At 03:17 PM 9/24/97 -0600, you wrote: Not all coin collecting is like that. Certainly, modern US (with the grading services and all) is like that, but there are still many areas of numismatics that are still open to hobbiests. Large cents, Fugio Cents (my personal favorite), colonials, canadian, a lot of foreign, tokens, and so on still offer lots of opportunity for learning, research, and fun, without being so sanitary and heartless as a lot of such hobbies. Important note: Buy the book before you buy the coin. Know what you are doing, or you *will* get burned. (There's a company ala QVC that sells coins on TV at night -- Things like 3 Susan B. Anthony dollars for $10, when you can go to the post office and get the exact same thing for $3.) I think that even if the collecting of original PC's and Imsai's and such becomes too mainstream, there will still be plenty for the rest of us. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/