Has coin collecting been too democratized?
shirohniichan
Posts: 4,992 ✭✭✭
Coin collecting was once the Hobby of Kings. Numismatists were generally crusty old specialists who knew the ins and outs of their specialties through and through. They spent a long time learning to grade and attribute varieties for themselves. Sure, there were kids plugging penny boards with coins they found in change, but few of them went on in life as adult numismatists.
Flash forward to the present. There still are the old-style collectors around, but slabbing has made it easier for everyone to participate. Slabbing started as a way to attract investors into the coin market with the preposterous notion that coins' grades could be fixed with certainty by experts and their values thus determined for sight-unseen trading. While that never panned out, we now have coins in easily consumed packages telling us their grade, date, and perhaps even variety. Certification has made it easier for non-specialists to let experts do the work for them so they can safely collect without having to worry too much about learning to grade and detect problems for themselves.
This isn't limited to numismatics. We see the same in baseball, classical music, and other areas once primarily areas of the congnoscenti. Disney bought the Angels and marketed baseball to people who didn't like the sport-- attracting them with fireworks, fountains, rally monkeys, and other claptrap. Record companies are getting classical artists to perform "cross-over" jazz and other popular works in the hope that people who don't like classical music will like them and gradually warm up to the idea of real classical music. The end result is that there are lots of people who think they like baseball and classical music when they don't like the pure forms of either. They like the dumbed-down versions that marketers have convinced them is the real thing.
Is this happening to coin collecting? Have slabs and set registries brought in people who like competition, investing, and other non-numismatic pursuits who like the hobby for the peripherals but not the heart of the hobby-- i.e. learning about coins, coin history, coin grading, etc?
I know some will shriek that I'm an elitist who would keep the plebians from enjoying the Hobby of Kings. I welcome novices, especially the young collectors who are filling their penny boards (or "cent boards" for those of you who are picky). What I don't welcome is the transformation of numismatics into a dog and pony show over whose coins have the most points, which slabs look best, which slabs give a better return on the investment, etc. I would rather see numismatics flourish under true numismatists.
Whatcha think?
Flash forward to the present. There still are the old-style collectors around, but slabbing has made it easier for everyone to participate. Slabbing started as a way to attract investors into the coin market with the preposterous notion that coins' grades could be fixed with certainty by experts and their values thus determined for sight-unseen trading. While that never panned out, we now have coins in easily consumed packages telling us their grade, date, and perhaps even variety. Certification has made it easier for non-specialists to let experts do the work for them so they can safely collect without having to worry too much about learning to grade and detect problems for themselves.
This isn't limited to numismatics. We see the same in baseball, classical music, and other areas once primarily areas of the congnoscenti. Disney bought the Angels and marketed baseball to people who didn't like the sport-- attracting them with fireworks, fountains, rally monkeys, and other claptrap. Record companies are getting classical artists to perform "cross-over" jazz and other popular works in the hope that people who don't like classical music will like them and gradually warm up to the idea of real classical music. The end result is that there are lots of people who think they like baseball and classical music when they don't like the pure forms of either. They like the dumbed-down versions that marketers have convinced them is the real thing.
Is this happening to coin collecting? Have slabs and set registries brought in people who like competition, investing, and other non-numismatic pursuits who like the hobby for the peripherals but not the heart of the hobby-- i.e. learning about coins, coin history, coin grading, etc?
I know some will shriek that I'm an elitist who would keep the plebians from enjoying the Hobby of Kings. I welcome novices, especially the young collectors who are filling their penny boards (or "cent boards" for those of you who are picky). What I don't welcome is the transformation of numismatics into a dog and pony show over whose coins have the most points, which slabs look best, which slabs give a better return on the investment, etc. I would rather see numismatics flourish under true numismatists.
Whatcha think?
Obscurum per obscurius
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Comments
to its royal roots. Why should the peasents get to enjoy this relaxing
and profitable hobby.We should all turn in our collections to the
Royal House of Saud , for dispersal among the princes of the kingdom. Bear
Camelot
It's a HOBBY.
Thankfully we can enjoy this hobby any way we want. Unfortunately I think the one's that take the hardest fall in this hobby are also the one's that have greed as their driving force.
IMHO Joe.
You were thinking "unfortunate" for the greed factor, I was thinking it "fortunate" that the greedy ones take the fall.
Obscurum per obscurius
Some the stuff going on, like resubmitting a coin several times until it gets that MS-68 instead of a 67, and declaring that PCGS finally got the grade right, is absurd. Whatever happened to "Buy the coin, not the slab?" Much of it is just the number on the slab.
