A crude but possibly very accurate barometer of the health of the coin hobby

oreville

This is a very crude measurement of the health of the coin hobby.

it has always been stated that the more demand coins are in, the more healthy our hobby is. if every one is selling and no one is buying then we have a imbalance in our hobby, all sellers and no buyers.


We have right here in our BST forum; buyers, sellers traders and permissible auction spammers (advertisers). I consider the ones who want to trade a slight positive as they are not cashing out but we have relatively few of them so I do not believe they should or need to be counted. The auction advertisers are a slight negative bell weather sign and should be kept track of. But the direct buyers and sellers are most meaningful.

If we see increasing numbers of sellers vis a vis buyers, that is a bell weather sign that we collectively are selling out of our hobby whereas increasing number of buyers means the opposite.

Tonight, of the top ttt 20 posters on the BST forum we had
5 buyers, 9 sellers and 6 advertising

That would be a record of 5-9 with 6 virtual ties to be more numerically a record of 5-9-6 like they do in hockey.

The way to compare is to do a full day or even week compilation and compare each day or even week, 52 weeks a year and compare year to year.

I am not volunteering to keep these records forever but some one else might?

Your thought (other than that I am nuts! LOL)

bidask

My thought is the price of any coin will find its own price level at any given time whether a healthy or not healthy coin hobby.

LindeDad

Many have gave up on that platform.

keets

This is a very crude measurement of the health of the coin hobby.

I think a better barometer is to pay attention to what collectors and dealers are saying in addition to personal experience. those three factors tell me things are currently slow. right now there is a demand for under $1,000 type coins in nice collector grades like VF+ but not much in the way of a steady supply available. collectors are looking and ready to buy, they haven't given up or decided to cash out. the problem has been the bullion game which many guys choose to play with dealers getting involved if they can to keep things moving. whenever nice stuff shows up it is easy to sell and doesn't last very long.

pennyannie

I judge the hobby on the local show level, when you make the rounds I look to see if customers are handing cash to dealers and not whether dealers are handing cash to customers. Most of the action for the last 18 months seems to be with the bullion sellers. I see more lookers, same with local gunshows, lots of tire kickers and not many buyers. I think right now you can pick up better bargains on guns than coins now. Coin dealers on the local level seem to be more stable with their finances

Baley

There are at any time here between 100 and 200 users logged in (currently 107)

this is such a tiny slice of "the coin hobby" that the ratio of posts on the first page of the BST to me would be a virtually meaningless, as well as very easily manipulated, measure.

keets

it is easy to agree with that perspective, Baley, I have said as much about this forum from an individual view as well. we oftentimes think that since we are buying freely or active as an individual that everyone, everywhere is doing OK. collectors seem to have money and dealers are holding their own(and some of mine!!) but coins aren't flowing between the two like they did a few years ago.

Walkerfan

The sample size is much, much too small. We need to look at larger buy/sell sites such as Ebay & Heritage.

acloco

Hard to calculate the shill bidders on Ebay........and it is prevalent.

ricko

I believe only those who are in the business concern themselves about the 'health' of the hobby....and for them, it is not a hobby, it is a business. I enjoy coin collecting, it is a hobby for me, and frankly, I am not worried about whether there are more buyers or sellers or lookers.... Cheers, RickO

GrumpyEd

<< <i>Tonight, of the top ttt 20 posters on the BST forum we had 5 buyers, 9 sellers and 6 advertising >>



When selling, people look for buyers by putting up items they want to sell.

When buying, many people look for sellers but don't put up a "want to buy" post.

So it's hard to gauge from comparing want to sell vs want to buy posts.

mrearlygold

Wow, is it any different on a Monday night or Thursday afternoon when it's raining?

WingedLiberty1957

i agree with some above that the sample is way to small on the BST board

I would rather see some ebay statistics ... perhaps tracking prices for open auctions or sell times for BIN items ... but even that is probably flawed statistically.

I think the biggest piece of evidence to the slow death of the coin hobby is pure demographics -- an aging collector base and not enough YNs to fill the gap of those lost to aging and death. And most YNs don't have deep pockets.

