Current circulating, base metal, coinage has little purchasing power today......................
SanctionII
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and is this lack of purchasing power a factor in whether children and young adults will, or will not, become collectors?
I remember back in the early 60's when I started collecting at 7 years of age (when circulating silver coinage was the norm) that cents, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars could actually purchase something that had substance. Looking through my parent's pocket change as a YN mostly resulted in me filling holes in Whitman Albums primarily with Wheat cents and nickels (low grade Buffalos from the late 1939's and Jeffersons). Dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars were off mostly off limits simply because they had too much purchasing power and were needed by my parents to pay for their purchases. A dollar could buy 5 gallons of gas. 65 cents could buy a meal at a restaurant. 10-15 cents could by hamburger at a fast food restaurant. One cent could buy a pack of gum. A nickel could buy a bottle of soda. Etc., etc. As a YN I knew that coinage had real purchasing power.
Today, a quarter will by you a gumball out of a gumball machine or 6 minutes of time on a parking meter. A dollar will cover 60% of the cost of a small bag of Lays or Fritos (which bag is 2/3 air and 1/3 chips). I am not aware of anything you can buy with a cent, nickel or dime. I suspect that children and young adults today view circulating coinage as outdated, inconvenient and having little or no purchasing power. As such, why bother with it, much less collect it.
Your thoughts?
Comments
Even if a youngster finds an old coin now, the only question is what is it worth?
Small pieces of Super Bubble bubble gum can be had for a nickle.
I don't think that the current purchasing power of coins will affect what future collectors do, or how many will materialize. Collectors tend to be idiosyncratic. What interested me 40 years ago (Austro-German thalers) did not interest me as a middle-aged collector (Barber halves and Standing Liberty quarters), and I am not interested in late 19th-century-21st-century coins now. What will matter more, I think, is the state of the economy---do middle class adults feel that they have enough disposable income to indulge in a hobby like numismatics? If not, the hobby will go the way of stamp collecting, with genuinely rare and expensive items dominating the hobby and the remainder garnering little serious interest.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
I often see collectors mention how the coin collecting hobby is unique in that you invest in it, enjoy it, and then still have your investment.
Although it is often mentioned to not buy coins as an investment, education and patience can lend themselves to making sure our purchases have some financial staying power.
So perhaps there will be a good chunk of new collectors who get into the hobby as a result of their efforts to invest in or hold tangible assets.
Remember back in the early 60'S the minimum wage was only about $1.50. Most people could live on $60 per week. Today minimum wage is $10.35 and nobody can live on $414 per week.
A quarter today is worth about two cents from when I started collecting in 1957. Of course some things like candy bars have gone up much more but then how much internet service could you buy then? A call to California cost $6 ($75 modern dollars) just to connect so what would the world wide web have cost? A Univac didn't have the computational power of kitchen toaster yet toasters are often cheaper today than they were then (boy are they cheap now!!!).
Everyone collected pennies.
There is a perception that all coins are just small change (or toxic little slugs in the case of the penny), and this might well be a hindrance to getting anyone interested.
But someone is interested as shown by the simple fact that nearly half of all eagle reverse quarters in circulation are now culls. Collectors are removing nicer specimens and scarcer dates leaving a lot of culls and pretty ratty looking coins in circulation.
Young children (9-13) seem to have a disdain for cents, nickels and dimes...Younger than that, there is still some interest (saving to buy something). Older than that, the interest is mainly folding money.... At least this has been my experience over the last ten years. Cheers, RickO
Yep. It's also making it harder to buy-off a Congressman or two - a lot of them don't take credit cards any more.
I wrote the second part of my history of the quarter series for my local club. As I was writing it, I was surprised to note that the quarter is about the only coin that is good for something, although it has lot less use than it did just a decade ago. Cents, nickels and dimes can't buy anything. Half dollars have not been made for circulation for years. The government's dollar coin fiasco is the same. Coins just don't have much a role to play in the economy except for making change from sales tax. Even cash is taking a back seat to credit and debit cards.
My 4 year old just recently looked at me like I was crazy when I offered him a quarter I found on the floor. He told me he only wanted folding money. So even a 4 yr old realizes that inflation has made change almost useless for daily transactions.
My kids are 4,6 and 8. They have zero interest in a penny book or states quarter album. Although my oldest just realized that the handfull of 20 libs I showed her the other day are real gold. She asked what they were worth and suddenly she had interest.
You make an excellent point. In 1960 a cent I found on the ground would get me two pretzel sticks up at the corner store. That coin had value to me and I respected it. Today I don't even pick up dimes.
At that same store a 16-ounce Pepsi was ten cents plus two cents for the deposit. The gas station just past it still had a machine with 6-1/2 ounce nickel Cokes, but you had to drink it there and leave the bottle.
When I was 12 I had a "paper route" delivering a twice-weekly newspaper-style advertising flyer called the Detroit Shopping News. Just toss it on the porch and keep going. 270 houses and I got $1 for each issue delivered. Bigger holiday issues paid $1.50.
There was a McDonald's on the route and occasionally I would indulge. The hamburger was 15 cents but I splurged and got the cheeseburger for 19 cents. Fries and a small Coke were 10 cents each. I think the shakes were 19 or 20 cents.
I remember all that as well. In the early '60's I collected cents and nickels from parking meter change. Found almost everything from 1909 on and a few Indian cents too.
I worked as a bus boy at the nearby country club. Got $1.75 an hour no tips allowed plus free meals (that were superb by the way - prime rib, crab legs, etc.).
Used to get free cheeseburgers at McD's each quarter for every A I earned in school. Took the family to dinner a number of times.
Here is a menu from the early 70s - the Captain must be much older than me or he lived in Chicago where prices were much higher than in Racine WI..
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Give me 20 bucks and an hour alone on that menu.
That was the Summer of ‘63 when those prices were in effect. There was no quarter pounder or Big Mac or large fries yet.