Jeff Garrett, president of the American Numismatic Association, wrote an article recently with his thoughts on the future of coin collecting. Much (but not all) of the article also applies to our hobby (casinomismatics?).

Certainly, some of his comments on young collectors involvement in the hobby reflect some recent posts here about whether introducing young people to gambling is appropriate. Boy Scouts of America has a merit badge for coin collecting but doubt if they will ever have one for chip collecting even if there are 130 different MB's currently. I do see they have revised the list since I got my badge in Bookbinding . They also have no "Wine Tasting" or "Label Collecting" merit badges so maybe it's a question of maturity. They do have one on "Shotgun Shooting" though.

Here is the current picture of Merit Badges that can be earned: http://www.scouting.org/meritbadges.aspx

I thought the discussion of recent issues by the US Mint was interesting as a comparison with Limited Edition chips that we have seen in our hobby. Also, Canada has quite a few silver commemorative coins issued for action heroes like Superman. Sample:

https://www.moderncoinmart.com/world-coins/world-commemorative-coins/superman-coins/?campid=352777630&adgrpid=23396593150&semkey=kwd-89986467372&adid=115042751470&locid=9032853&device=c&network=g&site=&category=&pos=1t2&extn=&expmt=&qry=canada%20superman%20coin&ad=mms190&gclid=CJDfttmzx88CFc9gfgod5ScOUQ

Here is the link to the article on numismatics:

https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/5576/numismatics/