Insight into Collector Demographics

KellenCoin · February 21, 2019 7:40PM

I run a numismatic Instagram account called @KellenCoin. It is a relatively midsized account for one that focuses on coins, with approximately 1350 followers. Instagram allows me to see some information about my followers, which is evident in the picture below. It is interesting to me that nearly a third of my followers are ages 25-34, and another 39% are either between the ages of 18-24 or 35-44.
I am both surprised and unsurprised; the former because of the often heard mentality that numismatics is dying because everyone is getting old, and the latter because in my observations through the years this statistic is familiar. In nearly everything I have seen, middle-aged numismatists are very much present, but are present in online settings. See also @Aspie_Rocco's recent age poll and mine from a year earlier. Additionally, I find it interesting but unsurprising that my followers are mainly male. Anyways, I just thought it was something cool to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Walkerfan · February 21, 2019 7:59PM

Thank you for validating what I already suspected.

The hobby isn't dying but rather technology is changing and, therefore, so are the platforms and venues.

chesterb · February 21, 2019 8:01PM

Cool stats. I'm in the 45-54 age bracket. What's an Instagram?

golden · February 21, 2019 8:13PM

What is Instagram?

braddick · February 21, 2019 8:15PM

Terrific info and not being disparaging, yet find it a bit difficult to believe almost one in four collectors are women. This simply hasn't been my experience throughout the years.

RYK · February 21, 2019 8:25PM

Three comments:
1. I love Instagram and am looking forward to buying my first coin on that platform.
2. Lots of Instagram followers are bogus and bots and are likely corrupting your data.
3. Given the overall demographics of Instagram, I would expect your followers to skew younger than the typical coin collector. Heck, this old forum skews younger.

KellenCoin · February 21, 2019 9:39PM

@golden said:
What is Instagram?

Instagram is a photo-sharing app that has around 1 billion users worldwide. There is a big coin community on there.

KellenCoin · February 21, 2019 9:41PM

@RYK said:
Three comments:
1. I love Instagram and am looking forward to buying my first coin on that platform.
2. Lots of Instagram followers are bogus and bots and are likely corrupting your data.
3. Given the overall demographics of Instagram, I would expect your followers to skew younger than the typical coin collector. Heck, this old forum skews younger.

Instagram is a great platform for coins. I have bought many coins on there and have had zero problems. It is true that many Instagram followers are bots, but Instagram in the past few weeks has been clearing many bots off the platform and so I am not worried that a majority of the users following me are.

BryceM · February 21, 2019 9:56PM

Young people are passionate. Old people have the funds. Somewhere in the middle collecting happens.

ElmerFusterpuck · February 21, 2019 10:15PM

I follow your account out there, along with many others. My primary postings are also coins and the occasional vacation pictures. Those usually have my trusty Bust halves posing in there somewhere. I get pinged off and on for advice and opinions from people out there, and many of them appear to be a younger demographic. Some collect the basic Whitman albums, quite a few do the 7070 and others either stack silver or chase cool looking world coins.

I'm up to over 2300 followers and I do make it a habit to clean up what i think are bogus followers or spammers. I pretty much block anyone who has thousands of followers and has only a handful of posts. It's a cool world out there!

@KellenCoin, how did you find those stats?

KellenCoin · February 21, 2019 10:17PM

@ElmerFusterpuck said:
I follow your account out there, along with many others. My primary postings are also coins and the occasional vacation pictures. Those usually have my trusty Bust halves posing in there somewhere. I get pinged off and on for advice and opinions from people out there, and many of them appear to be a younger demographic. Some collect the basic Whitman albums, quite a few do the 7070 and others either stack silver or chase cool looking world coins.

I'm up to over 2300 followers and I do make it a habit to clean up what i think are bogus followers or spammers. I pretty much block anyone who has thousands of followers and has only a handful of posts. It's a cool world out there!

@KellenCoin, how did you find those stats?

