After 5 Years I Went To Another Dfw Coin Show

Thanks for the coin show report. Slabbing coins is good for classical old modern coins in my opinion. But I don't like slabbed ancient coins either. A person can hold an ancient coin without harming it, unless you drop it which I did to a Tiberius denarius years ago, damaged it. It had crystalized on the inside and chipped when it hit the floor, darn.

I think slabbed ancient coins are helpful to those learning, just starting to collect ancients who feel more confident it's not fake. The downside is some pay way too much for slabbed common worn ancients like late Roman bronzes, they don't know better yet.

I haven't gone to a local show in a long, long time... but they're always almost exclusively modern US coins. The same is true of local coin shops, too. I can't really blame the dealers -- they follow the market and what sells.

I've noticed slabs becoming more ubiquitous as well, even among EACers (where I started out years ago). I think this is also a function of following the market and what sells, for better or worse.

The hobby may be relatively healthy, but I often wonder of its future. Coin collectors are gettig older, and younger generations use physical money less and less. In a hypothetical world 100 years from now where all monetary transactions are digital, what will the numismatic hobby look like? Will that MS-67 Morgan still be worth 15x its MS-66 counterpart? Will that classic rarity still sell for seven or eight figures in 2022 dollars? Will globalization bring niche world subfields to the forefront?

I also live in N. Tx. but usually only attend TNA.

Many of the larger EAC dealers (but not all) now have more and more of their higher end (over $1k) coins slabbed
Not only does this make them easier to photograph, catalog and transport, it offers additional security, gives less experienced buyers more confidence, and facilitates trades

Of course, there are still plenty of high end coppers that don't get slabbed. I was able to (carefully) hold a Chain cent last year thanks to Col. Ellsworth
There was also a seller with lots of ancients and hammered medieval coins, none slabbed

Ancients in general are rather hard to find at shows, even foreign coins are harder to find now. I deal mainly with early copper and German States coinage, so it can be a bit disheartening when the show's tables are mostly stacks of modern bullion and junk silver, or a ton of high end slabs under glass.

Not worried about the hobby dying anytime soon, I see more YN's than ever with ANA and the local coin clubs (NETCC, FWCC, etc) report in TNA Magazine about bringing school children and their own kids to meetings and show/tell days. If you're worried about the hobby dying out, make sure you mentor, teach, or otherwise help a younger person get into the hobby. (It's amazing what you can do with a bag of beat up old late Roman bronzes or Buffalo nickels.)

TPG's provided the means for investors to establish a stable market in rare coin trading, which pretty much ensures that coin collecting will be around for quite some time longer; that came at the cost of pricing a lot of other collectors out of the hobby, and probably contributed to some dealers going out of business by substantially increasing their overhead. (The same thing happened with vintage sports cards, something I also collected for many years.)