Getting others interested in coins....

If you ask most serious collectors when they first started collecting coins, you will often get the same answer, "When I was a kid".   People can easily go back in their minds to a time when they were young, reading and studying coins books, organizing their collections, and making lists of the must have coins to be added to their collection.  We hear greatly romantisized stories of sitting for hours under a light, into the wee hours of the night, fiddling with coins.  Coin collections can be associated with a special person, perhaps a mother or a father who also shared the same passion.  Coin collecting has bridged the gap of many a relationship.  The passion of coin collecting has been around since coins themselves.  People have always loved to collect.  If you think about it, what was there to do after the sun went down in mid century.  The advancement of the television did occupy the minds of people, but prior to that people found other things to do, and coin collecting was one of those things.
I get this question at least a couple of times a month, "Do people still collect coins?".  As if it were some lost, archaic past time.  I will admit, the coin collecting world had changed drastically inthe last 20 or 30 years.  It seems like kids have more than enough activities to chose from.  Sports, dance, art, theater, and don't forget xbox!  It is interesting to note that we don't see a lot of kids coming into our store. I think young people are more intersted in entertainment and competition, and less interested in history.  I believe collecting will always be alive....