In order to get the stats, you have to convert your account to a "Business Account". If you Google how to do it, you will a guide to do that.

NSP · February 21, 2019 10:58PM

Very interesting statistics. I’m in the 18-24 bracket (my account is nsp_coins), and the age distribution seems to be fairly in line with what I’ve experienced on Instagram. As others have said, there are modern coins, world coins, and toned coins that pop up frequently. I do my best to try to spice things up by posting the occasional capped bust quarter!

mannie gray · February 22, 2019 1:17AM

I have not been to Instagram.

TopoftheHill · February 22, 2019 6:45AM

Where to begin...

Lots of bots and false accounts on Instagram.

Actual accounts are skewed young because most of the people on Instagram are young.

Many (Perhaps most) collectors never use Instagram.

291fifth · February 22, 2019 7:10AM

1350 followers might sound like a lot but it is not. Consider that at the height of its circulation in the mid-1960s COIN WORLD had a circulation of about 165,000. At a large local coin show I attended last Sunday, which was very well attended, I saw virtually no collectors who appeared to be less than 40.

KellenCoin · February 22, 2019 8:14AM

@TopoftheHill said:
Where to begin...

Lots of bots and false accounts on Instagram.

Actual accounts are skewed young because most of the people on Instagram are young.

Many (Perhaps most) collectors never use Instagram.

True, but Instagram has been clearing a lot of bots from the platform lately.
You are correct, but I think that rather than skewing the results, it shows the presence of young collectors.
I am not saying most collectors use it, simply that their is a fairly large numismatic community on there (some accounts have up to 10,000 followers).

KellenCoin · February 22, 2019 8:16AM

@291fifth said:
1350 followers might sound like a lot but it is not. Consider that at the height of its circulation in the mid-1960s COIN WORLD had a circulation of about 165,000. At a large local coin show I attended last Sunday, which was very well attended, I saw virtually no collectors who appeared to be less than 40.

I honestly do not find Instagram and Coin World comparable. They are different platforms with different purposes. As for yohr physical coin show, that also doesn't contradict my data. I believe that a lot of young collectors are moving online, such as onto Instagram, so many may not be attending coin shows in real life.

topstuf · February 22, 2019 8:26AM

Call me InstaGRAMPS !!

ricko · February 22, 2019 9:51AM

Instagram has lots of collectors and sellers...I get notices from a couple of sites and have browsed others. The myth of a dying hobby has been around for over 25 years... it is a myth...Keep on collecting... Cheers, RickO

Paradisefound · February 22, 2019 10:14AM

My friends collect coins as investment; directly thru their portfolio diversification options and yes many insta daily.
None of them belong to coin collector clubs so @KellenCoin sample rings some fact amongst the younger group.

Zoins · February 22, 2019 10:15AM

@Paradisefound said:
My friends collect coins as investment; directly thru their portfolio diversification options and yes many insta daily.
None of them belong to coin collector clubs so @KellenCoin sample rings some fact amongst the younger group.

That’s cool. Imagine if PCGS did Registry Sets and CoinFacts for investment funds?

I wonder if all those coins will now automatically be excluded from CoinFacts.

RogerB · February 22, 2019 11:34AM

I do not do much with various media accounts. It's not for lack of interest; it's that time is valuable in research, and anything that is unproductive diminishes my return on that investment. (Almost all numismatic research is hands-on-paper work.)

For regular coin collectors and situation might be very different. As Walkerfan noted, there is a clear divide by generation of technical communication adoption. That won't change until the old folks die.

C0inCollect0r · February 22, 2019 12:07PM

A critical point here is that Instagram is far more popular with young people than older people. Most people over 50 that I know personally hardly even know what Instagram is and certainly don't use it - So pretty much by design your followers on Instagram will skew younger. That does not mean the overall coin collecting community is young (Most are just older and don't use Instagram).

