I was watching a coin week video that had some interviews with several British numismatic dealers at the London coin show. One of the questions they asked was what the state of the market was like at the moment and they all said basically the same thing, that the market was good, hard to fund good material to sell and at the higher end buyers were prevalent, but that the market was aging with older and older average ages of collectors. This mirrors what I've heard from people here at the numismatic society who have been a little enthusiastic to have me come to the meetings and possibly join because they don't have much young blood (I'm not that young but under 30 counts in that company apparently ). Basically I'm a little concerned that buying numismatics, like the more collectible sovereigns that I like, might not be a great investment. Obviously I don't do it just for investment, I really like collecting, but if the market of buyers will be half the size in 30 years and loads of lifetime collections are (sadly) sold by peoples families when they pass I'm a little worried that my coins won't hold their value. Again, I'm not collecting to make money necisarily but I would probably spend a little less of I thought my sovereigns would lose half their numismatic premium over spot in the future. I have no doubt that there will always be a few very wealthy collectors and so the extremely high end of the market (type 1 Adelaide pounds / 1920 S sovs etc) will stay strong but the accessible high end I'm not so sure about. Coins in the $500-5000 region that have populations in collector hands in the thousands might not be so lucky. What do you think about this? Do you think the strong stable market will continue or do you think that younger people just aren't getting in to it in a big enough way? Do you think this is an illusion because younger collectors are buying online and so it's only the age of coin show attendees and societies getting older and actually the hobby is going OK? For my part I've never spent much more than 100% over spot for a coin (most of my numismatic interest is in gold/silver), but I'd like to branch out a little if I could afford to but this idea has me a little worried. Thoughts?
I wouldn't worry about it. According to Joe Hockey most of us are going to live to over 150 years old anyway.
I think like sporting memorabilia, they/we have to look at emerging markets. Asia, the middle east, sub-continent. They're were the new collectors will come from.
Yep, as baby boomers drop like flies there will be fewer buyers. Same with most collectables that baby-boomers cherish .. e.g. artwork, and collectable cars.
That's true, I suppose sovereigns with a history of use in many of the emerging markets will probably do ok. I wouldn't be as hopeful for Australian pennies though...
What about the increasing numbers of collectors in Asia? I think what will eventually kill numismatics is technology for near perfect reproductions unless some way can be found for average collectors to verify the history of a coin.
I don't see the attraction to numis, but then I see stamps and teaspoons in the same light, although people do collect them I think next gen won't. Aside from a few special pieces
That is a legit concern. Have tried to sell some older coins but I find it harder to offload compared to the newer coins. I guess taste in coin collecting will change with different generations. Just got to adapt to the changing market.
I see a number of factors that will kill the coin collecting hobby. Change in technology Cost of entry Output from the mints Social Issues Change in Technology. Changes in technology have killed stamp collecting, cigarette card and phonecard collecting. I imagine postcard collecting will be on the way out as well. Email has killed letter writing and mobile phones have killed public pay phones. Maybe killed is too strong, both hobbies are still going but their future is not looking too good. Cigarette cards were knocked on the head through legislation or cost but there don't seem to be any new ones being made. Even PG Tips have stopped giving away cards in their boxes of tea and even the candy cigarette cards are now being replaced by collectible box art instead of inserts. With a cashless society looming, coins will start to loose relevance, people won't come across them and put them aside or try and build a set of them. I was introduced to the hobby by going on foreign holidays and collecting one of every new coin I could find abroad. That is still interesting enough but many Greek shops I went into didn't have the smaller denominations of eurocent coins and most of our purchases were done by credit card. With payment by mobile phones or stored credit card information the need for coins will diminish, the cost of production, storing and distribution will be expensive and coins will go the way of the asparagus server and napkin rings. Cost of Entry To get young people into the hobby you need to price things at 'pocket money' level. The recent pirate themed dollar coins were about $14 each from memory. Most other dollar coins go for a similar price. Hardly encouraging to a kid for them to spend $14 for $1 that they may have had to earn. I would rather put that towards a video game. Comparing the cost of the hobby in the UK against the cost of the hobby in Australia doesn't help either Then look at the prices on the secondary market, a decent chunk of coins can be picked up a year after release for less than the release price, or at least, less than