The Future Of Coin Collecting

With the baby boomers retiring and having more time on their hands, we may witness a surge in collecting interest again. They have to have something to do while sitting around the retirement home!

I'm afraid the future is for sure a cashless society. The amount of intercontinental trades will warrant the elemination of only one monitary system. The future will be all monitary transactions done by computers, credit and/or debit types of cards. Other devices may arise similar to those but no more cash could be possible due to the problems in changing from one type to another. The Internet is a great example where people all over the world buy and sell and the necessity of only one monitary system must be the end result.
I'm afraid out coin collecting hobby will slowly vanish due to no more new coinage and one more important factor. With the Earth's population growing and the present coins have a limited amount available, less and less coin transactions will be possible.
It is sort of like collecting buggy whips. No more horse and buggies so no more buggy whips.
Even now if you look around you will see the ever growing amount of machines that use credit cards. Even in many gas stations you just wave a card at the pump and take off. Toll roads by me are going extensively done with a thing you put in your auto window and just go flying through and it is all done with computers. Stores, restaurants, airlines, etc are all done more and more with credit cards. In most places you can not rent a car without a credit card.
My Son now carries almost no cash of any kind and says he seldom finds anyplace cash is required.
Yes coin collecting will probably always be around but think of coins with a Mintage of a few million and already the US population is over 300,000,000. In the future only the wealthy will be able to afford those things from the past called coins.

Great post, latman100!

'Bullion' alone insures the survival of some coinage, as Latman said:
"there are very many influential people in the world who probably
don't want all their money accounted for electronically."

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"Even in many gas stations you just wave a card at the pump and
take off."

I have yet to find a gas station that won't take cash!

"In most places you can not rent a car without a credit card."

That's been true for at least 15 years now, but you don't have to PAY
for the car rental with that credit card! Again, I've paid for all
of my car rentals for the last 20 years with cash.

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My best 'cash' story: I was at Best Buy, and someone ahead of me had
the last TV of the model that I wanted, that was on sale.

His debit card came up 'Unable To Process'. He was livid! He was
yelling to the cashier that he had $1200 in his account (which I
don't doubt!).

He stormed out of the store. I told the cashier 'Hey, I'll take that
TV!' I pulled out seven $100 bills, and I said "Cash always works!"
Debit networks can go down, and that's why I got the TV!

There was a man ahead of me in the grocery store express lane, and he
said "Who needs cash anymore?". I replied "I like cash, you know when you're broke!".
He and the cashier were just standing there in stunned silence...

Oh, and did I mention that by paying cash, I automatically find out
which businesses give discounts for customers who pay with cash?!
Remember, the credit card companies get 1%/2% or more of the money
in each transaction, and the fact that American Express traditionally
took more than Visa/MC was the reason why a lot of businesses didn't
take American Express cards!

One of those businesses is a local coin shop, who run "cash-only
specials" where ×-coins are below Greysheet bid if you pay cash!

Great posts, guys, keep them coming!

I think coin collecting is a hobby that will last well into the future, And its been going strong since its already lasted more then 250+ years. The way a coin looks and feels, and the fact that you know you own something solid and real, thats something no debt card can reproduce.

I like those prospects, Parklane64!

Here is a little story for you.

A friend of mine went to China and I had asked him to bring me back some of their coinage. When he returned he gave me what he managed to get and told me, that when he had asked a merchant for some coins, the merchant emptied her register/box giving him all she had and told him that,



So read into this what you want. But I'm sure coins will be used for the rest of my life, and since there are billions upon billions of coins in the world, I can't see the interest in collecting them dieing any time.