KellenCoin · February 22, 2019 12:24PM

@C0inCollect0r said:
A critical point here is that Instagram is far more popular with young people than older people. Most people over 50 that I know personally hardly even know what Instagram is and certainly don't use it - So pretty much by design your followers on Instagram will skew younger. That does not mean the overall coin collecting community is young (Most are just older and don't use Instagram).

I am not saying the overall community is young, but I am simply pointing out that there are young collectors.

Timbuk3 · February 22, 2019 5:02PM

Interesting information, thank you for sharing !!!

cameonut2011 · February 23, 2019 12:50AM

@KellenCoin said:
I run a numismatic Instagram account called @KellenCoin. It is a relatively midsized account for one that focuses on coins, with approximately 1350 followers. Instagram allows me to see some information about my followers, which is evident in the picture below. It is interesting to me that nearly a third of my followers are ages 25-34, and another 39% are either between the ages of 18-24 or 35-44.
I am both surprised and unsurprised; the former because of the often heard mentality that numismatics is dying because everyone is getting old, and the latter because in my observations through the years this statistic is familiar. In nearly everything I have seen, middle-aged numismatists are very much present, but are present in online settings. See also @Aspie_Rocco's recent age poll and mine from a year earlier. Additionally, I find it interesting but unsurprising that my followers are mainly male. Anyways, I just thought it was something cool to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

How many people responded? I am shocked by the 23% female statistic. I would have guessed 5-10% at best.

ShadyDave · February 23, 2019 6:01AM

@cameonut2011 said:

@KellenCoin said:
I run a numismatic Instagram account called @KellenCoin. It is a relatively midsized account for one that focuses on coins, with approximately 1350 followers. Instagram allows me to see some information about my followers, which is evident in the picture below. It is interesting to me that nearly a third of my followers are ages 25-34, and another 39% are either between the ages of 18-24 or 35-44.
I am both surprised and unsurprised; the former because of the often heard mentality that numismatics is dying because everyone is getting old, and the latter because in my observations through the years this statistic is familiar. In nearly everything I have seen, middle-aged numismatists are very much present, but are present in online settings. See also @Aspie_Rocco's recent age poll and mine from a year earlier. Additionally, I find it interesting but unsurprising that my followers are mainly male. Anyways, I just thought it was something cool to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

How many people responded? I am shocked by the 23% female statistic. I would have guessed 5-10% at best.

Those stats are probably created by instagram user data on each account, not data from a poll. Since he has a “business account” those stats are available to him as a value add for marketing and understanding the users who follow him.

I’m not surprised by the 23% women either. Women tend to gravitate to Instagram more than men from my experience (and from my wife using it). Instagram is owned by Facebook in case people didn’t know.

291fifth · February 23, 2019 6:31AM

Savvy young people are becoming much more selective about what they post on Facebook and Instagram. They know they are being watched by marketers and potential employers, among others.

Kccoin · February 23, 2019 10:06AM

over half your followers under 35 sounds about right. As others have said, your are sampling Intsagram.

over 55 also looks DEAD ON

FranklinHalfAddict · February 23, 2019 10:16AM

@NSP said:
Very interesting statistics. I’m in the 18-24 bracket (my account is nsp_coins), and the age distribution seems to be fairly in line with what I’ve experienced on Instagram. As others have said, there are modern coins, world coins, and toned coins that pop up frequently. I do my best to try to spice things up by posting the occasional capped bust quarter!

I love seeing your quarters!

cladking · February 23, 2019 10:16AM

Everywhere you look you can see young collectors. There are even lots of collectors under 13 years of age but few of them show up on instagram. They show up in many ways but the preferential removal from circulation of better dates and grades of clads is a significant one as is the high sales of folders for all circulating coinage.