the pumped up prices on the secondary market. Then look at your chances of picking up a nice coloured commemorative $2 from circulation. Output from the Mints They are churning product out, look at the dragon releases in 2012, I couldn't even keep up with what was being released let alone actually managing to purchase them all. Most sets you can just ignore but if you want a full set of $1 then you get sucked in. I made this graph ages ago so it is not the best, I got the data from McDonalds and I can't remember if I only counted the Brass Aluminium $1 coins or just every coin from RAM and Perth Mint with $1 stamped on it. Maybe I included all the various mint mark varieties as well. But it does illustrate how the Mints have responded. On one hand you can say they are responding to collector demand and giving us what we want. On the other hand you can say they saw a way of making a bit of extra cash and have really started milking it. The same market moves were seen in the stamp world where the number of commemoratives and products went ballistic and also in phone cards where collectible cards were released pretty much just for the collector market. Social Issues Coin shops are closing down, coin clubs are having low attendance and membership. The social aspect is changing. Forums and faceless ebay shops are replacing them. Instead of looking at someone's collection in an album you just look at pictures of it online. You might as well be looking at any pictures of coins, even the advertiser's pictures. But if you are going to look at pictures on the internet it is hard to compete against pictures of funny cats and everything else on the internet. As the older members are dying they are not being replaced by younger members. I am no spring chicken but I am still one of the youngest people in the club. Older members are disposing of the sets, they couldn't even get their own children interested in the hobby so they no longer pass them down. They know the kids will take them straight to the nearest dealer who will rip them off, so they are liquidating before they get too old, and most of them are getting offers of spot. Getting a coin from a foreign country used to be quite an event. Now you can actually travel around the world, Google it or look at pictures of the coins they have lost a lot of their attraction. I can see a future with coin collectors in it, but I think a lot of the low grade, mass produced coinage will be worthless. Maybe variety hunters will collect them. I can see the thrill of owning a Perth Mint Limited Edition Lunar Series X coin disappearing as production techniques such as CNC milling, 3d printing, precious metal clays etc. take over and you won't need a Mint to make coins. Artists will be able to make their own work into medals, without the requirement for it to be legal tender or a couple of thousand mintage just to break even. You will see a lot more variety in the offerings without the need to rush to market or pander to the larger markets. People will always collect, so some people will want to collect coins, but unless there is a sudden swing towards coins (Global Financial Crisis, Death of Credit, Interest in local economies not Global Financial institutions) then I think it is going to slide downhill, money will go towards new and exciting hobbies and away from coins. I have moved to world junk silver coins, I will be getting rid of all my Australian Yearly Coin Sets, Proof sets, circulation coins and accumulations of world coins. Probably exchanging all my Perth Mint coins for bars. I think the heyday of coin collecting is passed, a great time to start trying to complete sets if everyone is offloading them cheaply. However our coin club tender sales are barely worth it, not many items and they all sell for so little that it isn't really worth going through everything looking for items to sell.
I have been in a coin club since 2005 ish, Vice President for the past 4-5 years. We have a problem with membership. We attend local shows and give away bags of coins to kids to see if it sparks off any interest. We do give away quite a few but even though we hand out flyers and coins we generally don't generate any new members from the shows. Even shows like Brisbane ANDA where our members won several of the display awards and were present promoting the club each day we haven't received a whole lot of interest. Time will tell but if it is anything like previous years then we won't recruit any new members. We sadly lose a couple of members each year through old age and death. We run adverts in the CAB and we have several members who run market stalls who also promote the club. I see plenty of people looking at the coins on the stalls but not many buying and we never see any of them at the club. Part of the issue is "Why do you need a coin club?". Hard to answer, you get to meet like minded people but in reality, other than a vague leaning towards Australian Decimals and Pre decimals, it is hard to find any common interests among the collectors, we have about 20 at each meeting and they are all into different aspects of collecting. We bring along items to show, you meet and chat with other members but you can't get any real bargains and most of the members items for sale have been picked over. We have a library of books and magazines for loan. The internet has more information though, you can talk to more people about the hobby, look up stuff etc! You can buy stuff cheaper and have more of a range of choices. I just go along for the biscuits.
