Mohawk

Hey Don!!

If I do see any nice Soho, I'll definitely let you know!!! As far as submissions....well...with what I actually collect, those don't happen anymore.  But I'll definitely be sharing my collection with you guys!! I keep on chasing Faustina, and she keeps being a rewarding numismatic muse, for sure!

I'm glad things are finally moving along for you, Don!!! I'm excited to see how your submission turns out, too.  My submissions are kind of boring now......I really only send off stuff for my little resale venture.  I'll live vicariously through you!!!

Hi Rick,

I, too, am back after a long absence.  And I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your wife, I really am.  I just wanted to offer my condolences. I had a couple of serious losses myself during my time away.....I lost both my mom and stepmom to cancer in 2020.  It really sucks.....I feel for you, man.

~Tom

Hey Kerry,

In my younger days, I had my share of skateboard accidents myself....they can mess you up for sure!  However, if there was ever a fortunate skateboard accident, it sounds like you just had it.  It's good they caught that aneurysm, as I'm sure I don't even need to say here.  And, congrats on the grandbabies!  It'll definitely be fun for you to take a trip and meet them.  I'm always excited to meet new babies.....I just love them, even if they don't really do much for the first little while.  It's still amazing to have contact with and interact with new little life forms.

Glad you're still with us and in one piece.  And be sure to take Lisa out for a nice dinner

~Tom

1 hour ago, MIKE BYRNE said:

That's a great answer. I found two my wife brought home after she had money left over from the bank for laundry. I sent one to a friend who has no chance of getting one. He's always been there for me. So that what I did. Your absolutely right. Screw them at P.C.G.S.. 

Exactly, Mike! Screw them!  PCGS is being ridiculous and the W quarters are just another numismatic fad pumped out by the US Mint.  It's just more gimmicky *spoon*.  There are much better things to chase and expend energy and resources on......like your Conder tokens.  Now, those are cool.  They're cool pieces of history that are also tried and true collectibles.  Can't go wrong there

Well, Mike, I think there's an easy answer to this problem......don't buy into the hype.  Say screw PCGS and screw the W quarters and just pursue coins you actually want to pursue and that make you happy when you pursue them.  That's what I've done.  I actually did get a W mint War in the Pacific quarter in change myself.  You know what I did with it?  I gave it to my mother in law because she really liked the design of the coin and it made her happy.  I'm just pursuing my ancients and ignoring all of the modern US Mint hype and I'm very happy doing so.

42 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

Yup Mohawk, I AM A Company Man!!!  Seriously, he always does such a thorough job analyzing his subject but makes it completely accessible to even dullards like me. Very entertaining guy, I also love Great Big Story, Only in Japan, and Curiousity Inc.

I'm going to have to check those channels out as well.  I think we have similar tastes in YouTube content

26 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

Company Man always has interesting analysis.  I haven't seen his Funko Pop one so about to watch. 

You dig Company Man too Mokie?  Awesome!  He's one of the best YouTubers going.  I don't follow too many YouTubers, but Company Man is pretty high up on the small list of ones I follow.  He makes a great case for Funko Pops being a fad and the prognosis for the Funko company when the fad bubble pops. 

I just remembered a pretty cool video I saw on YouTube about the whole Funko thing.  This guy isn't a Funko collector or anything.....he examines companies and products and talks about why they're successful or why they failed....things like that.  He puts out a good video, so it may be entertaining for you guys, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ513v8Pquw

4 hours ago, Revenant said:

Like I said before, I could see owning one of these things if you were really into that character and liked the "art" style. I just would never want dozens.

Yeah....one or two wouldn't be bad, just bought as a novelty.  But I don't think that seriously collecting them with the idea they're some kind of an investment is the best idea.

My fiancee cracked me up.....I was telling her about this discussion and she looked at me and said "If there was a Faustina the Younger Funko Pop, you'd buy it."

Sadly, I think she's right...........

On 6/30/2019 at 5:49 PM, deposito said:

I'll google funko pop in a moment.  But what's their melt value?

Hard to go too wrong with old gold.  It is kind of remarkable how low over spot mint state graded examples of a lot of late 1800's USA and Euro and even some South American gold is. 

Speaking of LEGOs, I need to move, to get a basement, to store my LEGOS.  But, these are just bags and bags of "circulated" pieces.  Junk Legos.

Hey Deposito..... 

A Funko Pop's melt value is whatever spot vinyl is at the moment .  And, I would agree that a lot of European and South American gold is a great buy right now, but I don't think I'd extend that to US gold.....I strongly think that a lot of the US market is overpriced currently and has been for years and I think that gold is definitely one of those areas.  I also like the idea of "junk legos"......if I scoured my mom's attic, I may even be able to find some of my old "junk duplos" from when I was really little.  My sister and I even had the red, plush rabbit bag to keep our duplos in...but you can imagine how well that actually worked out with a 3 year old and a 5 year old. 