People rarely see changes until they accumulate sufficiently to make the "news" but the reality is, just as John Prine says, "time don't fly, it bounds and leaps". Change is a process composed of cyclical components.

davewesen · February 23, 2019 10:57AM

I suspect your demographics profile may be closer to Instagram users than coin collectors

bidask · February 23, 2019 11:33AM

@KellenCoin said:
I run a numismatic Instagram account called @KellenCoin. It is a relatively midsized account for one that focuses on coins, with approximately 1350 followers. Instagram allows me to see some information about my followers, which is evident in the picture below. It is interesting to me that nearly a third of my followers are ages 25-34, and another 39% are either between the ages of 18-24 or 35-44.
I am both surprised and unsurprised; the former because of the often heard mentality that numismatics is dying because everyone is getting old, and the latter because in my observations through the years this statistic is familiar. In nearly everything I have seen, middle-aged numismatists are very much present, but are present in online settings. See also @Aspie_Rocco's recent age poll and mine from a year earlier. Additionally, I find it interesting but unsurprising that my followers are mainly male. Anyways, I just thought it was something cool to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

I think your way ahead of the curve on marketing coins and numismatics .

Keep it up and let us know if your following grows.

KellenCoin · February 23, 2019 11:57AM

@cameonut2011 said:

@KellenCoin said:
I run a numismatic Instagram account called @KellenCoin. It is a relatively midsized account for one that focuses on coins, with approximately 1350 followers. Instagram allows me to see some information about my followers, which is evident in the picture below. It is interesting to me that nearly a third of my followers are ages 25-34, and another 39% are either between the ages of 18-24 or 35-44.
I am both surprised and unsurprised; the former because of the often heard mentality that numismatics is dying because everyone is getting old, and the latter because in my observations through the years this statistic is familiar. In nearly everything I have seen, middle-aged numismatists are very much present, but are present in online settings. See also @Aspie_Rocco's recent age poll and mine from a year earlier. Additionally, I find it interesting but unsurprising that my followers are mainly male. Anyways, I just thought it was something cool to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

How many people responded? I am shocked by the 23% female statistic. I would have guessed 5-10% at best.

This isn't actually a survey. When people signed up, they marked their age and gender, and so Instagram can see who is following me and what they marked, and then they compile it here. I was also surprised by the high female percentage.

RAB · February 23, 2019 11:57AM

Very interesting and informative post, @KellenCoin.

Thinking about switching my Insta account, @RAB.coins, to business as well so I can see those stats. Curious, what business category did you choose? Thanks!

KellenCoin · February 23, 2019 11:58AM

@davewesen said:
I suspect your demographics profile may be closer to Instagram users than coin collectors

Maybe, but this also shows that there ARE in fact active younger collectors.

KellenCoin · February 23, 2019 12:00PM

@RAB said:
Very interesting and informative post, @KellenCoin.

Thinking about switching my Insta account, @RAB.coins, to business as well so I can see those stats. Curious, what business category did you choose? Thanks!

I personally chose education because that is what I hope my posts will accomplish. However, if you are on the more business side of things, you could choose Business or some related category.

Balltrash · February 23, 2019 12:02PM

@291fifth said:
1350 followers might sound like a lot but it is not. Consider that at the height of its circulation in the mid-1960s COIN WORLD had a circulation of about 165,000. At a large local coin show I attended last Sunday, which was very well attended, I saw virtually no collectors who appeared to be less than 40.

I have been collecting for years and just went to my first coin show last weekend. It was interesting but reaffirmed that I enjoy this hobby through other means and do not see the value in attending a show. Won't say it will be my last but I have no desire to go out of my way to seek out another. Like most others of my generation or younger, we just experience things differently. I would make show attendance no measure whatsoever as to the involvement of younger people in this hobby.

crazyhounddog · February 23, 2019 12:31PM

I’m a old collector. This is music to my ears. I love the fact that many collectors are young up and coming numismatists. At the FUN show I just attended I met many young up and coming collectors that are VERY savvy to this hobby. This is the oldest hobby in the world and will NEVER die off. Now, if the mint would allow some beautiful designs to our coinage it sure would help. At this point in time our coins are drab and stale . How much longer will we have this ugly coinage? Don’tcha think it’s way past due for a change in our change? I’m totally burnt out with coins of today.
Great thread and great information that makes me feel pretty good.
Thanks for sharing what I already knew but now confirmed.
Happy hunting, Joe

