Reprinted with permission from Bowers and Merena Rare Coin Review.
It was, as Yogi Berra famously remarked, "deja vu all over again." I was talking with a fellow numismatist at a coin show, and he began to wax fatalistic about the agonizing death of our hobby. "Kids don't collect coins anymore," he said dolefully. "All they care about is Pokemon cards, Pokemon collectibles, Pokemon video gams." Plunged into Poke-pessimism, lie lamented, "In 10 years, numismatics will be history."
I could only smile. It all reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes story in which an oversized plug-ugly threatens Holmes' life should he not desist investigating a case. "I'll kill you if you don't stop" the thug snarls, his voice dripping with menace. The great detective replies, "So many have said-and yet here I am." The coin hobby's death-by-Pokemon is only the latest in a long line of collectible crazes that, at the time they were sizzling, seemed certain to fry the coin hobby, and yet, in numismatics, here we are.
Granted, the Pokemon mania is all-consuming for thousands of kids, including my own nine-year-old son. Pokemon-"pocket monsters" in Japanese-are fanciful critters that are captured and trained to fight each other by youthful Pokemon masters. My son owns all of the versions of the Pokemon video game, most of the trading cards, and several of the collectibles. It is true that the only way in which I can interest him in a coin is if it depicts Pikachu, Bulbasaur, or one of the other 152 creatures in the Pokemon menagerie. Surely, he cares little for numismatics now. But has Pokemon made him indifferent to coin collecting forever? History would suggest otherwise.
It was merely a couple of years ago, for example, back when no American kid had ever heard of Japanese pocket monsters, that seemingly every one of them was willing to run over his or her own grandmother to collect Beanie Babies. You remember Beanie Babies-little bean-filled plush toys with punning names-like "Spots" for a Dalmatian. In the late 1990s it was not unusual for boys and girls alike to have Beanies by the dozen. Prices for rarer issues were shooting up, and soon adults were joining in the fray. I distinctly remember some of my numismatic friends mournfully saying in those days that coins were yesterday's news, that it was the age of the bean bag. Today, these babies aren't worth beans, and yet in numismatics, here we are.
If we were to go back a few years before kids began babying Beanies, the early 1990s, we will recall the mania for money cards. These credit card-sized pieces of plastic allowed people to prepay for needed services, such as long distance calling. The cards could be imprinted with any sort of graphic, and those that featured coins appealed mightily to younger (and many older) numismatists. Before long, coin dealers' cases were overrun with money cards, a couple of magazines were founded to cater to this new hobby, and confirmed coin collectors began to lament that numismatics would soon be as dead as a disconnected number. Today, the money card hobby has used up all of its time, and yet in numismatics, here we are.
Now let's go back to the late 1980s. The coin killer of the Desert Storm era was the baseball card. Kids were avidly pursuing Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays rookie cards, and speaking knowledgeably about the relative merits of Topps vs. Fleer products. The card hobby got so big that the folks who slab coins started dabbing cards, as well. Hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky laid out hundreds of thousands for a rare Honus Wagner card. Clearly, said my pessimistic pals, the death of coin collecting was in the cards. Today, the baseball card collectors have been caught in a squeeze play, and yet in numismatics, here we are.
Baseball cards, money cards, Beanie Babies, I've watched them all roar onto the stage in bright flashes of glory, then grope their way off in near-total darkness, or at least to try to re-form themselves to become a standard hobby with some staying power. That is why no Pokemon-not even the mighty Charizard-frightens me. Fads burn so brightly that it is hard to see anything else, but nothing can sustain that kind of heat for long. Eventually (and usually sooner rather than later), they burn themselves out, leaving behind only embers, if that. Pokemon's days are numbered, and soon it will experience the mortifying transformation by which today's white-hot collectible becomes tomorrow's garage sale giveaway.
But, as fads come and go, numismatics-mark my words-numismatics will endure. It emerged spectacularly on the scene in the United States back in 1850s, but it proved to be a fad that lasted. The reasons for this persistence are many, not the least of which is the fact that coin collecting is a hobby for grown-ups. One can hardly imagine many children retaining the same enthusiasm for pocket monsters 20 years from now that they cherish today. Coins, however, are a different matter. They can be enjoyed by children, and when the children grow up, their numismatic interests can mature with them. So let the trendy fads wax and wane, the coin hobby will be with us today and tomorrow. Also, coins can be the entryway to an adventure with history, or economics, or politics, or one or another of many other related pursuits. Rare coins tie in nicely with just about everything.
My advice, then, when confronted by the next Big Thing that seems poised to crush numismatics, is to just wait a bit for it to dry up and blow away. And when a despairing fellow hobbyist moans that the Big Thing is killing the coin hobby, just reply with the (slightly amended) wise words of Holmes: "So many have said and yet, in numismatics, here we are."
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