Where have all the pint-sized collectors gone?
Arizona Coin Collector
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0112/p17s01-lifp.html
The Christian Science Monitor
Where have all the pint-sized collectors gone?
Most kids today don't collect stamps and baseball cards
as their parents once did. Does it matter?
By Marilyn Gardner
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 12, 2009 edition
Angela Watson remembers the pleasure of childhood stamp
collecting. Whenever friends and family gave her stamps,
especially from foreign countries, she would study them.
Then she would turn to the Encyclopedia Britannica for
more information.
"Stamps provided a large part of my education in
history, geography, science, and nature," says Ms.
Watson of Long Beach, Calif.
Today far fewer youngsters are involved in the
traditional "big three" of children's
collecting - stamps, coins, and sports cards.
As Watson explains, "Getting kids interested in
'traditional' hobbies can be very difficult because
we are competing with video games, skateboards,
and TV."
That leaves adult collectors scrambling to find
ways to draw a new generation of enthusiasts.
Stamp clubs, Watson notes, are trying to attract
children with free stamps and appealing activities.
"Kids used to collect stamps because it was a
glimpse into a world you couldn't see just by
turning on a computer [as they can today],"
says Will Seippel, a father of five and CEO of
WorthPoint, a database for collectibles. "If
you were growing up in Baltimore, a stamp was a
way to see Cameroon. Today there's not the
primary lure of the distant land."
People collect for three reasons - nostalgia,
decorative purposes, and investment, says Gary
Sohmers of Framingham, Mass., who appraises
collectibles for the Antiques Roadshow on PBS. He
finds that collecting teaches children about
maintaining objects and sharing their collections
with friends and family. It also offers lessons
in fair trading.
Mr. Sohmers's 12-year-old son, Thomas, is an avid
collector of NASA memorabilia, computers, video
games, and penguins, both figurines and stuffed
animals.
For a time, baseball cards became more popular than
coin collecting for children, says Mark Albarian,
president of Goldline International, a rare coin
and precious metals trading firm. "Now that's
changing because of the United States Mint. The
state quarter program, new gold and silver coins,
and the new Lincoln pennies for 2009 have brought
coin collecting to center stage."
Many children attend coin shows, and the American
Numismatic Association hosts merit badge clinics
for Boy Scouts at its two annual conventions.
In sports collectibles, Major League Baseball and
the sports card companies have conducted advertising
and marketing campaigns in recent years to continue
to attract young people to the hobby.
The Internet is also changing the world of
collecting. As founder of CoinTalk.com, an online
community of coin collectors, Peter Davis provides
a way for older collectors to mentor the younger
generation.
"One of the things younger collectors have to face
today that older folks didn't is the massive influx
of Chinese counterfeit coins into the hobby," he
says. Online "marketplaces such as eBay have made
it very profitable for Chinese counterfeiters to
sell directly to the collecting public in the US,
or to middlemen who pass counterfeits off as the
real thing."
The Internet, particularly Wikipedia, "ruined"
Brandon Mendelson's interest in trading cards.
"When I was younger, I liked the trivia found on
the back of each Marvel Comics card," says the
Syracuse, N.Y., resident. "With the Internet, all
the trivia can be found online, so it became a bit
pointless to me to keep collecting them."
David Steinberger of New York, who collected comics
when he was a boy, finds that comic book collectors
today are generally viewed as an aging population.
"Younger comic book readers generally don't view it
as a collecting passion, but as a reading passion,"
he says. "Younger readers are more likely to buy
collected editions or even download illegal copies
online."
Mike Heffner, president of Lelands.com, a sports and
pop culture memorabilia auction house, began
collecting baseball cards when he was 7. "The hobby
has changed so much over the past 30 to 40 years,"
he says. "Technology has taken over the simplicity
of collecting. Cardboard just isn't as interesting
anymore."
Collecting is also more expensive today and more
businesslike, he adds. "Cards are not five or 10
cents anymore. Everything is governed by a price
guide."
In addition, today's instant-gratification culture
does not allow for the gradual appreciation of
collected items. When Mr. Heffner was 10, he bought
a box of baseball cards and stored it, unopened,
under his bed until he turned 18. "I knew the cards
would be worth more if the box remained unopened,"
he says. "I paid about $6 for that box of cards and
sold it eight years later for $500. I don't know if
kids today have that same discipline."
Whatever the objects of a young collector's passion,
they can stir fond memories for decades.
As a girl, Jacqui Pini of Boston collected small dog
figurines. She and her mother would go to yard sales
on Saturdays and buy them. At one point she owned
about 40 of the dogs.
