Courtesy of Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers, Dallas, Texas.

By Jim Halperin

In this series of articles, I'll dare to offer predictions based on thirty years of self-immersion in technology and numismatics. Don't take them as gospel. Unlike historians, futurists have few actual events to back up their assertions, only logic and observation.

Now I'll step out, onto this very thin limb.

1. Within five years, most retail - and wholesale - coin business will be transacted over the Internet. Thirty years ago retail coin buyers commonly mailed unconfirmed orders with checks. As telecommunications progressed, most began using the telephone to pre-confirm availability, and when credit cards became widespread, more collectors started charging their purchases. FedEx, 800 numbers, and faxes have made buying easier and more efficient. The Internet is the logical next step, and is already becoming the most practical and affordable place for buyers and sellers to congregate.

2. Nonetheless, for the next decade at least, collectors will view the Internet merely as an option. You may want nothing to do with computers or simply prefer to buy coins from dealers, or public auctions, or at shows. If so, your opportunities may become more limited, but will still exist. When Coin World was founded, a few might have worried that this new publication would put coin shops and coin shows out of business. In fact, the opposite occurred, at least for awhile, and over the past four decades Coin World has helped expand nearly every aspect of the hobby. Internet activity will likely do the same.

3. Within two years, most rare coins certified by major grading services will be accompanied by digital images and advanced authentication systems. Each holder's unique serial number will allow for comprehensive tracking and positive digital identification of individual coins. Such a system will further enhance trading activity, protect legitimate ownership, and grow the numismatic knowledge base.

4. The explosion of information will only accelerate. In 1986 David Hall launched PCGS, and, most germane to this topic, Population Reports. Teletrade founder Bernard Rome started compiling coin auction records in the 1970s, and Krause Publications took over in the 1980s. Within three years, every buyer and seller will have access to free databases assembled from multiple sources, providing more comprehensive and verified auction and direct-sales historical pricing records and far more reliable rarity data than exists anywhere today. (Several companies are working on such projects now.)

5. Instead of maintaining individual Web sites, within ten years most coin traders will buy and sell with others from a single virtual location. In 1990, long before eBay or Amazon.com, Steve Ivy and I launched the United States Rare Coin Exchange (USRCE). For a small monthly fee, all reputable rare coin dealers were invited to list their inventories on our central database, which we mailed to a large list of customers. While the venue quickly became popular with collectors and attracted about 100 dealers, it never made a profit, so we closed it in 1993. We were just a bit ahead of our time.
If you're interested in what will soon become commonplace, I suggest you visit the Gallery at CoinUniverse.com. Then check out AbaCoin.com, which grew out of a conversation I had about USRCE approximately a year ago with a fellow collector, a brilliant technology consultant and former Bell Labs/Lucent projects guru named John Zuk. (disclosure: As a minority investor in AbaCoin and, to a smaller extent, Coin Universe, I stand to gain personally from their success.) A lot of coin dealers and collectors use eBay and Amazon ZShops today, but I predict that some site like AbaCoin or Coin Universe, both of which offer much more time-saving and specialized content, will likely usurp most of that numismatic activity within a few years. Eventually one company will dominate (as eBay does today), but which one is anybody's guess.

6. Within 20 years, dealers - and computers - will evaluate coins remotely, as accurately as in person, by viewing Holographic images over the Internet. Holography creates a three-dimensional photograph by splitting a single laser beam in two, then layering the responses to form a nonstatic image that reflects light in exactly the same way as the subject item. Every nuance is exposed to the viewer and can be enhanced to display specific areas of the surface for closer examination. The technology already exists, and its implications for numismatic professionals are enormous.

7. The line that now separates the dealer from the collector will blur - then disappear. In the past a dearth of verifiable market information, and exclusive access to customers, allowed certain dealers to make windfall profits. But imagine if everyone knew the correct grade of a coin, what it were worth, and where to get the lowest price. New collectors shouldn't be forced to pay a stiff initiation fee to become members of the numismatic fraternity, and very soon, they won't. Just as the Internet has spawned a new breed of day-traders, its transparency will attract droves of coin buyers.

Fifty years from now - and perhaps much sooner - what might be termed today's traditional coin dealership will no longer exist, but it should be a golden age for collectors!