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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 4798426, member: 112&quot;]Personally, I don&#039;t think shows are a very good indicator. I say that because many of the younger collectors simply don&#039;t have the money to be able to afford to travel to them. And when it comes to small local shows, there often aren&#039;t all that many younger collectors in the smaller local towns that are even aware the shows are happening.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I can do is tell you what I&#039;ve personally experienced over the past 20 years. In that time I have had dozens of literally young kids seek me out and ask me to help teach them about coins. And several hundred in the their teens, 20s and 30s. I&#039;ve had kid&#039;s parents travel thousands of miles just to bring the kids to shows to meet me and show them around, show them the coins, kids under 10. And then 10, 15 or more years later I&#039;ve received more than a few letters from those same kids, now adults, telling me that they remember those trips, are still collecting coins, and thanking me for the help I gave them over the years. And still today there are a couple dozen collectors ranging in age from their 20&#039;s to mid and late 30s and few older ones too - that I still help with their collections. One of those younger collectors that I taught, helped, mentored, has even become the world&#039;s leading authority on Netherlands gold ducats.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then there&#039;s the forum itself. In the past 5-7 years or so the average age of members has dropped to where it&#039;s in the low 30s. And it&#039;s pretty dang close to 50/50 on male female now. To me that&#039;s the surprise.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;ve had members on this forum as young as 5 when they started. We currently have quite a few under 10, and more teenagers than I care to count. At one point, and I&#039;m going back 15 years, we even a moderator, and dang good one, who was only 16 at the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Given all of that, does that mean things are changing regarding the age of collectors ? I don&#039;t think so, I myself started when I was only 7 - and that was 60 years ago. And we have dozens of members just like me who started that long ago as well, some even longer. There are and always have been youngsters interested in collecting - that&#039;s never changed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Are there more today than there used to be ? Maybe. But I suspect that in years past we simply weren&#039;t aware of how many young collectors there were because communication methods like we have no didn&#039;t exist back then. What I do know is this. The single most often repeated story told by collectors for generations now is that they started as kids, stopped in their teens or 20s - because of life. And then picked it back up again. To me, that alone speaks volumes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coin collecting has been around for as long as there have been coins. I suspect it always will be.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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