That’s my position and I’m sticking with it. That is, that 50 years old is the new 30 years old.

How do I get there? Well, first I’m coming up to my 50th birthday so it brings it to top of mind. Second, a recent comment from my wife about having our son come and visit from California brought it out.

The situation: I was going over airline booking options with my step-son. He chose a morning flight that gets into Michigan in the afternoon. The other option was a red-eye that would get in first thing in the morning. He chose the morning departure/afternoon arrival. His mom though, upon hearing this, said “He’s young, why doesn’t he take the red-eye?” This would give my wife more time to visit with him although he’d be pretty wiped out from the travel/time-zone change. I replied, he’s not so young. She said, yes he is. He’s under 30. To which I replied, I’d have made the same choice as him and I’m almost 50. Thus the observation that 50’s the new 30. It certainly was funny to me at the time to me, maybe you had to be there, especially as my wife beat me to 50 (only slightly).

But, in further reflection, there is more to this than just spousal jousting. Demographic changes and life expectancies make this a more true statement than ever before. When Social Security was first implemented with retirement benefits set at age 65 the ‘dirty little secret’ was that most people did not live much past age 65. Thus there really wasn’t much of a benefit. Thus at age 30, one had 35 to 38 years left of life expectancy.

Compare that to now. I was talking with my brother’s father-in-law a week ago. He’s 73. He’s been told by the IRS, due to having to draw on his 401K, that he has a life expectancy of another 27 years or an even 100. That’s a median expectancy! Half the people his age now will live longer than 27 years according to the IRS.

So back to my thesis that 50 is the new 30. At the start of Social Security circa the late 1930s, one could expect to live another 35 years. Come forward to the 2000s and at age 50 my life expectancy is another 28 years according to the Social Security Administration. Not quite 35 but its not 15 either.

How is this related to collecting? We will be collectors for much longer than we might realize. We will have a much longer period to pursue our hobbies. We will have more extended retirement period than our parents or grandparents and thus more free time to pursue our hobbies.

After we handled Bernie Miller’s collections, I recall collectors asking why was Bernie still collecting when they saw him at trade-o-rees? I simply told them that although he sold off most of his collections, he didn’t die. He sold his main collections at age 74. He lived another 10 years. Why shouldn’t he have kept collecting? Its what he and Rita enjoyed amongst other things.

So besides, ’50 is the new 30′ there is an underlying message about our hobby and collecting. It is quite reasonable to assume that folks will collect much longer than they used to and that there is a real opportunity to bring in new collectors who are in retirement phases of life. They are out there. I see it from some of the questions and information sharing during our auctions or other e-mails. We need to think how to reach these folks and how to welcome them into the hobby.