When the hobby inevitably dies, who should bear the blame?

When coin collecting inevitably goes the way of stamp collecting, sports cards, and Beanie babies, who do you think should bear the blame?

• The U.S. Mint, for flooding the market with unattractive, uninspired, CG-rendered designs commemorating nothing worth commemorating.
• The TPGs, for creating a secondary market in slab labels, for completely failing to address grade inflation, and for generating a market bubble in high-grade moderns.
• The large national dealers, for overmarketing this dreck.

Alternatively, do you think the hobby is on strong footing going forward and, if so, why?

 

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@Volante

What about the cheapskates who want to buy true rarities at coin roll searching prices?

Chris

 

If and when coin collecting ever fizzles down I think the US. Mint is responsible. They have created so many commemorative issues lately and with all the variants. For example the ATB series: you have regular issues, the Proof set, silver proof, 5oz hockey puck, and proof 5 oz. I think the problem with the TPGS, and dealers is a by product of the mint issues. Just my opinion.

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-- I share your disdain for current Mint offerings. A lot of people buy them, though. There are a million and one ways to collect, most of them having nothing to do with current Mint offerings. One can be a busy collector for years without ever looking at the Mint catalogue. Countless collectors do.

The US Mint will not decide the future of the entire hobby.

-- The bubble in high grade moderns, if such a bubble truly exists, will do as all true bubbles do: burst. That will lead those collectors back to classic coins, be it U.S., foreign or ancient, or will drive them out of the hobby.

Either will be an improvement.

Grade inflation will continue to be debated. But if you want to see real "grade inflation" let's get rid of the TPGs and go back to the all-raw system. Don't ever forget why the TPGs came into being in the first place.

The TPG labels are much ado about nothing. If people want to collect them, God bless them.

-- The dealers I deal with don't overmarket the dreck. TV salesmen do. People buying off TV know nothing about collecting and the damage caused when they get the shocking truth upon trying to sell their treasures, albeit sad, won't affect mainstream collecting.

IMHO

 

As a numismatic scholar and collector, if the US Mint disappears tomorrow absolutely nothing will change in my life. I could not possibly care less what they're doing, as my experience is completely involved only in what they did.

There will never not be people like me in numismatics. Perhaps there will come a day when we're the only ones carrying on anything numismatic, but in that case only one subset of the hobby will disappear. The stuff we're interested in already exists, and isn't going anywhere unless there's a mass melting of everything.

We don't care what the Mint is doing. We're interested in Ancients. 18th Century Russian copper. 19th Century US Gold. Thalers. British Colonial coinage. Morgan VAMs. Swiss Shooting Medals. Large Cents. Chinese Cash.

And we now have an unimaginably powerful tool to reach out and educate a worldwide audience about our interests, in real time, allowing the foremost experts on any given topic to interact directly with someone 10,000 miles away.

As long as there are people with a passion for the hobby, there will be another generation of people with a passion for the hobby. It's never been so easy to plant the seed; it'll never be difficult again.

 

Well put!

 

I think the US mint is still a good thing, and they could still be a useful tool,but they need to go about it right. For example cutting down the number of offerings each year. Like in the above example for the ATB series rather than offering a separate Proof set just make them but a regular set. It would make more people become involved with the other issues as well. And also cut back on commerative issues and make them relevant. Come on how big in history is Boys Town? (Note if this is just something I have never heard of forgive me) Whereas the Breast cancer commerative they are doing is great. My thoughts are if the US. Mint would just tighten their belt things would be a bit easier to be another Elisasberg. Rant over.

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I don't know but it's an interesting topic. I hope not. If it does, it will probably be those three, plus other factors. Maybe it's up to us to see that it doesn't happen.

I'm trying to holding up my end of the bargain. I've gotten 2 or 3 folks over the years interested in the coin collecting bug. It wasn't planned, it just happened. My 13 year old nephew and a couple of adults. I showed them my (very modest) collection and you could tell they were hooked by the look in their eyes and the questions they were asking. So it's on firm footing from where I sit.

If each of us inspires 2 or 3 young folks to the hobby, we're should be good to go!......Right?

 

None of the above.

I do wish the US mint would lay off the non-circulating commemoratives, but, as long as they're producing circulating coinage, I'll collect it.

