Idea to engage kids at a coin show aka Lord of the Flies but with coins
AlbumNerd
Posts: 191 ✭✭✭
It's been nice seeing kids running around and doing their scavenger hunt here at the Summer FUN show. However, what I noticed is that these hunts were quite solitary. It's pretty intimidating for a kid to go up to a dealer by themselves.
This got me thinking on how I would get kids excited about coins if I was running a show.
Hear me out
Give kids fake money that's worth $100. Split them up into teams. Each team is given 3 objectives.
Objectives:
A) Amass the largest collection volume wise [Slab holders, coin boxes, etc] Try to fill up a truck!
Buy and fill out an entire coin album
C) Amass the largest number of coins possible
Each completed objective is worth 1 point.
Dealers can accept the fake money and convert them later with the show hosts.
The team with the most points gets to keep everything that all teams acquired. They then get a table to display their winnings. The kids on the losing team gets a $20 voucher and can buy what they want from the winning team.
What I think the kids will get out of this:
- Gets kids to work as a team and build their communication skills
- Gets them to think strategically and learn how to communicate tradeoffs since one objective negates the others
- The kids are incentivized to talk with all sorts of dealers and exposes them to the diverse world of Numismatics
- Kids learn to negotiate with dealers as they have to to maximize their money [Great lesson for any collector]
- Kids on the winning team get to act and think like a dealer. While the losing teams get to act as a buyer for stuff they want.
What adults get out of it
- Parents get a break to enjoy the shows
- Dealers get paid and get to offload inventory
- An interesting insight into how young collectors think and act
Comments
And a plot twist. Surprise the teams at the halfway mark, have all teams meet up and report their current progress to everyone.
Now everyone knows what strategy everyone else is doing.
Adults kick back with a margharita and enjoy the ensuing chaos.
Bonus: Record and document the event to encourage parents to come to future shows
Good idea, however the objective of filling a truck seems rather difficult with only $100. And I don't see much of a connection to Lord of the Flies, other than a competition between groups of kids.
Young Numismatist • My Toned Coins
Life is roadblocks. Don't let nothing stop you, 'cause we ain't stopping. - DJ Khaled
Maybe the old fatty holders?
"Lord of the Flies"?
What, are you going to kill Piggy and destroy the conch?
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Poor Piggy. He never had a chance….
RIP 🐷
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
What is the proposed age guideline for this activity?
God bless all who believe in him. Do unto others what you expect to be done to you. Dubbed a "Committee Secret Agent" by @mr1931S on 7/23/24. Founding member of CU Anti-Troll League since 9/24/24.
Those who need to learn show etiquette the most.
45-85
On a more serious note I guess some details might need to be thought about.
Approximately how many teams are there and how many kids per team? Whose pockets are these $100 per team vouchers coming out of? How much value do you think the winning team will be sitting on? What does the winning team do with all the $20 vouchers from the other kids? Do they redeem them for cash through the show promoter? Do they use this possibly large pot to buy themselves bullion to resell immediately at the show and then pocket the newfound cash? There are other, smaller details, but these jump out right away.
On another front, as a parent this would not make me feel like I could roam the bourse and forget about the safety of my kids in any manner whatsoever.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
@TomB
Great questions! Here's my initial thoughts
3-4 kids per team. Once you get to 5 the group dynamics start to change and some of the more shy kids will end up deferring to the group by default.
The show would pay for it. Either through donations or from a small fee on dealer tables. The $100 number can be adjusted based on show size.
It can range all over, but the key thing is to incentivize the kids to get stuff they value and would want to take home. Since they already know the winning team gets the bulk of the stuff, they're pushed to pick up what they like.
Smart kids! This is tricky. The goal is to teach the winning team dealer skills while giving the losing teams a chance to walk away with something they want.
If the vouchers can be redeemed for cash, then you end up with 4 kids with possibly a $100 each AND most of the stuff. Super cool for the winning kids, not so fun for the losers.
If the vouchers are worth nothing, the winning team can collide to jack up prices and keep all the stuff.
One way could be instead of a $ voucher the losing kids get a voucher for one item of their choosing. Vouchers have no value after redemption and the winning team must accept them.
I'd imagine a show appointed guardian would chaperone the kids. Ideally parents are comfortable enough to give the kids space. Or parents can chaperone but maintain distance.
I'd want to avoid parents hovering over teams and interjecting on what strategies to use and what to buy. It only takes one super competitive parent to spoil the fun.
Filing up a truck is more of an analogy to visualize the objective being about volume rather than attaining a certain volume. I'd imagine parents wouldn't be too happy having to bring back a truckload of slab boxes lol.
Regarding the lord of the flies reference, when I was a teacher I always came up with competitive events like this to get kids to be engaged. And man were a lot of those students cutthroat lol. Hence the idea of bringing everyone back together at the end with sharing out the prizes.
Regardless of what sort of tweaking the tasks need, you forgot one important thing.
Assign each team a coach.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
That's great.
But maybe the goal and lesson here should be that quality is sometimes better than quantity ?
When will we learn that it's better to let kids find coin collecting on their own when they're ready, without using free coins to entice them into the adult numismatic world? How many more abuse cases do we need to see to realize these mentor / coach roles historically attract some sketchy dudes who get off being around kids? Chasing YNs is folly imho.
In my experience those who need manners the most are those aged 40 to 55. Typically dealers who fall into this age group really want nothing to do with those small collectors who aren't going to spend several hundred dollars or more on their coins.
God bless all who believe in him. Do unto others what you expect to be done to you. Dubbed a "Committee Secret Agent" by @mr1931S on 7/23/24. Founding member of CU Anti-Troll League since 9/24/24.
Also, the dealers related to above might not take very kindly to this.
God bless all who believe in him. Do unto others what you expect to be done to you. Dubbed a "Committee Secret Agent" by @mr1931S on 7/23/24. Founding member of CU Anti-Troll League since 9/24/24.
It would work for some kids, but I always hated the team thing when I was a kid in gym class because I was often one of the last ones picked. I was a year younger than everyone else, blind in one eye and severely nearsighted in the other so the jocks didn’t want me on their team. So instead of getting into sports I ended up getting into coin collecting where my nearsightedness made it real easy to see the tiniest details of the coins 🌞
Mr_Spud
Lots of great ideas here. In fact, my head is going to explode just reading them.
The most important thing is action.
I like the general concept.
However I don’t like “A) Amass the largest collection volume wise [Slab holders, coin boxes, etc] Try to fill up a truck!”
Somehow, I think any focus should be on something more meaningful than volume.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.