Thank You For Participating On A Study.

If you were a true collector,you wouldnt worry about selling your coins...Now,If you were studying speculators,then,you'd be spot on!!I hope I can get an A+ for this response

Well, the other studies done by my classmates results were: beanie babies hobby is dead, hot wheels is not dead nor dumb. Stamp collecting is dead. And of course my study: coin collecting is dumb.

or individuals who admittedly make up incendiary stories...

IMO there is no problem in participating in those studies "as long we knew about" , this is a serious community and people spend their time here trying and help others and I'm sure they will be glad in helping a study research about coins collecting if the true reason be told .

Either this was an very low quality assignment, or you completely missed the point, which was to demonstrate if you have learned the scientific method.

Dead and Dumb are both arbitrary and ill or un-defined terms. Asking a bunch of random, self-selected people for opinions and then trying to summarize them is silly. You might as well ask how high is up.

I hope your presentation was made using standard English spelling and standard English grammar. Yes that's not how people talk, but you will often find that the message is lost because people can't get past a poor presentation. Certainly people will understand studies vs. studys vs. study. But improper usage sub-consciously causes people to devalue the message (and the messenger).


To exercise the scientific method, you would needed to have defined the terms (your own definitions), setup a survey to measure that, executed the survey and then analyzed the results against the definition.

For example, the hypothesis is that a "dead" hobby is one that has only a small number (0.1% of the population) who currently participate, but past participation was more than 5x as large, i.e. 0.5% of the population.

[Note that this might not be a very good definition, but it would be the definition you used, defined a priori and that *is* the point of the scientific method: make a hypothesis and prove or disprove it]

You could determine past participation through researching historical references and current participation through a survey (getting past the self-selection bias is probably beyond a Jr. High School assignment).


What is your basis for saying "the amount of replies" indicates it's not dead? 42,000 people were ever a member here out of a US population over 300M... that's a tiny percentage. And meaningless.

As for dumb, you confuse numismatics, collecting and investment. So your conclusion is suspect.

Well then folks take a good hard look at your tax dollars at work with our public education system... However, I highly doubt you have any teachers that would condone your actions... Probably a good thing I am not your teacher or I would fail you for the reasons below...

Horrible English.
Horrible spelling.
No self-esteem.
Lack of maturity.


Seriously kid, you need to grow up and get a life...

My fellow collectors,

What we have here is a young person that is just beginning on the pathway of learning. Alvaro77 was given an assignment which was carried out to the best of their limited ability (I'm sorry, I do not know if you are a young woman or a young man). According to the effort I think I would grade this at a B+ minimum. However, according to the method used I would grade this at a D if I was extremely generous.

I guess it all depends on what the origin of this assignment is. If this was given in a journalism class then you did very well, with just one really big mistake. If this was given in a social science class or another type of science research class then you have a lot to learn.

Let me explain a bit about the Scientific Mehod. To enter a study with a preconceived outcome is a BIG no-no. This will prejudice the research and invalidate the outcome. I have followed you throughout this "experiment" not knowing what was being done on your part, now that you have revealed the purpose (another BIG no-no) I can see the HUGE mistake that you have made. As far as I can tell when you received this assignment you decided that coin collecting was indeed dumb and you structured your research to prove your idea (this is called a false premise wether it is really false or not). This method has invalidated your entire project. If you were a professional and submitted this paper for peer review it would be rejected as pure trash. I do not intend to demean you, I am just pointing out that if you intend to pursue any type of science as a career then you MUST learn not to make a mistake like this or you will be a order taker at the local burger stand for the rest of your life. I do hope you have learned from this experience and that you will continue to pursue knowledge for a lifetime and remember that sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than from our success.

Two more things of note. I appreciate the thank you that you have sent to us, but NEVER reveal your study to your subjects this also inserts prejudice. And finally, if this was done as a journalism assignment then you are spot on and deserve an A!

I don't see where you were "bullied" on the threads you posted. Did some people disagree with you? Sure. Welcome to the Internet. You can go to any forum anywhere and post pretty much anything and you will get some disagreement. But that's a long way from bullying. Also, there were many people in these threads who agreed with and supported at least some of your statements, which doesn't sound like bullying to me. Actually the vast majority of the posters on this thread are polite and friendly, even when disagreeing. Some people like to use humor/sarcasm in their posts but that just makes things fun.

Now sometimes, when you post a thread with an incendiary title such as "is coin collecting dead or dumb", you will raise the ire of folks who have been involved with the hobby for decades. They might take exception to that and it might show in their replies. Again, that's not bullying, that is normal human response.

If you want to experience bullying, I suggest you go look on another forum (plenty to choose from), because you aren't going to find it here.