IS NUMISMATIC INTEREST GROWING?

So, is numismatic interest growing or not? The answer seems to be – it depends.

I have worked in a retail coin store for the past 37 years. It is located in a metropolitan area with a population of about one-third of a million. There has been a definite decline in the number of young numismatists and even adult collectors who stop by to shop with some regularity. We also have lower retail sales at coin shows than occurred in past decades. Some of this is offset, at least partly, by the increase in online demand in sales by our own company, where there were none back in the 1980s. Just looking at these changes, you might be quite worried that the hobby of numismatics is losing ground the same way that has happened with philately, also known as stamp collecting.

Supporting this pessimism, the average age of members of the American Numismatic Association has, unfortunately, increased almost 10 years over the past decade or so at the same time that its membership has dwindled.

But there is reason to hope that numismatics may be gaining collectors in different ways.

In a recent interview in The MichMatist, the magazine of the Michigan State Numismatic Society, Jim Stoutjesdyk, Vice President of Numismatics for Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, points out this his company’s auction at this past January’s Florida United Numismatists show received bids from more than 8,000 people even though only a few hundred personally attended the sales. He is amazed how many six- and seven-figure coins his company can place with new owners who have not personally examined the acquisitions ahead of the auctions.

I sometimes visit local coin shops when I attend coin shows around the country. In years past, it was often an opportunity to acquire some goodies for which the dealer didn’t have a local outlet. But in the past year, I have heard multiple times from dealer friends that they don’t really have anything to sell me because “all the good stuff I get now goes for sale online.” Obviously, someone else is buying these coins and currency.

To read the complete article, see:
World shows new interest in coins (http://www.numismaticnews.net/article/world-shows-new-interest-in-coins)

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