In 40 years, the coin hobby will look pretty sad ... IMHO.

I bet circulating small change will be completely gone by then (with all transactions becoming electronic), so kids might be asking their grandparents what coins were.

Coin collectors of the future will become like collectors of old 8 track tapes or 78 rpm vinyl records of today.

The USMint is not helping either with billions and billions of drecky moderns being produced every year with no artistic value.

mercurydimeguy

We have fed the beast and now see some cultural shifts as a result of our own doing. Let me explain my point of view...

The people who are here represent (by and large) the elite of the coin hobby, more knowledgeable than people who get educated by attending 4-5 local coin shows per year. Essentially the coin forumites are the Spartans.

The elite keep pushing the bar up for what constitutes quality and eye appeal. Also, in this strata a coin with a sample size of 50 is viewed as abundant. We keep pushing up prices of nice coins, well, because frankly we can, and somehow we tend to figure out how to pay for them. So the super nice coins keep going up, and the lower end stuff is largely unwanted by the Spartans unless the Spartans can flip it for a quick buck. To build a set that we would agree is nice is REALLY expensive. I spend 2x more on one coin than my brother in law's entire collection. When he comes over of course he loves my coins, but then he brings over his molested bust dollar in a flip, and it' difficult for me to even fake joy. I immediately go into teaching mode...but then realize even if he was educated he still wouldn't be able to spend 3x on a nice unmolested coin, so it's pointless...

The problem is the elite have tainted the coin hobby by being such visible examples of quality, and have pushed up prices, so the everyday collector (some refer to them as widget buying people) that go to coin shows or shops aren't buying nice coins, they are buying what they can afford to fill holes.

In some respect, what is happening in our hobby is what is happening in the economy...the middle (class) collectors are disappearing. The hobby has bifurcated and moved to extremes... People are either buying nice coins, or they are buying fillers for books. Of course this isn't an absolute because the middle still exists, people are building/buying generic Morgan and Peace dollars at collector grades, or building Type sets without care for slabs, etc., but the world we see here on these forums is one extreme, and because of the eroding middle, it appears as if there is a chasm to the other extreme.

Also, I am observing a lot more flippers than say 10 years ago (but that can be just me being more aware)...buying/selling widgets in graded slabs for $30-$50 spreads....and they mask themselves among the collectors. They don't really know what good looks like, they don't really know what bad looks like, but they know what a Sheet looks like and they can look up a grade on a slab, pay less, and sell for more. They get a different kind of rush...not from finding a coin to own, but from finding a coin they can flip for a quick profit. There is nothing wrong with this at all, it's a great way to make money, but doing this takes one much longer to learn numismatics because more focus is placed on learning the economic laws of supply and demand

So we - a.k.a. the Spartans - keep feeding the beast and through our actions and also inactions we're witnessing the erosion of the middle. We need some disruptors to shake things up a bit else modern PR70DCAM coins is all that new collectors will collect, because it is the cheapest and most reliable (e.g. guaranteed) way for them to own absolutely the best quality...they don't have to learn how to grade classic coins because in doing so most of them learned that it is really easy for them to get screwed.

OK...flame away, just starting a debate on a different parallel

Shamika

Oreville - Comparing the number or sellers vs buyers can be misleading.

In my opinion, collectors tend to gravitate toward more expensive coins as they become more experienced. As a result, they tend to accumulate more lower value, lower quality items than what they have in their "primary collections". For instance, as a collector for more than 40 years, I have many dozens of coins that I would be happy to sell today. But there are only five coins that I am actively seeking. Thus one might think I'm moving out of the coin hobby since I have more coins I want to sell than I want to buy. However, every dollar I'd make from selling would go right back into the hobby by supplementing the purchase of a higher priced coin.

Soooooo, instead of comparing the number of coins being purchased vs sold, maybe comparing the total VALUE of coins being purchased vs sold is a better barometer of the health of our hobby.

Just my 2 cents.