 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the counterfeiters. I've heard of a couple people where their first--and last--coin purchase was from eBay and turned out to be fake.

I wish there was more of an effort to end counterfeiting.

 

That's where reading and learning before buying comes into play. We need to carry that banner.

 

Yes, that could end a new collectors interest in the hobby real fast!

 

My opinion (while being objective as I can) is that the coin collecting hobby will not suffer a collapse like what happened to stamps and sports cards.

1. Coins have intrinsic value (ie face value).

2. Coins are made of metal. Some of these metals have considerable value unlike paper or cardboard of which stamps and sports cards are made from. Precious metals are traded in large exchanges (such as Comex) as commodities. So in essence there will always be at least some interest in coins for their metal.

3. Coins are still used in the economy at large. Pretty much every restaurant or store still has cash registers with change drawers or dispensers. Therefore people, especially young people (like kids and teenagers), still handle coins. As a result they develop nostalgia in their later adult years which tends to lead to collecting.

Whenever the hobby has its next down period (which it most likely will like any other market cycle), I think it will be mostly a result of the economy being in recession. Since most collectors collect as a hobby, when their financial situation worsens they will cut spending on their hobbies. Though I wouldn't be surprised however if some of the more rare or precious metal coins hold value well in a down economy since some investors will hedge or park their cash there.

 

Would like to add that a threat/factor to a decline in the popularity of coin collecting are parents not teaching/showing their children. A young person is more likely to develop an interest in coin collecting if their parent or grandparent collected and taught them how to collect.

So teach the kids about coin collecting!!!

 

who wants to think about this ? not me.

 

It'll be our fault for rolling over.

 

If and when this happens, I'll be dead and gone but I have tried to inspire new collectors to keep it from happening.

 

As a kid I was big in to baseball cards. I watched that hobby ride the bubble all the way to the top and then saw nearly the entire hobby collapse very quickly. Although sports cards have regained some popularity over the years the collector value will never be what it was in the 90's.

Although coin collecting shares some similarities they also have many differences. If anything will bring down coin collecting as a hobby it very well could be the same factors that brought down baseball cards.

First the similarities:

Grading - in my opinion this was the largest factor that impacted the baseball card market. Before grading everyone assumed a card fresh out of the pack was mint. After grading that same card may be worth 1/4 the value because it was not a true mint card. You could make a similar parallel in coins on this one for sure.

Next is the price guides. Anyone who collected sports cards is familiar with Beckett. It was the Bible for all things sports cards. The funny thing about Beckett guides is that the prices only went up up up. This certainly helped drive the frenzy and push prices envelope further and eventually to a bubble. Of course everyone now wanted to know for sure that their card was worth that much and the grading services took off as a result. This does sound a lot like coins... one big difference is that the price guides for sports cards published very little information on production numbers. Coin guides seem to do a much better job.

The third factor was the card companies. They took full advantage of the bubble and produced what seemed to be very rare cards. The problem was they made so many variations and there were so many companies that the there really wasn't much sacristy at all. Just too many companies producing too many cards.
Again, I see a similarities between the US mint and the money hungry sports card companies.

The last nail in the coffin was the internet. Once any Joe could hop on eBay and see all the baseball cards for sale it was easy to see just how many examples of the same card were out there. Coupled by the fact that unless it was a 10 gem mint it has only a fraction of the value, the bubble burst.

When the bubble burst, the hobby went with it. People were just too burned once they realized their collection was worthless. Many collectors started out thinking that if they started as a kid and their mother didn't throw out their cards that at Some point they would have the value of vintage cards. This could just never be the case due to production numbers and grading. People got bored once the reality set in.

One thing to note though is even well after the bubble burst, the real rare vintage cards still maintained their value. They had true scarcity and a much stronger value. With coins this is even more true.

So I could easily see this happening for modern day graded coins where the rarity factor is not the same as older coins. We may even be seeing that bubble build as we speak. But I think for those who stick to rare coins, there will be much less of a risk of the hobby dying. Values will be much more stable and that will keep the drive for people to collect strong enough to see it pass to the next generation.



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There have been counterfeiters for as long as there have been coins. The hobby will survive the current ones. Are some new collectors driven away by them? Sure, but it is also easier today than at any time in the past to avoid being burned if one will do at least a minimum of research PRIOR to buying. Sometimes people are their own worst enemy.