NSP · February 23, 2019 12:32PM

@FranklinHalfAddict said:

@NSP said:
Very interesting statistics. I’m in the 18-24 bracket (my account is nsp_coins), and the age distribution seems to be fairly in line with what I’ve experienced on Instagram. As others have said, there are modern coins, world coins, and toned coins that pop up frequently. I do my best to try to spice things up by posting the occasional capped bust quarter!

I love seeing your quarters!

Thanks! There are a lot of bust halves, dimes, and half dimes posted on Instagram... but I think I’m the only account that semi-regularly posts bust quarters. Ah well, I guess someone has to do it!

Swampboy · February 23, 2019 12:42PM

I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I wind up un-following folks simply because of the volume of posts they create.
More than one a day every day is too much for me.

yspsales · February 23, 2019 12:44PM

@Walkerfan said:
Thank you for validating what I already suspected.

The hobby isn't dying but rather technology is changing and, therefore, so are the platforms and venues.

The OP and this post speak the gospel.

I despise Facebook, don't care for Twitter, and don't have an Instagram account.

That needs to change.

Catbert · February 23, 2019 2:17PM

Facebook owns instagram

thisistheshow · February 23, 2019 2:24PM

@cladking said:
Everywhere you look you can see young collectors. There are even lots of collectors under 13 years of age but few of them show up on instagram. They show up in many ways but the preferential removal from circulation of better dates and grades of clads is a significant one as is the high sales of folders for all circulating coinage.

People rarely see changes until they accumulate sufficiently to make the "news" but the reality is, just as John Prine says, "time don't fly, it bounds and leaps". Change is a process composed of cyclical components.

I am a casual Prine fan. I had never heard that song. I just did. Thanks!

Walkerfan · February 23, 2019 3:07PM

@yspsales said:

@Walkerfan said:
Thank you for validating what I already suspected.

The hobby isn't dying but rather technology is changing and, therefore, so are the platforms and venues.

The OP and this post speak the gospel.

I despise Facebook, don't care for Twitter, and don't have an Instagram account.

That needs to change.

Me too. I am active on facebook but not Instagram. I think I will start a new account.

[Deleted User] · January 15, 2023 6:14PM

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Maywood · January 15, 2023 10:03PM

I would suggest brushing aside any internet generated data and say that probably 70% of collectors are aged 55+ and that 95% of collectors are white males.

7Jaguars · January 16, 2023 10:39AM

I agree entirely and am sad to do so, but the truth is the truth and "The Emperor's New Clothes" seems to factor in. If you look at entirely random pictures from show or club meetings, the demographics are a bit sad. Add on to that the absolute RELATIVE lack of interest in younger folks is astonishing. As I have written numerous times before, not only are their precious few YNs at shows and club meetings, but in schools very low interest. For the last 10 years I have kept up a campaign of doing presentations, Show & Tells, giveaways, etc. at my son's school and local schools but also at my office where I see a pretty decent sampling of kids from 5 up. I try to encourage interests and have done giveaways at the office. There is astounding lack of interest despite bringing passion and trying to bring fun into it.
Quite frankly, video games consume these kids as well as other instant gratification activities.
Well, many on these boards may have vested interests in appearances and refer to faulted studies such as the OP which is apparently so very biased. Anyway, no convincing them of the truth of the matter - we constantly see trotted out extreme examples that are NOT the norm as de facto proof of widespread interest in kids. Women, well, not so much either even though it would be great IMHO.
Anyway, best to not entertain fantasy and adapt to what is and see what we can do to keep a bit of interest....

Insight into Collector Demographics

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