Best Of

@neildrobertson said:

@santelia said:
Economics 101; supply and demand. Does anyone think there are new collectors out there? driving prices upwards? Or are more dealers chasing stuff for inventory? I'd love to here some feedback. The common story is kids aren't into coin collecting anymore, and the hobby saw it's heyday (in the US) in the 1960's when you could still pluck silver out of circulation.

If you look at ANA membership as an indication, then membership has been flat to slightly down over the last 5 years that I've been a member. I don't know if the ANA is representative of the population as a whole. I think the prices in the market more or less back up the idea of a coin collecting population that is stable, but is still growing slower than the population/GDP.

In the internet age, ANA membership isn't representative of US coin collecting, much less for anywhere else. For the collector of non-US coinage such as myself, ANA membership doesn't provide much benefit.

US collectors are the primary buyers of coinage where there is no or very limited organized collecting. They also compete for or are the primary buyers of the most expensive coinage from the countries with established traditions; example, you can definitely attribute the much higher price level for better British coins to US buyers maybe not exclusively but mostly so. However, the coins discussed on this forum are not representative of the coins bought by most foreign collectors, even those who spend what can be described as noticeable amounts of money. The "dreck" discussed on this forum is apparently acceptable to most collectors, as they don't care about minor quality differences and won't pay the premiums US buyers do. That's one reason why US collectors outbid them.