CCF Census! (Or: Collector Demographics)

M 25-35, my dad told me that I would get his collection when he would die. So I started my own.

M, 25-35. My late grandfather was the big numismatist in the family and he and I shared the hobby (filling Whitman albums and the likes) when I was young. Every year he would give my sister, my cousins and I mint sets, and at that point it was only a casual interest. We unfortunately lost him a few years ago and his collection was liquidated for estate purposes, but quite by mistake I inherited a chunk of it that had been overlooked. It wasn't his most valuable coins, but it was all of his favorites (2 cent pieces, 3 cent nickels, an old chop-marked 8 reales, etc. etc.), and that got me heavily back into numismatics. Additionally, one of the coins in that lot included a California Gold token he thought was counterfeit, but could never find out. Authenticating that piece (or rather proving that it was a fake) launched my interest in counterfeits. :-) Nowadays counterfeits and coin roll hunting are the foci of my practice of the hobby, and I share those with my wife (same age range) and two daughters (lowest rung of the age ranges).

I'm sure this was the case 100 years ago, before the decimalisations (and other things I assume) of the 1960s and 1970s brought coin collecting into the mainstream.

Anyway, I'm male, and it was a family member that kind of got me into it.

Male. 52. I started with some old hand me downs when I was around 9. Started building cheap commons but in those early years, not many kids had deep pockets. I bought what I could afford, given to me or what I found in change.

I remember getting a one your subscription to Coin Prices in 1974 then losing interest mid high school. I'd rather look at dad's Playboys than Coin Prices. Recently, I got back into the hobby due to my business plus finding some cool stuff with my metal detector. I got bit hard by the coin bug.

One of my fondest memories was sneaking a peak at the coins in my fathers jewelry box. I still have two of those coins. A double headed silver Kennedy and a nickel plated 1941 Lincoln Penny.

Not a rich, stuffy, smoking jacket, pipe smoking, crotchety old dude but I'm working on it

Male 25-35 Started when silver started climbing and I realized my uncle had given me 5oz when I graduated high school in 1999. Ut oh, just aged myself. I thought silver was a way to make money. Still do, but my overall view of silver has dramitically changed. Silver got me into dimes and then dime albums and then the copper price got me starting hoarding pennies and then the ending of the penny got me into the penny album.....and now here we are. 150lbs of copper pennies, 65oz of silver and 2 albums that are 90% done. Wonder what my next project will be?

M 30 up

got started when my dad gave me a Morgan dollar 1903-O UNC in MS63 which he bought in Hawaii way back 1962

Kept it in my cabinet until my elder sister decided it was better melted into a ring which she did when I was abroad for one year

and all was forgiven when she replaced it with the same in EF although at that time I didnt know the difference between a G and a G-wheez

and that's why I collect on world silver crown coins, OFEC, same size as a morgan

Unspecified Gender, 15-25 (turning 24 in November). I just kind of started asking questions about my dad's collection one day, around the time he thought it would be nice to give my brother and me each a bicentennial silver uncirculated set for Xmas (I think that was the occasion). My brother never took to it, so his went back to my dad's collection and I still have mine, although my brother is happy to search his laundry quarters for me for any silver.