Is the flood of crappy coins from the mints lowering perceived values and putting downward pressure on numi prices?
I think that the ageing population means a shift in potential growth. At the moment predeciaml seems to have peaked in value and that can be attributed to the falling away of people who used this coinage in their youth. the price drive of these coins can be compared with the increase in disposable income of this generation and the nostalgia that comes at a certain age. When my generation comes of age(I am mid 30's) you will see an upsurge in values of decimal coins as the new wave of collectors compete for the coins they remember as kids. That is when you want to be holding the coins in demand. you need to analyse the current values of predecimals and see why certain coins have shot up in value then seek to draw parallels with current coins on the market. eg 1930 penny - a coin mistakenly issued by the mint without a record of how many have been produced and not identified till sum years after its issue. heavily noodled out of circulation early but still incredible hard to find in mint state or close with these examples hitting 6 figures today - todays equivalent 2000 $1 mule / incuse 50 1923 half penny - official mintage figures are high but in reality this coin is rare to find as the mintage figures recorded are known to be incorrect and no one knows how many were minted exactly. again mint state coins reach 5-6 figures - today = 1968/67/81 2 cent no sd 1932 florin - a key date with low mintage compared to the rest of the issue and not often kept in good condition - today = 1971 20 cent coin 1938 crown - low mintage - 1972 50 cent etc then you have varieties within decimals that are just coming to light now eg 1972 5 cent coin I see these are the future coins to own and I constantly put my money where my mouth is
I think there are a few things to consider when looking at this topic: 1) Can young people afford to buy Numismatics? As pointed out above, it's not a cheap hobby! It lends itself more to those who either have a large disposable income or those who have a low day-to-day expenditure (i.e. older people) 2) When numismatics are discussed on this forum the focus is usually on things like Perth Mint Proofs (2oz ANDA Dragon), RAM sets, ect. There is far more to the market than these areas and trends in these areas are not representative of the market. Also, after heading to Europe to attend a Numismata, I saw the average age of collectors there was ALOT lower than those in Australia. Just my two cents
Maybe it is, as the original posted suggested, because the younger generation doesn't attend the coin shows or the clubs, preferring online purchases and forums. They are there but less visible. A good number of our numismatists are in fact really just coin collectors. Some of the other clubs have a membership who research and write articles and papers on numismatic topics. The majority of our club just collect the latest releases from Perth Mint and the RAM. Having said that, some of our members get contacts from overseas museums looking for identification on metal detector finds. There is so much information available now that you really don't have to become an expert in a field any more. If you want to know something you just look it up online. There is a shift from people who know things to people who know how to look things up. This is very prevalent when it comes to grading, many of our members don't know how to grade coins, particularly the ones who only collect the new releases. It used to be a skill that you picked up after years of experience. Now you either send it off for a third party grader or you post a picture online and ask for grading. Many of our members know a lot of coin trivia, but not a lot of real info, they can tell you the mintage of the 1930 Penny but not the 1929 or 1931 Penny, not that this is a problem because they can look it up. The can read magazines, blogs and websites for information but they would struggle to put together an original article, we constantly ask our members to write articles for the club's newsletter but very few of the members are confident enough to do so. We are recycling a lot of information but not really producing anything new and interesting. Once you dispense with the learning and discovery side of the hobby you are basically just a consumer being spoonfed, waiting to be entertained by the latest new release or article. This leaves you open to exploitation, Mints targeting your wallet, "coin investment' companies making your purchasing decisions for you etc., fuzzy logic (I was recently offered a PCGS AU65 graded $1 coin for $25, I was told that this was "below the cost of the grading" and therefore a bargain, it was still just a common $1 coin from a mint set worth about $10 at most). Once you stop being actively involved in the hobby you really just become a buyer, and there are plenty of things competing for your money.
