GoldFinger1969

On 11/23/2022 at 3:53 PM, RWB said:

Both of the accepted artists (Weinman & MacNeil) objected to polished coins, as did all other top-tier sculptors of that era.

Why ?

On 11/23/2022 at 12:40 PM, Tyrock said:

Doesn't sound like a move in the right direction. Making things more complicated just as a new TPGS is coming out. Hey, at least Mike Mezack will have something new to hype.

This new system  is limited to modern coins, right ?

On 11/23/2022 at 9:54 AM, World Colonial said:

The registry number seems too high, unless by this you mean set collectors.

Doug Winter came up with 500 and I have interpolated since his (dated) comment allowing for expansion of the group.  It definitely could be less as you say, WC. 

Also, I'm not a registry player but since 1 coin (the 1933) is uncollectable unless you are our friend EC here at this forum....and unless you are willing to pay Big $$$ or go down bigtime in quality for about 5-7 other Saints, most people who are even serious collectors might only want to go for 40 or 45 coins or something like that.  I would still call those people registry players even if they have no intention of going after every non-1933 coin in the Saint series.

On 11/23/2022 at 9:54 AM, World Colonial said:

I'd guess there are in the vicinity of 100,000 who collect the series in some format.  Either the entire series (which is large and expensive to most collectors) or some sub-group, like one per date or all dates from one of the mints.

There must also be a large number of impulse buyers, who aren't collecting by type.  This is the probably the majority, for the common dates. Still, the most common dates like the 81-S must have in the vicinity of 1MM going by the current TPG counts.  Even with my guesstimate of 2MM active collectors, it's unlikely in the vicinity of 50% own any single Morgan dollar date, very unlikely.

Agree with your guestimates. 

Roger, a recurring theme in your book is that it was a "waste" to keep striking Double Eagles and then have them sit in vaults....letters from Mint officials admitting this....etc.

Question....do you recall any figures for how much it cost monetarily to run all 3 mints per year ?  Or maybe what percentage of that figure could be apportioned to the striking of double eagles (obviuosly, the mints struck other coins for which personnel were paid) ?

I don't recall seeing any figures in your book, but I'm re-reading all the non-Saint chapters focused on coinage and gold so if you did mention it I guess I will eventually come across it.

On 11/23/2022 at 3:17 AM, Cat Bath said:

Saving for a 29 is about a lost cause. It goes up faster than I can do it. A MS64 was 45K in 2020 and now it's 85K.

Maybe it's time to start chasing chickens again.

Well, that move certainly wasn't a result of stimulus checks or Covid-19.  The investors who can afford a 5-figure coin approaching 6-figures is very small....but it's much larger than those writing out 7-figures for the elite coins in high grade.

Have other Saints like the Fab Five almost doubled in price or is that move limited to the 1929 ?  It tends to be among the most affordable of the end of the series Saints.

On 11/22/2022 at 10:43 PM, World Colonial said:

I believe common MS-63 and similar Morgan dollars are mostly owned in volume as "investments" by financially motivated buyers.  The coins are far too common to be mostly owned by set and type collectors or even as impulse purchases.

Makes sense.  One estimate for collectors of Saints was that 500-1,000 were serious registry players....about 25,000 were Type collectors or partial-registry collectors (anywhere from 2-20 Saints; I'm in this group).....and the rest in the hundreds of thousands who were investors in bullion who used a few super-common Saints.

There are about 10 Saints that have 20,000 or more coins in Mint State alone that are available at spot gold or modest premiums for low-60's Mint State grades.  These are the coins that the 3rd group, the investor class, would be utilizing for the most part.

I have not seen any estimates for serious Morgan registry players, Type collectors, or investors using them as a silver bullion substitue.  I am going to guess it is a multiple of Saint investors given the much lower cost to collect....probably as many as 10-20x as more.

On 11/22/2022 at 11:51 PM, Cat Bath said:

So far as Saints go, the price basically went up 1/2 grade on the "jump coins". Essentially, if you could afford a "poverty set" (07-28 minus the 21) at a set average of MS65, it's now a MS64.5 for the same price. The good news is that undegrading happens and with a lot of work you can assemble a MS65 looking set for MS64 money. (with great effort) If I had it to do over, I couldn't come close to my current set average, but I could get very close with the quality  of the actual coins. (I'd go for 65 commons & 64 for everything else) I'd say as few as a dozen new set collectors with money could really screw things up.

