Question For Female Coin Collectors

I asked my wife and she said that coin collecting is too detail oriented, and too chronological... whatever that is. She said stamps would appeal to her more because they are more colorful, but she hasn't collected stamps since she was a teenager.

You aren't imagining it, or experiencing a statistical anomaly. The topic has been raised numerous times before: see here and here for some old polls, and some country-specific discussion in the Canadian and Australian subforums.

There is a cultural, and even geographical, effect in play here. The gender ratio is much closer to parity in Britain, New Zealand and in Western Australia than it is in North America, Europe and eastern Australia.

It's also a self-reinforcing bias. Women are less likely to get into the hobby in the first place, and less likely to persist in it long enough to become a fully-fledged coin collector, if it's perceived as a "guy thing". Once the female ratio drops low enough, the stereotyping can turn to prejudice - for example, if a brick-and-mortar coin dealer hardly ever get serious female coin collectors through their door, they'll assume any woman walking through their door isn't going to be a serious collector.


This is at best only a partial explanation. American coin collecting is very much "detail oriented" (looking for VAMS and such) and "chronological" (seeking completion of date sets). European coin collecting is much less focused on these aspects of the hobby, yet the lack of female participation is just as noticeable in Germany as it is in America.

The TRUTH shall set you free.....I've been told.

I know women are better, in general, at color coordination and decorating. I am an avid insulator collector and cannot believe that something this colorful and bright (think stained glass windows which it seems everyone loves) does not draw more women collectors.

I also find non-Caucasian collectors are rare in the insulator hobby.

Is this the same with coins? I am not around enough coin collectors/shows to know.

And, if so, I wonder what factor it is that makes these ratios a reality if it be coins or insulators?

Many reasons for this. One is the most obvious. When kids are little, most parents tend to involve their kids in either girl or boy stuff. Boys are given guns, tanks, trucks, boats, etc. Girls are given dolls, little people, doll dresses, etc. It all starts there. When it comes to coins, stamps or collecting anything, it is usually a boy that is started with that. Some parents will even take a boy fishing but seldom a girl. Same take a boy hunting with a gun. All such things in a kids past develope them to what they will become and coins are seldom, if ever, given to a girl for a hobby starter. Look around at any hobby type show. How many people bring a girl? Yet if someone does bring a kid, it is usually a boy.
Another factor is a female spends so much time involved in motherly type affairs and men just don't. For example how many men are in a PTA at a school? How many men drive their kids to schools or day care places? How many men shop for food, clothing, school supplies, etc? Women usually do all that which leaves little time for almost any hobby.
Some of those reasons are why you don't see women at coin shows, stamp shows, gun shows, knife shows, boating shows, car shows, etc.
I sometimes wonder if men are afraid to get a girl involved in anything except girl stuff. Hold over from when women were only supposed to cook, raise kids and do the shopping.

I believe there is a strong male bias in overall numbers - however I believe any general prejudice is much less when dealing with ancients collectors. In that particular field I know of quite a few female collectors who have strayed over from either historian or historical art type areas of interest - and are equal to if not vastly superior to male collectors in the same field when it comes to knowledge. And they are highly respected for it too.

I am finding this discussion intriguing. I have several collecting hobbies, and each has a specific gender that dominates.

I resonate with BenByfield's suggestion that traditional gender roles might encourage future breadwinners (boys) to collect money (coins) and future homemakers (girls) to collect decorative figurines (model horses). Within those two hobbies, though, I have found an equal amount of obsessiveness, treasure-hunting mentality, and passion. If a coin collector were to stumble in to a model horse show, he would find it utterly familiar - except for what objects were on the tables and what gender was behind them.

That differentiation doesn't quite explain insulators, though. I collect them because they are beautiful (traditional feminine reason?), and because they are part of the engineering history of our country (traditional masculine reason?). My only guess as to why more women don't is that in the early days of that hobby, collecting involved scaling remote, defunct telegraph poles to gather the insulators. Perhaps that biased the hobby early-on, and it never regained parity.

My husband, by the way, doesn't collect anything, is equally (and cheerfully) bemused by all my collections!