3 hours ago, Mokiechan said:

So

As you correctly stated, muchof the product they are putting out in the statue arena are just insane in detail and price.  I saw a 1:1 Scale Wonder Woman Bust that looks exactly like Gal.  Price, I think, before shipping is 3500.  The most I ever paid for a statue 1/6 scale, was probably in the high 200s, but that was 15-20 years  ago. 

Though I'm not into comics or superheroes (those never grabbed me) I will admit to considering making a purchase of the Stripe the Gremlin statue that Sideshow put out with JUN Planning a few years ago.  But, I think it was almost $400 and I couldn't justify spending that on a statue of a character just because I loved him as a child.  Now, a nice Faustina the Younger coin, on the other hand.......

5 hours ago, gherrmann44 said:

Somehow I am disconnected from this latest fad. Up until this post I had never heard of Funko Pops. I guess I'm not missing much while quality coins will always be in demand.

Oh come on Gary......you don't want to start collecting Funko Pops? 

1 hour ago, Just Bob said:

I am out of the loop enough that I had to look up the name to see what it was. It is Holland in the 1600s and Tulip Mania all over again.

Indeed it is Bob, indeed it is!  Tulip Mania is a chronic, recurring disease whose symptoms change slightly each time it comes back around, but it's still recognizable as the same ailment.

I'm with you.....this Funko Pop mania is pretty insane!  I'll admit that I have bought some off the shelf that were what these collectors call "chases" for the purpose of reselling them on eBay.  And they did sell, fast and I made a profit from it too!  But that was a fluke and I'll flip almost anything on eBay provided that it's legal and I can make a little money.  But, yeah, they're a fad.   No doubt, they're a fad.  I first got back into coins around 1999, right at the height of Beanie Baby mania.  I remember people coming into the coin shop I patronized at the time and trading coins, jewelry and bullion for Beanie Babies!  The shop started stocking Beanie Babies because of this.  It was absolutely insane!  I remember someone trading entire rolls of silver Mexican Libertads to get Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant.....I don't remember how many rolls, but it was substantial.  And now where is Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant in relation to many ounces of silver in the form of one of the most collectible silver bullion coin series.  It really makes you think and it should really make anyone spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on Funko Pops think.  Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant sold for a couple grand at one point, if I'm remembering correctly, and this was in the 1990's.  $2,000 in 1999 would be about $3053 today.  Now, Peanut languishes in attics, thrift shops and on eBay, and they're not selling, no matter what the price is aside from one that I saw which sold for $5.99 and one that inexplicably sold for $600......does your brother-in-law shop on eBay?  That's a pretty sobering thought considering that someone 20 years ago may have paid $2,000 for it.  Funko Pops will have their Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event as well......it's just a matter of time.  They've already lasted much longer than I thought they would, though.  But that doesn't mean they're not fads.  Different fads have different expiration dates.

I'd say that your brother-in-laws comparison between coin collecting and Funko Pop collecting was completely off-base.  People have collected coins for thousands of years.  Roman royalty and the wealthy of Roman society collected Roman and Ancient Greek coins.  The hobby goes back that far.  Funko Pops do not have that kind of pedigree and they never will.  These toys aren't even marketed to kids, which would cause at least some attrition.  They're marketed to adults to do with them the very thing your brother-in-law does: fill shelves and a room with them in their little boxes, just staring out at you with their beady little eyes and taking up space.  As far as I know, the only "attrition" that these things have is when people "customize" them.....basically they give them a repaint to make them into another character or a different version of the same character.....the things you learn from flipping these things a couple of times, let me tell you........Funko world is a weird place, even if you only visit for a short while.  People actually make versions of themselves with these things and there's conventions...yes, Funko Pop conventions.  How'd you like to go to one of those?  Those conventions are often the venues where you see people dropping thousands on a single Pop figure.  They are apparently the height of insanity on Planet Funko. 

But, like you William, I have a very hard time looking at my Faustina the Younger collection and seeing how it shares any similarity with Funko Pops aside from being objects that are being collected.  To me, that's where any similarities end.  To me, my Faustina coins are a tangible piece of history and a connection to a time, place and person who I'm absolutely captivated by.  It's amazing to me to think that Faustina herself could have held my coins in her hand, that she could have used them to pay a soldier or a servant or maybe she bought something with them.  Maybe she had one of my coins with her when she was on campaign with her husband Marcus Aurelius, helping to make the hard decisions that could possibly send hundreds of Roman soldiers to their deaths if things went wrong.  Maybe she had one of them with her on her last campaign, in 175 CE, when she had the accident that led to her death.  She probably didn't actually hold any of my individual coins, but she could have.  And that possibility makes them so magical.....and almost any old coin can have that kind of magic.  My coins allow me to make a tangible connection to a person who died 1,805 years before I was born.  Can a Funko Pop do that?  I think we all know the answer.