With the stock market down, NFTs and sports cards down, BitCoin and crypto imploding...it will be interesting to see if bullion and coins get some $$$.

I think coins and Saints have history and great stories interwoven into them, but I just don't know if today's generation will learn about them playing Call of Duty or Fortnight. 

On 11/22/2022 at 10:17 PM, World Colonial said:

1916-D Mercury dime went from about $700 to something like $1200.  09-S VDB cent in MS-63 BN from about $1200 to $2000 though this one is from 2016.  1921 Peace dollar, I can't remember but it's been covered on this forum since last year to my recollection and it was "noticeable".  All three of these coins are very common and the 16-D in G-4 would be "dreck" if it was any other date. Common Morgan doilars I think sell in the $100 range in MS-63 which I consider ridiculous for such common coins.

And yet, the ridiculous premiums on silver persist even without leading to a rise in the silver price.  Go figure....

On 11/22/2022 at 8:15 PM, robec1347 said:

I sold my set in 2008, which included a 1936 Satin graded PR67 at the time. It has since been upgraded to PR68+. Really wish I still had the set. 

You mean the SAME coin that you had as a PR67 is now PR68+ ?  Did you try for an upgrade when you had it ?

Sounds similar to the Franklin Gradeflation stuff over ATS !  

On 11/22/2022 at 6:28 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

I would be curious to know how much of a disparity in price would be sufficient to dissuade someone from buying a Saint, say, that 1922 in OGP you cited, a few posts up, that ultimately went for $2,140. in MS-62.  Hard to specify the next collector's threshold, but are we talking dollars, or percentages, like 15% or 20%?  

You mean the price at which nobody bids at all ?  I'd say probably 5-7% higher than these actual sales prices.  Put a starting reserve of 5-10% or so on to these final sales prices and you probably don't get ANY bids because nobody (1) thinks they won't have to go even higher or (2) think the starting reserve bid is too high.

It depends though.  If a coin had multiple bidders and lots of bids, a too-high reserve is more likely to NOT get bids than a coin that had only 1 bidder or 1 bid (or a few bids) because the same person might meet the reserve.  Bidder could be price-inelastic.  Doubful to find multiple price-ineleastic bidders except for a unique coin (i.e., 1933 Saint).

Generally, I find that coins that are about 10-15% too high -- above recent sales prices -- don't get any bids.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this incuse design ?

Has the U.S. Mint used this recently ?

On a serious note, I see lots of folks asking Big $$$ for common 1924 Saints in MS-66+ and MS-67 condition and they are not getting bids.

Just because the price of a 1924 is about equal to the 1927 and other "commons" in MS-65 and lower grades does not mean you can command the same $$$ as them when you move above the 66 grade.

On 11/22/2022 at 4:27 PM, RWB said:

So---how much does Saint-Gaudens gold thread cost? This is a "price of thread" thread, right?

I'm going to the knitting store later tonight, I'll check out the price of thread at that time. 

On 11/22/2022 at 3:40 PM, World Colonial said:

Since COVID started in 2020, I've read from numerous sources about the rising price level.  I'd consider modestly rising prices ok but not some of the price spikes we've had since then.  1921 Peace dollars, common Morgan dollars, 1916-D G-4 Mercury dimes, and MS-63 09-S VBD cents have all increased significantly and that's just a short list.

Are all those in the low-to-moderate price range ?  If so, that's the area that the stay-at-home, collecting-checks-by-mail Covid-19 crowd has spent $$$ on.

Have NOT seen it in any of the Saint-Gaudens types I watch, where the prices start pretty much at the price of 1 ounce of gold, $2,000 or so.  Maybe the 1/2 and 1/4 Eagles have seen a price move up ?

On 11/22/2022 at 3:30 PM, World Colonial said:

Been gone from here for a while and catching up.  Someone may have said this later, but I'll find out soon enough.

