Generating more interest in the hobby - good or bad?

dan1ecu

Wouldn’t getting more people interested in coins result in higher prices? Wouldn’t there be more competition for the nice coins, making them harder to find? Wouldn’t it result in more scams and more people making bad decisions in ignorance? Coin collecting can be dangerous for the uninformed because of the kind of money involved.

On the other hand, I guess more collectors could be good for the grading services, coin dealers in general, and companies that publish coin magazines. It would mean more profits for the mint. Also, I suppose that more diversity in the hobby could make for more interesting collections.

What’s your opinion?

Dan

merz2

I think the prices realized lately,already show a healthy growth in collectors.I believe they are unimformed collectors,as we all were at one time.They will learn as we did.Or they get extremely lucky,and find their way here.As many have said"they have learned while reading the posts and discussions.

kranky

Maybe more collectors would mean higher prices, but I suspect it would affect the quieter areas more. There are certainly enough Morgans to go around - you could have a lot of new people putting together a date set without disrupting the market - but I bet that a lot of the newer collectors may gravitate towards specialty fields where you can put together a world-class collection without competing with the deep-pocket crowd.

RegistryCoin

I think there will be newbies of both characteristics. As Don says, a newcomer is likely to be uninformed, but, as Kranky says some of these newcomers will look (closely) before leaping. Business classes taught: more is better, sooner. More interest in the hobby is good, even if it (adversely?) effects prices and availabililty.
I never took any hobby classes.

shylock

A collector whose Indian cent collection I wanted to list and image on my website made me think about the same question you pose here. I proposed that making his collection available online would be a great way to share his amazing coins with those who truly appreciate them. He'd rather wait until he's done upgrading, and made these comments:

"You never want to collect a series which is hot, rather you want to collect an overlooked series. Same as with stocks, buy things that are out of favor. The Indian cent and especially the Lincoln cent high grade market is overheated now. If there are too many collectors collecting "registry quality" coins, then I would really need to overpay to get a nice coin."

Thus, he prefers as little publicity as possible. Of course, when it comes time to sell you can turn this strategy upside down. But he's one of those collectors who probably can't even conceive of that day, which I completely understand. Generating interest works both ways depending on which side of the fence you're sitting.