Coin Collectors and Investors are - STILL IN THE MONEY

Higher Gold and Adapting to the Internet Have Created Stunning Interest

- JOSHUA MCMORROW-HERNANDEZ

The global pandemic has changed the economic landscape of virtually every industry in every corner of the world. The coin marketplace is certainly no exception to this rule. Since the pandemic walloped the United States in late winter 2020, the numismatic industry has been thrust into a bizarre reality in which coin shows and club meetings are cancelled and brick-and-mortar stores are essentially all but closed.

In this era, the internet has served as a lifeline for the numismatic industry, connecting collectors and dealers to keep the industry humming. The success with which the hobby has adapted to using the internet for almost every business and social function is stunning, at least by the standards of our otherwise analog hobby. While auction firms and dealers began trickling onto the information superhighway in the 1990s, several collectors and dealers were still working largely off the digital grid until the start of the pandemic. Granted, many of these digital technology holdouts didn’t necessarily need the internet to engage in the hobby before the global pandemic clenched its death grip on society. But now? Well, without the internet, it’s a pretty lonely existence for many hobbyists. And for dealers? No internet generally means no or very little revenue. The nationwide coin shortage that reared its ugly head during mid-summer hasn’t helped. Fueled by a stop in production at the United States Mint, reduced distribution of new coinage by the Federal Reserve, and critical interruptions to the flow of coinage in daily commerce, the coin shortage has put a temporary end to most circulation based roll searching. Banks are all but out of coins, and they’re doling them out on a limited basis to merchants and other essential businesses.