"I would line them up on my shelves and play with
them," she says. "I still have two porcelain poodles
prominently placed in my house, and every time I
look at them, it reminds me of collecting them
with my mother."
Seippel urges parents to encourage children to
pursue things they like: "Help them develop interests
that aren't just on a video game. It may help if they
see parents collect."
Lynette Bondarchuk of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
started a "designer eraser" collection when she was
9, beginning with a tiny blue VW Bug eraser and a
pair of pink lips. That youthful enthusiasm has now
grown into an opportunity to collect with her
young son.
"My son is 5 and gets excited when he sees funky
erasers we can add to the collection, which now
numbers about 800," she says.
They also collect fancy rocks and precious stones,
such as geodes and amethysts. Collecting, she finds,
"demonstrates a sense of commitment, and an
opportunity for finding interest and taking pleasure
in 'small things.' "
Susan Chait, creative director of a design firm in
New York, and her husband collect pop culture. Their
9-year-old collects cards and Pez containers.
"Collecting is part of the fabric of our family,"
she says. "We take trips that become like treasure
hunts to toy and comic book shows. Collecting objects
has definitely made our life richer, giving us common
ground and something to share."
Sohmers regards age 13 as an important milestone in
collecting: "That's when boys discover girls and
girls discover boys." Their interest in collecting
wanes.
But when parents and their kids collect together,
he says, "It's a way to bond and teach, whether it's
picking up stones or stuffing leaves in a book.
Preserving the past is better than trying to
recapture it."
..
Mr. Jaggers
> FROM:
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0112/p17s01-lifp.html
>
> The Christian Science Monitor
>
> Where have all the pint-sized collectors gone?
>
> Most kids today don't collect stamps and baseball cards
> as their parents once did. Does it matter?
I was a kid 50 years ago, and I only knew one kid who collected stamps in my
grade school of 700 students. I was one of three or four that I knew of who
collected coins back then. None of them were very serious about it other
than I.
Where are the reliable statistics that corroborate the author's claims about
the collecting of baseball cards then and now?
This whole article reads like a puff piece in my book.
James
Bruce Remick
"Arizona Coin Collector" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:h9Cdnaoje7rszffU...@earthlink.com...
> FROM:
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0112/p17s01-lifp.html
>
> The Christian Science Monitor
>
> Where have all the pint-sized collectors gone?
One's right here. Been collecting older 16oz beer cans since the 1970's.
Bruce Remick
"Mr. Jaggers" <lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com> wrote in message
news:gkdkn...@enews5.newsguy.com...
When I was a kid in the late 40's and early 50's, most all kids I knew
collected either bubble gum cards, comic books, or both. None collected
stamps or coins that I knew of. Stamps seemed to be most popular with men
who were kids in the 1920's and 1930's. As the article claims, no one
collected cards for their potential future value, although I did try to save
complete sets of cards in "unplayed with" condition just for the sake of
satisfying my collector gene. I still have many of them today, but
gradually sold off several of the more valuable ones
I started an interest in coins about 1953, when as a teenager I grew away
from collecting baseball and non-sports cards. I didn't know of anyone else
who was into coins. About the time rock 'n roll arrived in the mid-1950's
most of us kids were spending our extra money on 45RPM records, and most had
modest collections of those before long.
Today I know of a few neighborhood kids who collect sports cards, but none
with the passion we once had. I think it's the grownups who collect the
sets and TPG-slabbed singles as investments.
Arizona Coin Collector
"Bruce Remick" <rem...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:9Owal.15445$Nv1....@newsfe03.iad...
>
>
> One's right here. Been collecting older 16oz beer cans since the 1970's.
>
Hello
Right now, a single cold beer sounds wonderful. Thank you for giving me
that wonderful though. Just too poor to buy one now. Maybe later.
Bruce Remick
I collect the empty ones. Preferably the ones that required a can opener
before tab tops appeared in the 1960's. You're too far away or I'd be glad
to share a cold one with you.
Mr. Jaggers
If I correctly guess Arizona's age, you may have to explain church key can
openers to him. I was recently shocked to learn that my son did not know
the term.
James
Bruce Remick
"Mr. Jaggers" <lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com> wrote in message
You'll note I didn't use that insider term in my reply. I chose it for my
"handle" during the CB era some thirty years ago. Now I suppose the big
rigs simply text each other.
You might take comfort after the fact to learn that your son never knew the
term.
Mr. Jaggers
No need for him to know. Everything was poptop by the time he came of age.
James