It's a revenue generator or intended to be one.  That's it.  A private equity firm bought them, and this is one option to generate incremental ROI to make it pay.  None of this has anything to do with collecting.  It's a business and I get it.  Said so on the PCGS forum where the majority seem to think it's a good idea.

Agreed....

On 11/22/2022 at 3:30 PM, World Colonial said:

The real dream of the TPGs is to change to another grading scale and convince enough coin owners (notice I didn't say collectors) to resubmit to maintain marketability at current levels.  It's somewhat similar to the complaints I've read about CAC though I consider the two different.

It may be a dream, but it can't possibly be any serious discussion of a future business plan.  The Sheldon 1-70 scale is here to stay as far as the eye can see, IMO. 

On 11/22/2022 at 3:30 PM, World Colonial said:

For "collecting", it's another option of attracting a new group of predominantly financially motivated buyers to inflate the price level as much as possible.  This is my inference why a plurality on the PCGS forum thinks it's a fantastic idea.  They believe it will maximize return on their "investment". Will this work, either as a parallel system or replacement?  I'm not spending a dime to get my coins regraded now or later, that's for sure.  Fortunately, I don't collect any US coins, so it will matter a lot less.  It's this type of practice that affirms my decision not to collect US coinage, as if I needed one.

How is it going to help their investment ?  If their "investment" is modern coins costing $50 - $1,000....I might agree with that because many newcomers into our hobby have used their time at home and discretionary income (and govt checks) to splurge on coin and currency novelties.  But most of the PCGS/CU crowd isn't into moderns and the kind of lower-priced stuff that newcomers gravitate to.  You have some SERIOUS collectors there.

I do NOT see it benefitting higher-priced coins/currency as this has not been the area where the majority of these people have gravitated to.  Maybe with Crypto, NFTs, and sportscards imploding, they'll move on to serious coin collecting but that remains to be seen (as you and I have discussed many times here ).

I am not spending any $$$ on re-grading, either, WC. 

I think I got it....I'm trying to visualize it compared to a High Relief coin.

Sandon said the lettering is in the fields....so it's BELOW the fields...opposite of a raised device and High Relief.

Is that right, guys ?

On 11/22/2022 at 12:10 PM, Just Bob said:

On the Indian coins, the design is raised, but below the surface. "Incuse" means that the letters, numerals, etc. are punched into the coin, leaving a "hole" as if you took a shovel and dug in the dirt. The result is the same as what would show on the face of a die used to strike a normal coin, except not backwards. I can show you better than I can explain it. The letters on this token are punched into the planchet by raised lettering on the die:

So incuse doesn't refer to the Indian portraits.  It's about the letters, numerals, etc. 

What do you mean "the design is raised but below the surface" ?  You mean below the rim ?  How is an incuse coin different than a regular or High Relief coin with deep basins ?

What is an "incuse" coin ?

November 2022 Saint-Gaudens Prices: Not seeing any crazy prices....high asks are not being met, active bidding doesn't seem to reach a buy-at-any-price threshold.

All coins PCGS non-CAC and including bp. unless otherwise noted.

• A 1928 MS-66+ went for $5,346
• A 1927 MS-66 went for $3,712
• A 1926 MS-66+ went for $11,837
• A 1922 MS-62 OGH went for $2,140
• A 1915-S MS-66 CAC went for $20,814
• A 1914-S MS-66 NGC went for $6,638

I find a good source of additional research to be hitting footnotes and bibliographies in good books on a topic.

Roger's SAINTS DE book is a great example.  He covers obscure topics, and if you want to dive in to the meat and potatos, there's plenty of footnotes or citations at the bottom of the pages.

I'm re-hitting parts of his book now dealing with coinage, hoarding, and foreign movements of gold. 

On 9/15/2020 at 8:48 PM, RWB said:

Your 1913 half eagle shows why the Mint and Treasury disliked this design so much. With no rim to protect the design and field, bumps and other marks degraded appearance very quickly. The coins also lost metal faster than the older designs. Eventually this led to discontinuance of the quarter eagle.

If a rim is a protective device, why did the Quarter, Half, and Eagle coins not have rims ?  Saints and Liberty's did.

