Coin Book For Collectors
Argenta Sugden
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I think there are a several of classes of collectors. There are probably 10 million people (including kids) who go thru their change and save ones they think are nice or interesting. Then there are some lesser number of bullion collectors who consider themselves coin collectors as they buy all of the certified bullion coins from around the world. Next would come low budget coin collectors who actually buy coins at shows and online. Based on the number of ebay listings that would probably be some where in the 4 million range (just a guess). Lastly there are the high budget collectors who buy from shows and the major auctions. This group is a much smaller number. So like the previous post, define collector.
(2) There are those who are ACTIVE in collecting modern or older coins. This means adding to the collection or actively looking to add/buy/sell at least once a year, IMO, if not more frequently.
(3) There are those who are ACTIVE in collecting modern/older coins.....and either research trends/what is happening on a weekly or monthly basis.....and/or attend a coin show or go to their local coin dealer at least once a year.
(4) Then there are the SERIOUS COLLECTORS.....folks who attend at least 2+ coin shows a year or go to their local dealer a few times a year......make 1-2 or more purchases a year (or sales).....do research on the Web at least weekly....post on message boards ....etc.
So.....I think the difference between the entire group of COLLECTORS vs. the SERIOUS COLLECTORS is probably 5-20 fold, depending on your definition. But I think my definitions and numbers are somewhat in the ballpark.
Happy to defer to veterans here who can compare their experiences now vs. 10 years ago vs. 30 years ago vs. maybe 40+ years ago. Especially at local/regional/national coin shows, where it is easy to compare traffic and dealer numbers (I was a serious baseball collector and the change has been massive, needless to say ).
Active, hardcore...no way, I bet it's less than 2 million, possibly even lower. Are the flippers on eBay collectors, no...that's 300,000 right there! Was my Aunt who had 2 coffee cans full of circulated clad Kennedy half dollars from the 70's & 80's a collector, no.
The numbers swelled at the beginning of the Statehood quarter program but has dwindled steadily since that era has ended. The US Mint is saturating the market with over 130 different products for collectors. If you buy something from the US Mint as a gift, say to honor an event, is the gifter & the giftee considered a collector? In other words, the US Mint sales figures are skewed to make the collector market larger than it really seems.
This is where I was going with my comment above about defining collector. If she was interested in varieties or trying to even put together a date/mint mark circulated set, yes, I would consider her a collector.
I think that narrows it down to the true definition of a collector. Someone who COLLECTS may not necessarily be a collector, they might get coins for their bday or holidays but do nothing on their own. Not a collector, IMO, at least under a more active definition.
I agree with your sentiments. Maybe two million who are actively buying and selling, at most. This is somewhat more than 1% of the adult population and substantial groups (African Americans and women generically) have much lower participation rates than the European demographic.
Would be great to know how many people visit/watch/bit on stuff at Ebay. I just noticed that they have filters on the left side for year, MS condition, etc. Not sure it had been there years ago when I would just glance at the site (but maybe it was, don't quote me ).
Tye Mint released a Request for Proposal (RFP) to industry last year for the purpose of hiring a contractor to redesign the web page and ordering functions. In the RFP were statistics on numbers of users/access/network loads, etc. At this point, you will have to do an internet search to find a copy.
I am aware of that and I don't disagree with you. The price level supports a larger population of large spenders than 250,000. Must be thousands who will spend over $10,000 on a single coin and a large multiple who will spend more than $1,000.
As for the buyers of US Mint products, not sure how many of these I consider actual collectors. Those who subscribe and buy regularly, certainly. In the past, it has been my understanding that a very large percentage were not. They were buying gifts for other collectors. As indicated by the Kennedy gold coin, I also believe a substantial number are buying for speculative purposes. I don't believe there are anywhere near 75,000 actual collectors who really want that coin.
And you are right, I had at least 3 or 4 of my relatives in my youth give me coin sets in the 1970's as BDAY or Christmas presents. In fact, my uncle got me an ASE a few years ago for my BDAY and it got me interested in the Silver Eagles as a stepping-stone between gold coin purchases (which because of their cost$$$ are more infrequent) and now I have been adding silver coins, slabbed and non-slabbed, when I have a few bucks but not enough for a gold coin. (thumbs u
It's the sales number I recall from the PCGS Forum. Actual sales are probably somewhat less but whatever it is, it is somewhere near it and still far more than the number of real collectors who want it. I expect most of them to end up with "investors".
I also believe that many "collectors" are primarily buying even the proof ASE and "investment" coins like the Morgan dollar and generic type gold as bullion substitutes. I know ASE proofs are very popular but the mintages of these coins are huge.
The second group especially as leveraged plays on metal prices. Looking at the census counts of the common date Morgan and Peace dollars, I don't believe anywhere near this number of actual collectors are buying them. These coins aren't worth that much more than many 20th century classics that are also very common, but I don't believe the actual popularity between these series is anywhere near the difference in the census counts.
Someone on the Ike thread wondered why so many lower MS grades of these coins are in the census and why collectors would bother to submit it. My suspicion is that to a great extent, they did not. The submitters were telemarketers and coin brokers doing so to sell them to non-collectors in bulk..
Okay - the 147 million Statehood quarters participation is a very interesting statistic. Completely irrelevant for # of collectors, but still very interesting that someone came up with it in reference to the U.S. Mint website.
I consider this fact, not an opinion. I don't believe there are anywhere near the same proportion of collectors but even if there are, they certainly are spending far less money even proportionately. The price level proves it.
Coin collecting is the collecting of coins or other forms of minted legal tender. Coins of interest to collectors include beautiful, rare, and historically significant pieces. Collectors may be interested, for example, in complete sets of a particular design or denomination, coins that were in circulation for only a brief time, or coins with errors. Coin collecting can be differentiated from numismatics, in that the latter is the systematic study of currency as a whole, though the two disciplines are closely interlinked.
People have hoarded coins for their bullion value for as long as coins have been minted.[2] However, the collection of coins for their artistic value was a later development. Evidence from the archaeological and historical record of Ancient Rome and medieval Mesopotamia[3] indicates that coins were collected and catalogued by scholars and state treasuries. It also seems probable that individual citizens collected old, exotic or commemorative coins as an affordable, portable form of art.[4] According to Suetonius in his De vita Caesarum (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars), written in the first century AD, the emperor Augustus sometimes presented old and exotic coins to friends and courtiers during festivals and other special occasions.[5] While the literary sources are scarce, it's evident that collecting of ancient coins persisted in the Western World during the Middle Ages among rulers and high nobility.[6]
Contemporary coin collecting and appreciation began around the fourteenth century. During the Renaissance, it became a fad among some members of the privileged classes, especially kings and queens. The Italian scholar and poet Petrarch is credited with being the pursuit's first and most famous aficionado. Following his lead, many European kings, princes, and other nobility kept collections of ancient coins. Some notable collectors were Pope Boniface VIII, Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV of France, Ferdinand I of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor,[7] Henry IV of France and Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, who started the Berlin Coin Cabinet (German: Mnzkabinett Berlin). Perhaps because only the very wealthy could afford the pursuit, in Renaissance times coin collecting became known as the "Hobby of Kings".[8][9][10]
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