Learn from Coins
Having been a numismatist since age 5, and a sports collector much later (teens), I can tell you that this is one area that coin collecting blows sports collecting out of the water on.
There is a large organization called the American Numismatic Association, set up and partially funded by Congress I believe, based in Colorado Springs. Each year they host 2 weeks of seminars, and part of that is giving out Young Numismatist scholarships for kids under 18 to attend (airfare, double rooms at the Colorado College campus, food pass, everything). I won this award at age 17 and have returned again in my 30's. But as a young numismatist, it was an amazing experience. You were treated like the most important people at the event. Your teachers took special care to make sure you were well taken care of, some of the most important coin authors and scholars in the world preferred to hang out with the YN's most of the time, like Walter Breen. This would be like Jefferson Burdick taking his 2 weeks to hang out with the young collectors at an important event.
Besides this, the ANA museum and library has a sale each year and the YN's get first shot at buying any of the thousands of reference books for sale before the adults. And finally there is the YN auction to raise money. The YN's donate their own items to be auctioned, and the proceeds go towards more scholarships for the next year. Here's what is real cool. 1) The adults bid way more than things are worth, and happily so. They get into a fun competition trying to outdo each other on what they end up giving. And 2) because the teachers and other attendees know the YNs from the classes, many times they know what they collect, and they will often bid on appropriate items and then donate the item back to a TN whom they know wants it. IT's a win-win all around, and everybody has fun.
The point is, coin collectors really go the extra mile in every way to try to welcome young collectors. I have never seen this in any way in card collecting. In fact, I have unfortunately seen so much more of the opposite, where adults take advantage of the young collectors. What would it take for this hobby to capture some of the spirit of the Numismatic way of enticing young collectors?
Mark
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