Picture yourself back in 1913 (that's the farthest I could get the inflation calculator to go back to) and you have a brand new red shiny
Wheat cent, $0.31 today. Did anyone think to encapsulate it and save it for their great grandchildren thinking it might be worth over $100 later in numismatic value?
It seems as time has gone on, more and more people collect and protect their old coins and the mint sells new mint sets in uncirculated, proof, reverse proof, and silver proof in the hundreds of thousands. Do you think our coins will ever be that valuable 113 years later or will there be so many well preserved examples that they will never appreciate?
Ironically, many mint sets now sell below than what they were issued for at the time they were produced. Would saving a choice coin from the wild in mint-state condition and putting it aside for someone 113 years later be considered pointless?
Just curious what everyone thinks about the hobby as a looong term investment that their descendants could cash in on.