You might just as well get used to the "dog and pony shows"
as I can not see things reverting to the old ways of collecting.
Technology has a funny way of changing things and frankly, I don't
think you have seen anything yet.
Just wait until slabs are microchipped with the purchase and sale
prices and dates, previous owners, and all other pertinent
transaction information available to the Internal Revenue
Service. And I don't think that is too far fetched either.
A 1794 dollar treated as a coin future?
Computerized grading?
In my opinion, the more technology brought into the hobby,
the more reasurrance there has been. The newbees need this
for starters, and we need the newbees.
My website
....... bob**rgte**
Yes slabbing came into the picture, in many ways to help the hobby shed it's guise of being a haven for ill reputed dealers who sold junk at high prices by calling them gems. The result has been some degree of standardization for coins by having a few reputable establishments render opinions as to the quality of the merchandise being sold. However, if you look at the proportion of raw versus slabbed coins, the majority of collectible coins - and by this I mean the stuff that still exists in coin folders - is still considerable. Have collectors become reliant on slabs and slab companies, sure, I think some of the "pure" academic endeavours have been somewhat bypassed by reliance on these companies, but bottom line, whether it's in a slab or not, if you don't know what you're doing, you will get burned in the long run. The hobby is, and always will be, for those who appreciate history, art, and the process of making our money. Sure there will be those who will be in it strictly for the profits, but as we know, it takes knowledge to make money in this hobby. So, continue to let the buyer beware, just know that there are more buyers out there than before, but in the end I think it will be the pure hobbyists who will benefit. IMHO.
Frank
This "dumbing down" is pervasive throughout our culture and society. It is occurring
in in virtually all occupations. It is ironic that more and more jobs require increasing
amounts of education and training to obtain them and less and less knowledge or ex-
perience to do them. While a teacher who doesn't understand children or an airline
pilot who doesn't know how to fly a plane may never learn, it seems likely that a "jazz"
fan or a "baseball" fan will learn to like their respective entertainments. No doubt many
"baseball" fans took a major step to becoming baseball fans yesterday. This probably
applies a great deal to any "numismatists" we may be seeing coming 'round. As time
goes on anyone who doesn't enjoy the hobby is likely to move on, and if we ever do pick
up many of these "fans" there would be changes. Many of these people would probably
never learn to grade. This would have the effect of cementing the current grading practices
into place. And certainly the chances of losing large numbers of collectors at the first hint
of a problem would be much higher. There seems little danger that we'll see this "problem"
invade numismatics anyway. There's little evidence that it exists. Most of the newbies with
whom I've spoken seem sincerely interested in coins, their manufacter, grading, and all the
other intricasies. Their knowledge is much smaller than their hearts. This level of interest
varies and surely not all of them will go on to become seasoned numismatists or to even
complete their states quarters sets.
Good because collectors are less victimized by over grading dealers selling junk. Bad beacause more people come in and don't know squat and end up buying ACG holdered coins.
Alot of the issues seem to revolve around the same problem of the past....grading. Even with third party grading people disagree. I for one am thankful for 3rd party grading as I know if i get burned it will be for maybe a point or two versus getting burned with a counterfeit.
Almost forgot, as the hobby reignites it brings in the "investor/speculator" who drives up prices. Collectors want cheap coins to buy and expensive ones to sell so they don't like the speculator who knows nothing about coins, here's where the elitism comes in, but has hoards of nice coins.
Bottom line I think many "crusty old specialists " [using shirohniichan words] are jealous of those with greater financial resources to acquire and market high end coins. Add to the fact they are more marketing genius than numistmatist and i think you get the picture.
Oh no, I'd never slam the Angels-- just the marketing gurus at Disney.
Anyone familiar with the Church Growth Movement sees the same thing. People don't like church, so let's change it to something they do like. The result is that there are a lot of people in church who don't know anything about theology, the history of the church, or anything else about what the church stood for. When you change something to make it more palatable to the general public, you usually end up gutting that thing of meaning.
IMHO, the US coin collecting has become so much about "show me the money" that it's pricing people out of collecting certain coins. That's fine for those of us who fill 20th century type set albums without regard to "full steps," "full heads," "full split bands," "full flames," or any of the other must-haves for the micrograders and slabophiles. I've moved to Canadian coin collecting, but now I'm seeing slabism invade the North and jack prices up for small grade point increases blessed by certain certification services. Pretty soon I'll be collecting obscure coins that are immune to slabism (yap stones?!) just so I can enjoy the coins without the market hype.
