Future Of Coin Collecting

Interesting question!

We had this discussion at our coins club last month. Some saw it spiralling downwards, others thought that it would always be strong.

I see a slow decline over time. There will always be collectors of high quality older stuff, but as we become cashless, it will become something more exotic, rather than part of your day to day life.

On the other hand, it has never been so easy to get material.

The 20 year olds today who are still collecting may have everything they could possibly want at bargain prices.

I collect Chinese coins/paper, the market will always be strong. 1 billion people, and it keeps growing.

An interesting comparison could be made with stamp collecting. 40 or 50 years ago, postage stamps were in daily use and there was a commercial need for countries to produce large numbers of stamps of different designs. Most countries' postal administrations had a fairly modest output of commemorative stamps, say 4 or 5 sets per year, and these stamps were commonly seen in genuine postal use. A few countries, like Bhutan, Equatorial Guinea, Grenada, San Marino and various Arab states flouted this convention and issued hundreds of different stamps every year, but serious collectors generally ignored these countries and didn't take them seriously.

Today the actual need for postage stamps has declined dramatically. An average person might need one or two in a week. In most countries, various forms of stamped labels have reduced the need for high value parcel stamps. Yet far more different stamps are being issued than ever before, and at far higher prices. The hobby does seem to be surviving, but it's changing: few collectors now try to collect all stamps from their country. Thematic collecting, which was previously rather looked down on by serious collectors, is now taken very seriously. And classic old stamps continue to increase in value, while modern issues are often hard to re-sell even for face value.

One problem - already mentioned with GR58 in relation to video games - is that the variety of things for youngsters to do has increased dramatically, and the cost of new technology has come down. Back in the early 1970s the British Post Office issued four or five commemorative sets of stamps a year, and I could buy two sets of stamps for the cost of a 45 rpm pop single. Today there are about ten or twelve sets a year, and I could download several .mp3 pop singles for the cost of one set!

As the usage of plastic for money increases, so does the need for coins. Even now I seldom use cash. My Son has a business and hardly ever uses cash since the use of credit and debit cards gets him a great paper trail of what is spent. I forsee in the near future coins and paper currency fading away. And since coin collecting is dependent on availability, this hobby is sort of at a close end.

This subject constantly comes up, not just occasionally.

In 1965 as I sat in the coin shop looking through the weeks junk coins, the old timers were constantly complaining of no new blood and coin collecting was in it's final decline.

In the 1977 when I went to the shows, I heard the same comments. If you looked around the room you could see plenty of people under 30 and more than one dad with there son and/or daughters along.

In 1985 when TPG's began to be a recognized force you could not talk about coins without someone seeing the introduction of TPG's as the last step before "real" collectors would exit the doors in droves.

In 1989 when TPG's had artificially forced the price of coins into the stratosphere (and also because many major players had hoarded such areas as high grade commemoratives) the market suddenly crashed when those hoarders started dumping them, all at once. Every show, every conversation, every article all predicted that this was the end of coin collecting.

I could go on and on an on. The bottom line to me is pretty simple. If you are giving reasons why coin collecting is now in it's last days you can be proud of being included in a long line of incorrect predictions.

Right here on CCF a poll that was taken as to member ages had the 30 year old range as the HIGHEST percentage.

If coin collecting is dead, please PM me with your list for sale, and I'll happily offer you cheap prices so you don't have to worry about the crash that's coming.

Oh...you don't want to sell for cheap prices? Neither is anyone else.

If coin collecting is dying, why do prices continue to rise on GOOD quality coins? I'm not talking about common garbage, but about decent material. Why can't I steal it on ebay if collecting is dead?

Get real, people. Coin collecting is stronger RIGHT NOW than it has ever been EVER.

I feel that the short and medium term, collecting will be rather stable. In the long term, if the general interest in history continues to decline, the values of our collections will go down with it. I find so few youth who care about the past; literally couldn't even tell me where their ancestors are from and are confused why I'd bother asking with something so unimportantly trivial.

I moved this to the Main forum for a wider audience.

I think that the number of collectors is dramatically declining. A couple of months ago, I have been to a local coin club meeting in Berlin. After some minutes an elderly man approached me (in my mid-20s) and asked if I was lost.

According to the tool Google Trends, in February 2016 the search volume for the term 'coin collecting' was only 9 % of the volume for the same term as in January 2004. Of course, this might be explained by the fact that more and more people get online and look for other stuff but it could as well serve as an indicator for the decline of this beautiful hobby.

Best