In closing, I think I share your sentiments on this, as I do with many things my friend.  And I'd like to close with this thought:  I wonder what my numismatic muse would make of Funko Pops in general, and of the people who are nuts about them.  I think the expression on her face would be priceless and we'd all learn some pretty colorful words in Latin

~Tom

On 6/27/2019 at 5:23 AM, Trueshooter said:

I'm kind of a newbie at this. so I was wondering if you could share some of your expertise.  My Grandad left me some world (mostly Spanish and Latin American) coins which I'm trying to learn more about.  I'm not familiar enough with Austrian Thalers to determine if these two coins are restrikes or KM-1866.2 or  Might you have an idea.  Thanks.
 

 

Hello Trueshooter,

First off, welcome to the forum.  Since you're new, I know you didn't mean to be rude but posting your coin and asking a question in Jack's journal is considered hijacking around here and many members find hijacking to be quite rude and in bad form.  Just something to avoid in the future.  Jack advised you to the correct course of action to seek answers.....post your own thread on the chat boards and if we have a member with the right knowledge to answer your question, they will respond to you there.  If you don't get a response right away, be patient......most of us on here do not work for NGC and we provide information free of charge with no compensation out of a love for the hobby.  It's also possible that we may not have a member who has the correct knowledge to help you.  If you don't hear a response after some substantial time has passed, that's why and you'll have to seek other options to figure out what you need to know.  So, please do not post multiple threads about the same coins because you have not heard anything......that is also considered quite rude here as well.

I myself know almost nothing about Maria Theresa thalers, so I am unable to help you.  Good luck!
~Tom

21 hours ago, Mokiechan said:

I am with you Mike, I think the finish is more attractive than the proof finish and I wish more people knew about them. 

I agree with that thought as well.....the burnished finish is very nice, especially on the 2006, 2007 and 2008 issues.  Those are some good looking coins for sure.  The first three years seem to have a deeper, more satiny finish to them that's very appealing.  To me, they almost look like matte proofs.

It must run in the family then!  Wow.....that's not a good thing in a family of dealers

46 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

Mohawk, I think it is the thing you alluded to in your complete response, the Burnished Eagles occupy a weird niche between the desirable proofs and the common bullion eagles.   They are poorly presented by the Mint and they remain largely unknown.  I took a few of my older ones to a dealer in the Pittsburgh area and he wanted to offer me silver spot for them, he had know idea that they were a premium product.  But, of course, he is also the one that did not  know the difference between a Newfoundland 20 Cent piece and a Canadian 20 Cent piece so maybe he is a bad example.

That they do....they're kind of a weird hybrid, somewhat like the SMS sets of the 1960's, but in a different way.  And we all know how the SMS sets were received at the time.  And the marketing could also be a problem, you're right.  After all, they did decide to make two different proof ASE's now but not two different Burnished.  And, one last thing.....WOW about that dealer.  I don't know how much business I would do with him but........he could be a cherrypicker's dream with that kind of knowledge base!

You're right, Mokie.....the Burnished Eagles kind of have been flying under the radar for a while now.  I've often wondered why they haven't caught on like the Proofs have.  I used to think that it was because you could get Proofs for every year and not the Burnished as they started in 2006, but 2009 killed that theory of mine!  But I think the US Mint has sadly undertaken an action which will hurt these coins more.......the reintroduction of S mint Proof ASE's alongside the W Proofs.  I think that for many collectors who buy two ASE's a year that have to make a choice will choose the S Mint Proofs over the Burnished.  But there does seem to be some sleeper potential with the Burnished ones.  But I'll miss out even if there is.....too many Faustina the Younger coins out there for me to get!

4 hours ago, Mokiechan said:

When I was active on this forum in the 2010-2012 timeframe, NGC allowed PCGS coins in their competitive sets while PCGS did not allow NGC slabs in their sets.  I always felt NGC was implying some kind of inferiority to PCGS by allowing PCGS coins in their competitive sets.  I am glad NGC changed their policy in that regard.  It feels like NGC has grown up and become confident in their marketplace standing. 

Agreed with all of the above 100% Mokie!

Hello and Welcome Daniel.

PCGS graded coins are not allowed in NGC's Competitive Registry sets any longer.  However, you can still add PCGS graded coins to Custom Sets.  Some PCGS coins which were already in Competitive Sets of U.S. coins at the time the decision was made to disallow PCGS coins were grandfathered in.  Those are the only PCGS graded coins that can be in Competitive Sets now.

I hope that this helps!

~Tom

13 minutes ago, Coinbuf said:

Very cool, with our busy lives its easy to forget that often the smallest of things can bring great joy

Very well said, Coinbuf.  The small joys are often the best ones.

So, Ben has his first error and he made it himself!  How cool is that?!  I don't think you have to worry much about Ben's future as a collector anymore......I think he definitely has the collecting bug.  It's great that he loves his album so much that he wants to take it with him when he goes somewhere and you can see in the photos how much he really loves it.  Very cool.....the future of the hobby is a little safer now.  It'll be interesting to see how things go with Sam in a few years as well.