BTW, I just bought a GEM Inner-Mongolian 5 chiao piece from the Japanese occupation period. Would it mean any more to me if it were blessed with a PCGS MS-68 certification and deemed "finest known"? No. Why not? Because none of the market makers cares about Inner Mongolian coins right now. Maybe that will change in a few years.
My point isn't wishful thinking that we could go back to the 1950's, soda jerks, sock hops, etc. I just wanted to express the hope that coin collecting is guided by numismatic purists in the future instead of by dealers, investors, or grade-point collectors.
Obscurum per obscurius
<< <i>
My point isn't wishful thinking that we could go back to the 1950's, soda jerks, sock hops, etc. I just wanted to express the hope that coin collecting is guided by numismatic purists in the future instead of by dealers, investors, or grade-point collectors. >>
Good point.
That's a nice Chinese coin, tough to find even circulated. There are lots of bargains
in world coins and even more among the Asian coins. There are some unlisted mint
sets of the coins of this era though I've never seen the Inner Mongolian coin in one.
There are still lots of great (and cheap) US coins from nearly all eras.
Yea, verily. One result of slab-mania is that rare impaired coins may end up undervalued. That will be great news to specialists who want rare varieties regardless of condition. I was able to pick up a rare trade dollar variety I'd looked for over 3 years at a bargain price because it had been lightly cleaned.
Obscurum per obscurius
Don't let LucyBop hear you say you don't want to go back to sock-hop days!
I don't think the hobby has become that dumbed-down. Slabbing makes the grading thing more accessible to the novice, but at top grades one better become knowledgeable tout-suite if one doesn't want to lose one's shirt. And if a collector is dropping thousands of bucks for coins of registry quality, I'd image he or she would want to get a little educated to "justify" the expense and not appear like a dilettante. If registry hype leads masses of people to collect, I think it is a net plus. We've got to offload our babies on someone, someday!
Indeed, I've been moving back more into the raw market, filling up Dansco nickel books, mostly as a result of my registry experience. The registry rekindled my love of coins, but I just can't DO THIS for a whole lot of other series'! It's an odd relief to be content with sliders that look so pretty in a book without worrying whether a coin's a MS61 or MS64: in the book, it looks about as neat for one-fifth the price!
Just another perspective.
William S. Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night
Numismatics is bigger than any of us and none of us can control it (or that).
peacockcoins
in response to the original question, my answer is "no". as far as i'm concerned, it is impossible for there to be "too much" democracy. but i do think that another hobby, that of collecting slabs, has taken shape over the past few years, & is taking some action away from the hobby of collecting coins.
K S
I am more concerned with Populism than Democracy.
Obscurum per obscurius
in that case, with regards strictly to coin collecting as a hobby, i would not agree, since, with the substantial information resources available to all in this day & age, i see the playing field as being fairly even for all. there is very little restriction on information resources for those who care to pursue it. ie., any research that a slabing company can pursue, i can purse also. & i don't necessarily see financial resources as defining the "elite" in this field anymore, nor do i think it has been the case over the last 30 years, when i've been an active collector.
slabs do not provide new knowledge, they repeat known facts (in the case of attribution) or reflect grading opinions.
my 2-cents worth(less).
K S
Obscurum per obscurius
let them eat cake!
K S
Bears are especially fond of them.
Camelot
I think this is a very good, thought provoking thread. I know there is such a thing as dumbing down, but it occurs on many levels and can be either a negative or positive.
When Stephen Hawking wrote "A Brief History of Time" I'm sure he had to "dumb it down" to make it accessable to me. Is that a bad thing? No. It is the only way I could remotely be allowed to understand and see what someone on that level of thought and accomplishment can see.
I believe in any field, the opportunity is there for those who have the talent or curiosity to take it as deeply as they can. There will always be people in all fields whose genius dwarfs other merely talented people to the extent a symphony does a limerick. Art, science, coin collecting, baseball.... all these things exist on an infinite number of levels. Any exposure and deeping of understanding about these things is worth while.
My God, Richard Harris just died and I hear people say "Who was he?" And someone answer "That guy who played Dumbledore in Harry Potter..." Holy cow! I think... he was a great and accomplished actor, singer, director... and most will remember him in his last role... Dumbledore. I'm sure he's laughing in the afterlife. What's my point? Does it sully Richard Harris to be known by the masses as Dumbledore, as opposed to being respected by a select group of intellects who appreciate theater?
I don't think so. Geez, I'm rambling... I'll just say, um... same with coins!
Yea, verily. Those of us who aren't geniuses can pick up a copy of Hawking's book and get a glimpse of his brilliant mind. That's fine-- not everyone can be smart enough to understand his thinking in its pure form.
