With the USA nearing a US Latin American citizen population of 25%...was 19% not long ago

TheGoonies1985

How far of are we before we see more and more US citizens with Latin American decent start collecting Latin American coins? Personally I prefer if things remain the way they are now since I can afford to collect what I collect but it would not take many new collectors to boost prices up since most coins are really not common.

WCC

One of the primary reasons I'm negative longer-term value wise on most US coins, especially post-1933 and also what are actually common 20th century key dates.

With limited to no cultural predisposition to collect US coinage, there is a lot more out there to collect than what was mostly available to US collectors in the 60's.

TheGoonies1985

@WCC said:
One of the primary reasons I'm negative longer-term value wise on most US coins, especially post-1933 and also what are actually common 20th century key dates.

With limited to no cultural predisposition to collect US coinage, there is a lot more out there to collect than what was mostly available to US collectors in the 60's.

This is it people tend to collect their heritage coins but the US is changing at a fast pace I can't imagine that at least another 100-200 Latin American coin collectors will not happen at some point and even that low number would be a game changer since the coins are not easy to find compared to most US coins.

TheGoonies1985

Financially I am small fry so it affects me less but things could change fast enough in the next 10-20 years. I will be old enough then but it is possible long term.

TheGoonies1985

And I imagine they will be getting much better wages as workers in the USA compared for many in Latin American countries. Better opportunities for education as well.

WCC

@PillarDollarCollector said:
And I imagine they will be getting much better wages as workers in the USA compared for many in Latin American countries. Better opportunities for education as well.

The price level isn't a function of financial capacity. That's one of the most widely believed myths in coin collecting. Given the supply available to be bought for the coins collectors want to buy most, the financial scale is trivial.

In the aggregate, it's a lack of interest or not willing to pay more due to the uncertainty of cost recovery.

As an example, I collect Bolivia 1864-1909 decimals as a secondary collection. I'd estimate one moderately affluent collector could buy up the entire supply on their own. We're talking about maybe 500K to at most a few million dollars maximum, depending upon assumptions of availability and quality required.

Sapyx

For me, it does depend on what happens to this ethnic group, sociologically, when they arrive in America.

People living in Latin America aren't big coin collectors, for whatever reason. You can probably name several logical reasons (poverty, social and political instability, a general lack of coins in circulation due to endemic inflation, etc) but the crux of the matter is that there's no strong coin collecting culture or tradition there.

People living in the United States do have a strong coin collecting culture, for whatever reason - it's much stronger there than just about anywhere else in the world. Again, we can speculate about the reasons for this but the truth of this statement is undeniable. But the question is: is this because of some peculiarity about America and American culture, or is it merely inherent in the previously-dominant cultural groups there?

In other words: does simply coming to America make it more likely a person and/or one of their descendants will become a coin collector? Is coin collecting like baseball - something you begin to enjoy simply because you've now become American?

If the answer to that question is "yes", then indeed it seems likely that popularity of Latin American coins will become more popular in America. If the answer is "no", then it won't. But even if "yes" is the answer, what kinds of coins will those "New Americans" want to collect - coins from their ancestral homeland, or coins from America, or both?

Again, we can glean some possible answers from what's likely to happen based on what happened to previous generations of immigrants. Example: Polish-Americans are more likely to be interested in collecting Polish coins than a non-Polish American, but it doesn't significantly impact collector demand. Prices for Polish coins are not higher as a result of Polish-American interest in them. A Polish-American coin collector is most likely to collect American coins, with perhaps a side-interest in Polish coins. Only a small minority of them will be hard-core specialists in Polish coinage. And it's large numbers of those "hard-core specialists" you need for the prices of rarities to increase.

WCC

@Sapyx said:

People living in Latin America aren't big coin collectors, for whatever reason. You can probably name several logical reasons (poverty, social and political instability, a general lack of coins in circulation due to endemic inflation, etc) but the crux of the matter is that there's no strong coin collecting culture or tradition there.

For the indigenous population which is the majority in most countries except maybe Brazil where the reason is no different, its almost certainly because these cultures never struck their own coinage. They have no reason to want it, other than for financial speculation and there isn't even a local market above immaterial prices for hardly any of it, if at all.

@Sapyx said:

People living in the United States do have a strong coin collecting culture, for whatever reason - it's much stronger there than just about anywhere else in the world. Again, we can speculate about the reasons for this but the truth of this statement is undeniable. But the question is: is this because of some peculiarity about America and American culture, or is it merely inherent in the previously-dominant cultural groups there?

Yes, but it's not uniform between demographic groups. The most evident is with African-Americans where the participation rate must be vanishingly low, and it certainly isn't due to a lack of financial capacity anymore either. It's somewhat higher with Latins and East Asians, but still much lower.

The peculiarity in the American collecting culture is the extent of financialization. US coinage was first widely bought for "investment" starting in the 70's but even prior to then, the price level was much higher versus anywhere else.

@Sapyx said:

In other words: does simply coming to America make it more likely a person and/or one of their descendants will become a coin collector? Is coin collecting like baseball - something you begin to enjoy simply because you've now become American?

If the answer to that question is "yes", then indeed it seems likely that popularity of Latin American coins will become more popular in America. If the answer is "no", then it won't. But even if "yes" is the answer, what kinds of coins will those "New Americans" want to collect - coins from their ancestral homeland, or coins from America, or both?

My answer is "no" for the first generation. Somewhat more so after that, depending upon where they come from.

@Sapyx said:

Again, we can glean some possible answers from what's likely to happen based on what happened to previous generations of immigrants. Example: Polish-Americans are more likely to be interested in collecting Polish coins than a non-Polish American, but it doesn't significantly impact collector demand. Prices for Polish coins are not higher as a result of Polish-American interest in them. A Polish-American coin collector is most likely to collect American coins, with perhaps a side-interest in Polish coins. Only a small minority of them will be hard-core specialists in Polish coinage. And it's large numbers of those "hard-core specialists" you need for the prices of rarities to increase.

