Counterfeits - Long Term Effect?

Sort of an error with what killed sporting cards for a hobby. Primarilly it all rather ended when manufacturers got greedy and started mass producing them. My son USED to collect them but when he saw a box of 5,000 for $5 he realized it was all over. They started to appear everywhere in large quantities for practically nothing. There are still sports card shows, stores that carry them, people that buy and sell them on ebay, but basically that hobby died.
Same with Hot Wheels and Match Box cars. When you see them in massive quantities at flea markets for $0.25 each, you know that hobby is fading too. Same with Beanie Babies
With coins too the counterfeits may be the final end to a hobby that has survived for many hundreds or even thousand years. HOWEVER, our own US Mint is also going to contribute to the end. Like our government did to Stamps, the recent over kill on the massive different types of coins produced too may end it all. Good example is the 20 different 2009 Lincoln Cents. Statee and Park Quarters different almost every day, massive different Dollar coins, an attempt to make all kinds of Nickels too will make it a hobby that kids will shy away from soon. It is becoming overwhelming for most and the age of electronics for kids makes coin collecting too a thing of the past.
Of course on the other side of the coin, all that mentioned above may well instigate a greater hobby in the collecting of coins prior to all this. And just how many collectors and even dealers have counterfeits in their possesion that are already so good they don't know. And now with the latest counterfeited slabs with the faked coins inside, no one really knows.

I can see the newer coins not being heavily collected down the road, but how about the older coins? That's where the counterfeits come into play in my opinion. Hopefully if it fails it fails slowly so we can all get out of it in time ;). Actually I don't see counterfeits taking over the market. If they do, I think it'll only be the higher value coins. So you might have to pick and choose which ones you collect? Old nickels that have no bullion value could be good, or old copper possibly?

Carl, if I remember hearing in another post that you also collect old cars (if I'm wrong sorry) - but I need a small block Chevy engine for my wifes car ;)

I never understood why the boxes made them more valueable. I of course didn't really collect those type of things either. I was only old enough to enjoy playing with them :). But I do know that if I ever get into collecting something that comes in a box - keep the box!

If we have to know how to authenticate slabs, what good are they? And It's harder to examine the coin in slabs, especially online. The hobby might get so awash in half-good fakes that nobody but experts will ever chance buying the scarcer coins--how will dealers survive?

Unfortuately my only Chevy Engine is in a 75 Camero and an 81 Monte Carlo and I'm using those. Sorry.


Also was true of all those little cars. Someone I used to know that moved away collected them. When he moved he had to pay hundreds over for the 3,000 pounds of those little cars in those original packages. I wonder today if he is selling them all at a flea market.
A rather scarry thing was a coin dealer I know showed me a slabbed coin. He had somehow opened it or someone else did for fun and replaced the original coin. The slab stated an MS cent but the coin was an old besat up dime. I could not see how it was done but that made me wonder just how many others are done for profit.

I agree that the influx of counterfeits is upsetting for the hobby, but I disagree that the US mint does us disservice by minting a bigger than ever variety. Many people, including myself, don't find it too exciting to collect dozens of same coin with the only difference a year or a MM. I hear a lot of stories that the US State Quarters program sparked a collecting interest in people.

I think there is an upside to the upsurge in counterfeiting in that we are all educating ourselves and others as a result. I even returned a fake 09-S vdb to a dealer because of what I learned on the internet. If it had been 10 years ago, I'd probably have that one in my Dansco.

Of course we all know this has been going on for a long time. 200-300 years ago the big three, England, France, and Spain were all making counterfeit coins and flooding the others market in the hopes that they would collapse!