Will medal collecting gain prominence when we go to a cashless society?
291fifth
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I suspect that, when we go to a cashless society in the not too distant future, the collecting of medals will increase in popularity while the collecting of coins will decline. Artistic merit and subject matter will be the key to popularity.
What do you think.
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The one thing I do know is that the US will not be going to a "cashless society" anytime soon. It will be an excessive burden for poor people to have to have a banking account to perform a transaction and there will be major pushback by the public. Never mind the issues this would start on peoples privacy and what would happen if there is a large power outage...
Until a law goes into place stating all US citizens are provided a checking account free of charge, (and banks would have no incentive to give poor people free accounts) it will not happen. Politicians and other similar crooks would not like this either. How would they be able to accept their bribes and dirty $ without being caught? Oh never mind, they'll just continue to collect their "speaking fees".
I've seen an uptick in popularity of exonumia in general over the years, but maybe I'm biased.
Tokens and medals are so much more interesting to me than collecting coins by date/mm!
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"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
You make good points. However, the extreme concentration of wealth and the political influence such wealth brings may very well change the playing field.
I do believe medals and tokens are seeing increased interest, and will continue to do so. Much of it stems from the specificity of the item, in addition to the often more attractive art work. I disagree with the cashless society predictions..... though it may seem like an inevitable evolution... it is unlikely to become a reality - at least not in the next several hundred years. Until all needs are taken care of by the ultimate socialist world government, and property/possessions become non existent, and humans become merely herds of metabolism, cash will continue to be employed in one form or another. Cheers, RickO
I feel like exonumia can never really surpass coins due to a lack of strict cataloging. While collecting can be more popular, I feel like it would be impossible to ever get as organized or standardized as the much more limited pool of coins is. Something I think is sadly true for a lot of hobbies
In the past, medals were the focus of collectors and coins were distant secondary items. It is only since the 1930s that coins have dominated.
If we go to a cashless society, all collectibles and all commodities will suffer greatly.
In a society that refuses the individual the right to remain anonymous in their personal financial transactions, it will not be too difficult to construe collecting artifacts and accumulating commodities as "crimes against the State" and "crimes against the Banking system/ financial institutions". The whole point of going cashless is to give the largest financial institutions a three or four percent cut out of every single financial exchange that you make, and anything that might be swapped or bartered might/would deny the big boys their bakeesh.
I personally may manage to check out before all that comes to pass.
I always felt somehow that medals were not "official", as in gov't issued money, etc. Anyone, anytime, anywhere can make (or re-make) a medal, and documenting/cataloguing it all would be pretty much impossible.
That is not to say I don't like or collect medals, but they are on a different level than coins. Furthermore, even if we ever did go cashless (which I doubt), the gov't would still issue non-circulating legal tender coins for collectors.
"The one thing I do know is that the US will not be going to a "cashless society" anytime soon."
I totally agree with that summation. I would even say: "it ain't gonna happen." Cash will remain King...Just ask the folks in Houston right after Harvey.
I think the "cashless society" falls into the same category as the "paperless office". They sound good. They seem plausible. And they might be a good goal to shoot for. But there will always be pressures and reasons to break the basic tenants of the concepts.
And I'm also not sure that losing circulating coinage suddenly makes collecting past coinage less interesting. In some ways, they become MORE interesting. The history is the same, and becomes magnified. Think of the dead artist. Van Gogh sold a lot more paintings, for a much higher price, AFTER he no longer was creating them....
I like to do my part to ensure that a truly cashless society will never exist, not so far as I'm concerned. I like change and I like receiving it.
Me, too, and I also like spending real money. At bars or restaurants I charge the bill so I get the credit card points, but I tip in cash. (There are also a couple places I go where it is cash only).
vecturist tokens , and elongated pennies will be the wave of the future. The fact that have a huge pile of both is not related to my prediction in any way.
I think that a compleat coin collector has to have both an expensive area and an inexpensive area that they are interested in. You do the inexpensive area when your income/cash flow is insufficient to do the expensive area. Tokens and elongateds are good.
As long as there are goats and chickens, we won't be cashless. We might abolish the Hunt brothers and usefulness of precious metal ....but the Barter brothers will remain in full swing. That's my prediction. And recently I met a guitar pick making guy, who can get upwards of fifty dollars and more for his picks.
My 2 notes worth.
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Barter is usually very inefficient, usually so much so that the three or four percent toll to the bankers pales in comparison. But if it is the only way to trade collectibles or commodities in the future, then collectibles and commodities will have to adjust downwards in value to make up for the difficulties in bartering.
I haven't tried to think it all through, but a silver guitar pick seems preposterous except as a collectible.
Don't forget wooden nickels! I see them as the key to collecting's future!
I entered the banking field in 1981 as a consultant...all checks would be gone by 1984 and the banks were panicking. In 2016, the number of checks written dropped to 17B...I predict cash will outlast checks by 20 years. I will be retired and likely dead when that happens...let the prognostications continue.
I make it a point not to take any.....
Although the popularity of tokens and medals has grown greatly over the past two decades, it is still way behind coins. Exonumia will continue to grow, but it will probably never come close to coins in the hearts of many collectors.