On 11/21/2022 at 3:32 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Another after-action assessment from today's on-line New York Times..."FTX's $32 billion valuation was a fantasy, but nobody bothered to look at it closely. "How do you make a multi-billion company disappear in a week?

"For Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange FTX, the simple answer is that a leaked balance sheet leads your biggest rival, himself under Federal scrutiny, to instigate a sort of "bank run" you cannot possibly cover, exposing billions of dollars in shortfalls you apparently created by riskily investing money that wasn't yours.

"And revealing yourself, in the process, to be a very new kind of financial villain----one who pitches not just the prospect of profit but also deliverance from the corrupt speculative system in which you 'made' your 'billions.' "

We are dealing with multiple potential items with FTX:

• LEVERAGE:  Borrowing money to buy anything risks an implosion even if the asset is a AAA-rated Treasury bill/bond.  Lever something up 30-to-1 like Carlyle Capital did about 15 years ago, and you lose it all if the asset goes down about 3%, even if it is a "safe" investment.
• BAD INVESTMENTS:  FTX's affiliated firm via Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, appears to have been the real sinkhole.  Apparently, they lost money on crypto currencies in the last year....they also used hard cash to "bail out" other crypto players.  To finance and paper-over their losses/expenses, they borrowed money from FTX.  But that borrowing..... 
• STEALING CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS:  You can NOT co-mingle customer accounts with proprietary balances and firm capital.  JP Morgan Chase probably has $400 billion in capital; they can invest and speculate with that (subject to regulations) but JP Morgan Chase can not borrow from the millions of client checking or savings accounts at Jamie Dimon's (CEO) whim.

On 11/21/2022 at 3:32 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

Note:  According to Forbes, which cited a Pew research study conducted this past spring, "almost half of all American men ages 18 to 29 say they have invested in, traded or used a form or crypto currency."

And that's probably why half of all American men aged 18-29 don't have an IRA or Roth IRA or 401(k) or retirement nest egg.    Money for crypto, strip clubs, partying, Atlantic City and Vegas and DraftKings and FanDuel....but they don't have the $$$ to save for when they are older. 

On 11/21/2022 at 2:53 PM, Quintus Arrius said:

@GoldFinger1969:

Now those very same $10 Indian Head eagles would have considerable numismatic value.  Any way to know the final disposition?

Of Argentina's ?  No idea.....I focus on $20 Saints....but Roger's book talks alot about gold flows and coinage movement and $10 Indian Heads were closer to Saints in their usage for trade settlements than $5 Half and $2.50 Quarter Eagles.

We must have some Indian Head experts here....you're talking about just under 4 million Saints known and accounted for out of a mintage of just over 70 MM.  Anybody know the correpsonding $10 Indian Head numbers ?

Reading RWB's SG DE book.....some countries really liked the $10 Indian Head Eagle.  More affordable/smaller if held by foreign citizenry.....big enough to be held as a reserve. 

Argentina's Finance Minister in 1930 claimed that they had almost 30 MM American gold eagles in their treasury – more than half the nation’s reserves !! 

On 11/21/2022 at 11:05 AM, Quintus Arrius said:

I do not believe I can reconcile the numbers (can't practice accounting w/o a license ) but allow me to ask you one question:  what would the effect of the valuation of all coins comprising this Hoard be, if the remainder were authenticated and certified, i.e., up or down?  

My guess is that the market effect of almost 20,000 coins in MS-65 quality and above (maybe 10% were below Gem Mint)...was in the market by the late-1990's.  The coins were pretty well accepted into the market....no huge drop in prices, if you go by RWB's Saints DE book price matrices and articles from that time.

The $64,000 Question is...what if the hoard was LARGER or other mini-hoards have come out over the years/decades ?  But this is speculation.

If the market price of the coins is the best analysis and predictor about what is happening to the supply....then the stability of the price (albeit at lower levels compared to other common Saints for the same grade) has discounted that extra coinage. 

I've talked about his in the main Wells Fargo Thread...but just as an example....in MS-67 the Wells Fargo 1908 NM will set you back about $7,000 (maybe a bit less).  No other Saint at that grade will cost you less than $10-$12,000 (including the 1924) and a few commons get rare at the Superb Gem level and will go for $15-$18,000 at the MS-67 level.