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

Seriously, you see three basic types of coin collecting stories in the general media, none of which help the hobby

1. The sale of some coin at a seven figure price that no average person can relate to or something stupid like the graded nail.

2. Stories about how you can find coins worth thousands in your spare change. (There's been a rash of these from paid-by-the-click web writers.)

3. How the hobby is dying.

We have a powerful message about the hobby to get out as SuperDave pointed out. How to get it out is the dilemma.

 

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Seems like the only news that gets any press is bad news. I agree that all are not conducive to expanding the hobby. As an average person I cannot afford six figure coins let alone seven; nor would I even care to collect a graded nail. Nor have I found that elusive thousand dollar coin in my change.

 

Get it out by supporting and actively participating in local coin clubs and community affairs. Don't throw old magazines and books away, take them there. Often an interesting coin comes to the club's auction, which is somewhat interesting, but if a young person shows strong interest and excitement, we older members let it pass, as that person someday might be important to help keep the hobby going. The local county fair has a collection area for display : quilts, floral arrangments, ceramics, etc. A collection in a cheap blue folder of cents, or inexpensive world or ancient coins get looked at by hundreds of people who might be stimulated to come to a club and bring their children. As species in nature exist only as long as fertile members are alive, so does coin collecting. It takes a little time and effort to go to 1 or 2 meeting a month, but we continue to be 'fertile' by asking others, having a family fall holiday potluck meeting with families and friends!! If you can't attend for health or duty, donate some money or coins for prizes for beginners attending.

If coin collecting dies, as Pogo said 'we have met the enemy and he is us'.

 

There is no "unfavorable" publicity. Good numismatists are hard-edged objective types willing to look past individual data points in favor of a larger picture; that kind will look at a slabbed nail and see, "Boy, this hobby is so big they can turn ridiculous crap into large money, and so detail-oriented that this travesty means something."

If anything, the percentage of the population willing to enter into numismatics, going forward, will lessen. The percentage of the population we reach will do nothing but increase, and it's from those who would never have seen us before where we'll make the gains.

 

As long as money has a value and makes the world go round, the coin hobby will never die. In fact, it's growing if anything.

 

I disagree. When the news media reported that Kevin Lipton was busing in actors to play up the hype for the 2014 gold Kennedy and then reportedly sold one (along with Silvertown) for $100,000 because it was supposedly first one sold (relying on the aforesaid artificial hype he created), I do not think that bode well for numismatics. In my opinion, it looked very slimy at best.

 

Nothing has convinced me that humans, myself included, are capable of learning anything from history, but perhaps the wispy past could provide some clues in this case? I have read a number of theories and prognostications on the downfall of what many people once considered a noble, profitable and downright kingly pursuit: stamp collecting. The downfall of anything, even a hobby, remains difficult to analyze, but usually multiple factors contribute. Stamps seem to have crashed like a thousand mile diameter asteroid smashing into an ocean of pudding. I wasn't around at all for that hobby's heyday, but I've heard at least the following theories about the downfall of those sticky-backs:

-Collectors thought that stamps would appreciate in value, but when they no longer did, many people stampeded away from the hobby
-Too many stamps in general were being produced
-Too much "planned obsolescence" proliferated through thinly veiled "limited edition" sets and issues (C.T.O.s)
-Speculators began to dominate the market, they launched prices into the thermosphere and the inevitable bubble burst when these investors cashed out
-The price of buying stamps from the post office increased rapidly over time and priced many young people out of the hobby; the post office also apparently made it harder for collectors to obtain all varieties - plate blocks grew exponentially in number and became more and more prohibitively expensive
-Larger economic factors contributed, such as 1970s double-digit inflation
-Experienced collectors lost touch with younger collectors and possibly alienated many new collectors (i.e., the hobby became "less kid-friendly" or too "expert oriented")
-Too much emphasis placed on making money and not enough on enjoyment or artistic value
-Only those who could afford the most expensive and rare stamps received any praise or awards for their efforts (i.e., "only the rich need apply")
-In the 1980s, IRAs no longer allowed collectables in savings plans, causing a massive market dump of high quality material
-More prosaically, simple supply and demand conquered. Demand crashed.

And all of this supposedly happened in the 1970s before Ebay and before the internet became a dominant market force. Many people claimed that Ebay caused collectable price increases rather than decreases and that the "real bargains" occurred before Ebay went online.

Whether any of this can be applied to the coin hobby, I don't know. The past rarely dictates the future - which is a simpler and possibly clearer explanation as to why people can't learn from history. Coins do have the ultimate advantage over stamps, though, in that many contain bullion. So perhaps the analogy won't hold water. Perhaps.

One thing that seems to factor in the collapse of anything is a strong belief in inevitability. This almost always leads to disappointment at some time. Examples: "housing prices will always increase." "Rare collectables will always appreciate in value." That word "always" or "it never has" and our stubborn belief in things that seem inevitable always seem to bite us. Hm. You can't always avoid "always." What a bummer. Who made existence so complicated?

 

In addition to counterfeiters,get rid of Coin Spoilers, the guys who take any Coin and clean, there's a guy JORO on ebay selling this stuff all the time. I admit I bought a particular Morgan from him knowing price was too good to be true but my mind wouldn't let me say no to the price I was seeing and was hoping for a Diamond in the Rough. Got coin home and if I didn't know any better it looked like when he was waxing his car he ran his chamois over a bunch of these coins.
Now it's NGC or PCGS only for me.
Oh and Yes Coin Collecting will carry on, I stick with Morgan,Peace,Ike,Kennedy Halfs,Mint Sets - all varieties and of course The ASE's. Once you are where you want to be, it's pick off the ones that are hardest(costly) to acquire and the few annual things from US Mint.

 

Too many collectors do not believe that the HPA and counterfeiting statutes are worthy of their support or application. Some violators are even venerated and have quite a following. If counterfeits "do the hobby in," then collectors have only themselves to blame.

 

Cladking, I thought you were halfway kidding about this:

And then I got this in the mail today inviting me to the annual coin show:

Check out these AWESOME stamps from 40 years ago!

 

I save these stamps when the cancel date is visible on the stamp. I call them anachronistic cancels and wonder if someday they'll have value as such.

 

Coin and stamp collecting are goverened by free markets that really are free. So they don't coddle and reward weakness and stupidity they instead give them a well deserved boot to the head. We'll get what we deserve. No one will be riding over the hill to bail us out and leave gaudy red lip-stick on the boo-boos.

It doesn't have to mean death. It means doing things different. You know, it could help if we didn't invest in crap. It could help if we learned how to grade and authenicate our coins....oh the horror. No wonder it will look like death. What! I can't just buy a pile of crap and be rich by the end next year? The horror.