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The really outstanding thing about coin collecting is that the rules never change. What you picked up as knowledge aged 8, will still be the same when you're 80. The coin you saved aged 8, will still look the same when you're 80. It's solid, real and long lasting. Unlike internet games which are transient and ever changing. Most will be forgotten in a few years. Judging by the coin groups on facebook, there are quite a few young people under 25 getting into the hobby, as well as some more experienced collectors. A blend of youth and experience, to use a footballing analogy - and guess what, pennies are popular !

I do think your right in that the supply of rare unattributed coins will gradually dwindle as there's is a finite number of coins to be discovered , As to collecting though I think that as the kids of today start to bore of internet games the same media ie the internet will actually in courage more people to take up collecting again.

Yep- that makes sense. Mind you, if, as seems likely, that most 1908's in good nick have been examined, then from how many there are and how many of them are 164a, you could judge the actual 164a mintage....

To me it seem there are only three ways in which high grade examples survive 1 That somebody in 1908 or any other year stored away a batch of brand new examples which then at a later date ended up in the hands of collectors. [ if this had happened to the 164a you would have expected many examples in high grade to be in circulation between collectors and dealers. This I think must have been the case for the F14 LCW under foot, of which there are many high grade examples, also I believe with the 2* which I surmise was part of a test run using this die that were never released into circulation, but that a small batch was smuggled out of the mint. This would account for all of the examples found so far being of a high grade, 2 That an odd example is taken out of the country in loose change, and being of no use in that country sat in the back of a draw for many years surviving almost unworn 3 and the odd example or two that was lost at or around the time of the production, and survived at the back of a draw , or by falling through the floorboards, or some other such way. These lost coins that subsequently reappear would I think be what happened to the odd 164a and the Hollow neck and open 3, though not in the case of the F169 , as I personally have never seen an example better than good fine.