I expect changes to occur more at the margin primarily because it's possible to collect from a much bigger variety with the internet vs. previously. But "at the margin" could mean something like a 20% decrease in demand measured by the money flow. That's why I've repeatedly written that I expect most post-1933 US coinage in grades up to MS=66 to eventually sell for less to somewhat more to the cost of grading or nominal premiums to the silver spot price.

I also expect extended adverse economic conditions at some future date which will result in large scale selling. Under this scenario, the most overpriced common coins (US 20th century key dates) should crash and never recover, as the only reason these coins sell for such inflated prices is from a combination of historical perception and the expectation of cost recovery at resale.

TheGoonies1985

I do not expect 1st generations immigrants (many are not landing here without families already here for at least 1 generation I would think) to be coin collectors at least not for the large majority but US coins can be a route into collecting coins at first then learning about their own coinage. The US coin market is large so it has a better chance to draw people in as starting point that they would have had back in their homelands.

I say more education because coin collecting is not in my opinion for those that have no real interest in a more ''nerdy'' hobby. I guess I could be generalizing. But it is the way I see it like say collecting fine art I do not know many people that quit school young for many various reasons (poverty, families that do not value education and so on) that are into such things.

WCC

@PillarDollarCollector said:
I do not expect 1st generations immigrants (many are not landing here without families already here for at least 1 generation I would think) to be coin collectors at least not for the large majority but US coins can be a route into collecting coins at first then learning about their own coinage. The US coin market is large so it has a better chance to draw people in as starting point that they would have had back in their homelands.

I don't expect first generation immigrants to collect US coinage virtually at all, and almost entirely for financial reasons if they spend any meaningful money on it. They almost always have no cultural connection to it and it's the most overpriced coinage in the world based upon any impartial evaluation of the relative merits by a "moonshot", so why would they want it?

If we're making this projection in the context of an actual hobby (as opposed to "investment"), limited to no reference material doesn't make any difference and there is no lack of access with somewhere in the vicinity of 95% of all coins available on demand or short notice, at least excluding ancients.

@PillarDollarCollector said:

I say more education because coin collecting is not in my opinion for those that have no real interest in a more ''nerdy'' hobby. I guess I could be generalizing. But it is the way I see it like say collecting fine art I do not know many people that quit school young for many various reasons (poverty, failies that do not value education and so on) that are into such things.

Education on what?

The reduced popularity of coin collecting today versus its peak cultural penetration presumably in the 60's up to maybe around 1975 when I started isn't due to a lack of exposure. It's my inference that it's far less visible except primarily to active collectors but more publicity doesn't mean that very many non-collectors want to spend their time on it, much less substantially inflate the price level which is what the business side of collecting actually cares about.

Coin collecting isn't nearly as competitive as a recreational activity for the public's time or wallet.

ELuis

No idea if that can affect.

Just an example here in California nowadays - Let say Rent is way expensive - Buy a house too expensive and with the monthly payments - Add also if you have a family.

Just with that, if one ends up having the bug of collecting coins and wants to focus on Spanish Monarchy Coins - Reales just to mention something different than US Coins, that also many of these are expensive now as the Reales, do not know if that can be possible.

My 2cts.

WCC

With Latin coinage, money isn't the constraint on future market growth, it's the lack of supply. Limited historical collecting places lower limits on future market growth financially (vs. US coinage) because no one can buy what doesn't exist and coins are collectibles and not financially tradeable widgets. (Exceptions exist somewhat for the very highest profile coinage if it exists in sufficiently high quality.)

One of the reasons US coins are so much more expensive is because the coins are so much more common. This may seem counter intuitive but isn't due to the collecting culture. There is ample supply for most coins and series to enable a large base to buy what they want, since most collectors will compromise at least somewhat on the earlier or scarcer coinage.

With Latin coinage, there is a tiny or still limited supply for the coins most collectors want to buy most, either absolutely or in acceptable quality. Collectors don't buy coins they don't like, much less pay high prices for dreck. A larger base (for US series) increases the probability that a higher number of collectors will compete pushing up the price level. Disproportionate extreme scarcity = a (much) smaller collector base almost always equaling lower prices.

In practically all US series, there are a low number of "key" dates which usually aren't even hard to buy. There is also sufficient supply across the quality distribution where collectors can both routinely upgrade or buy a slightly lower quality coin if "locked out" of a better one or it's above their budget.

In the most preferred Latin coinage, most series have too many "key" dates (by US standards) but usually the individual coins lack a high enough preference. The buyer has limited (if any) confidence in their ability to recover their purchase price if buying at much higher prices (given limited price discovery and liquidity) and most collectors don't like (hardly) any coins enough to consistently lose money on it. (No, actual liquidity isn't contingent upon the knowledge and personal circumstances of the buyer or seller. That's the type of "liquidity" existing with this coinage.)

This supply constraint can be alleviated somewhat with type (vs. series) collecting, but I'm not aware it is widely practiced, yet.

neildrobertson

I haven't been particularly bullish on collector numbers growing significantly for a while now. Collector tastes do shift over time but I have a hard time seeing coin collecting growing faster than population growth in the near future. ANA membership andUS mint sales numbers point towards a slower than population growth rate over the time I've been collecting.

I personally always welcome more collectors to collect what I like. I think having more people in the hobby with proportionally weaker collections (assuming the same number of coins are distributed more thinly) is still a richer overall experience. I would benefit more from reading a more active forum than I would from getting coins 15% cheaper.