But what happens when those who read the book (or listen to the abridged book-on-tape version) then claim that they are Hawking experts? Sure, they understand the dumbed-down version, but they don't really "get" his ideas in their pure form. They become dilettantes. When scientists who actually understand Hawking's concepts argue the merits of his points in the language he'd normally use, the dilettantes get upset and think they're being exclusive. If they'd realize that it's OK to be a Hawking fan without being able to properly weigh his arguments, they wouldn't get so defensive and attack the other scientists. However, as long as they think they understand the heart of his work they'll dismiss those that speak above their heads as elitists.
Similarly, in baseball, coin collecting, music, etc., it's fine to have an appreciation for these pastimes. The broader the interest the better. But that is not to say that someone who has a general interest in music is a musician or a music-lover. The point of studying and understanding a subject is not to exclude everyone else. Unless others are interested in your field of study you will become irrelevant. The point is to know the subject well so you can research and analyze information better than the mildly-interested folks and thus be best equipped to pass on worthwhile information.
Someone who spends 30 years studying and assembling a collection of every known variety of seated liberty quarters, for example, can be rightly said to be an expert in the series. Someone else may come along with little knowledge of the series but a huge pocket book. If the latter puts together a set registry of the finest known seated quarters, is he now also an expert? To the old-guard he is not. If the hobby becomes mostly a matter of who has the highest graded certified coins and not who knows the most about them, the guy with the set registry is now the King of Seated Quarters. To the vast majority of people the distinction between the two would mean nothing-- you could melt every last seated coin on the planet and they wouldn't care. However, as an indicator of what's important in the hobby, how the two are viewed makes a huge difference.
What's important in numismatics? How will it change?
Obscurum per obscurius
I am not sure that slabbing has affected this scenario too much: fifty years ago a know-nothing (not the political kind, Shiro) could do the equivalent of jumping in the pool blindfolded by simply handing over $25,000 to a dealer and saying "buy me neat stuff." Dilettantes and the idle rich (like the poor) will always be among us. . .
William S. Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night
When has any of this happened? Or is it hypothetical to illustrate something else?
<< <i>But that is not to say that someone who has a general interest in music is a musician or a music-lover. >>
Your response is excellent, Shiro. I have many times said to people who have called me a numismatist that "Just because I have house plants doesn't make me a botanist." I am a coin collector. That is the way I view myself. I wouldn't presume to argue pure numismatics with many, many people on this board, anymore than I would argue Quantum physics with Hawking. There is a lot about numismatics that falls in the more general domain of human interaction and behavior, and those areas I am more inclined to get involved in.
and in what direction will things evolve? The huge numbers of states quarter collectors does
not necessarily translate to hobby growth. If these people are not encouraged to expand
their interest beyond the new quarters then few will ever become true numismatists or even
what is normally considered a coin collector. If 2009 rolls around and most of these people
just put their sets aside to never be looked at again, then the hobby has gained nothing and
been affected only peripherally. Regardless of how individuals see growth and change and it's
resultant disruptions and changes, it is a necessity in all living things. Just as a tree, a collection,
or an individual must grow or perish, so too must numismatics. It is a certainty that the newbies
will one day run the gamut from hanger-on to expert numismatist just as their predecessors have.
The average knowledge of collectors has been quite high for many years simply because most
had many years of experience. If this growth truly materializes then there will be a different cli-
mate for years.
We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads.
That is an excellent point! There's more information out there than ever. The important thing is that we have people with enough expertise to weigh the information and evaluate it. Those with pop reports and little experience will come to much different conclusions than those with no pop reports but years of experience.
Obscurum per obscurius
Please...
What we have here is the specialist "shirohniichan" miffed over the floundering generalist "a majority of collectors"
All of us start as generalists - can we enjoy the hobby and in our own pace and way? Please can we?
You know that some of us will eventually become specialists and make you somewhat happy...
On a more interesting survival of the fittest note: - in nature the generalist always wins over the specialist when competing over the same resources.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
I'm afraid CM has missed the point entirely. I like generalists. What I don't like is someone with a little knowledge who claims to be an expert. Because information is so readily available, one can swallow a lot of it and think that he therefore knows the hobby. What he "knows" are bite-sized pieces of decontextualized information. What is more dangerous than a true generalist is a very narrow specialist who knows the bark on a particular tree but who can't see the forest.
A crass example of this is our old friend LovedByGod7. He knew all there was about burnished Sacs and Millenium sets, but only so far as it helped him to sell them on eBay. He appeared to know very little about numismatics and the history of US coins. That's fine if he were to have claimed to only be a purveyor of coins on eBay, but he got into arguments about coins as if he were an expert.
