes makes finding objects that much easier. Counterfeiting is the #1 threat to numismatics, IMO.  If you bought a $1,000 telescope and found out it was a klunker without lenses or guidance controls...or if you bought season tickets to a local baseball club and found out that the tickets were only good for admittance through the 3rd inning.....you'd dump those interests pretty quickly. Counterfeits are an EXISTENTIAL threat to coin collecting. They destroy people's passion for the hobby which ultimately is the reason that 99.9% of us do it (the other 0.1% are smart enough to make a living off it or make lots of money off the collections).  They also wipe out large sums of money right away. An overgraded coin by 1 or 2 numbers or a surge in product from the U.S. Mint may be an annoyance or hard lession learned...but it won't destroy the hobby.[/QUOTE]