People who play Smetna on the piano and people who play Smetna on the cd player are playing the same music, but only one of them is a musician.
And those who can read along with the score while another plays Smetana is better called a music-lover than one who will only listen to Smetana if one of his tunes is altered to make a new Backstreet Boyz song or one who only knows how much he can resell Smetana CD's for on eBay.
Obscurum per obscurius
I'm not sure if I have the historical context to comment on whether the hobby has been dumbed-down. However, there are many amazing and amusing examples from the past of greed and speculation --- look at the history of commemoratives in 1936 or the marketing of the 1950-D nickel.
It would be interesting to look at the publication and sale of numismatic books as a possible measure.
Slabbing has certainly added as aspect of "sport" to the hobby, which may be all encompassing for some. But, as you suggest, perhaps others should be thankful -- choice AU coins go begging, and unbelievably cool 18th or 19th century coins may be affordable with relatively minor problems.
The changing character of cultural experience that you refer to -- whether it is religion, music, baseball -- is due in part to the sheer volume of diversions available in modern society. I am not sure that the ball parks 50 years ago really were filled with knowledgable afficionados -- there was a core of enthusiasts, and many others who turned out at the ball park because it was fairly cheap and there were fewer alternatives.
(I know I don't know it all, but I do have opinions, and sometimes how does one know what they don't know
Joe.
Getting an idea of how big the field is is one way of discovering how little we know. Usually the know-it-alls ignore important areas that they don't even realize exist. So the guy who sells burnished Sacs, die-cracked proofs, or what have you will think he knows it all though he knows a lot about very little. Does that make sense?
Obscurum per obscurius
yep there is a lot of cross over in the hobby over the last few years. slab coins came to life with the internet and grown. slabs are part of e-busnessregistries set are fun like dog and pony shows the are fun. but the coin shop owner say when people come into there shop they don't want to look a slab coins they want to see some nice raw goodies. so that says people do know what to look for. they just don't want to buy sight unseen on the net without a third party grading service. the investment thing has always been around. who do you know who don't want to get rich fast and easy.
I hate it when you see my post before I can edit the spelling.
Always looking for nice type coins
my local dealer
Fortunately or unfortunately just as in growing up we all know it all when we are 15 or 20 but as we get older and hopefully mature we begin to realize how little we know about our vast universe.
I believe that collectors also have to go through a maturation process and through this process people will talk of things as an absolute without realizing they don't know what they don't know.
Joe.
I know what you mean... no, wait, maybe I don't.
Information is so easily available over the Internet, the History Channel, etc. that one can be exposed to a lot of information very quickly and get the impression that he's really learned a lot about coins when he hasn't. For example, I learned from the History Channel that someone name Josh in San Francisco gold plated new "no cent" nickels and passed them off as $5 gold pieces. Gee, and all these years I thought they didn't mint nickels in San Francisco until 1912...
Obscurum per obscurius
What time period? I thought that up until last century, mint marks weren't of much interest, nor were varieties. Grading wasn't that critical either.
Here's my reassessment of the issue.
As I've thought through the issue, I think the real problem is the role the volume of easily-accessible information plays in forming new collectors' base of knowledge.
I doubt too many budding collectors rely on the misinformation put out by home shopping channel coin programs, but I think bad information on the History Channel and more credible TV shows can be dangerous for the newbie. By far the worst culprit is the Internet since it allows anyone who claims to be an expert to post BS. Coin magazines come next, and books are probably at the bottom.
Books are usually better sources of information because they usually include bibliographies. Publishers usually demand better research and writing skills since they are relatively expensive to publish and sell. Web pages are by far the least expensive method of disseminating information to a huge potential audience, and few pages include bibliographies (esepcially the commercial ones).
What it boils down to is that collectors can get information on coins easier now than ever before. If they don't check their sources and weigh claims based on the experience of true experts or their own experience gained through time and work, they can feel themselves experts due to the sheer volume of information they process. As long as they find and examine good information, they can learn quicker than in the old days. If they are lazy, they will take in a lot of bad with the good and thereby become confused or misinformed.
The issue I have is that new collectors can get the impression they are experts quicker than ever because they can easily get their hands on info. In the old days we had to check out books at the library, subscribe to periodicals, or buy books at the store. Now we can read posts like this one on the Net with little time and cost invested. Without experience to winnow the wheat from the chaff, we can quickly and easily believe bad info.
The problem isn't that numismatics has become too democratized, it's that we can more quickly and easily delude ourselves into thinking we're knowledgable when we're really not.
Obscurum per obscurius
Obscurum per obscurius