GoldFinger1969

WC, just to be clear, I wasn't saying I thought Saints should be bought ahead of financial speculation, I'm just saying hypothetically that could happen just like in art, collectibles, current sports/baseball cards, or the false-start with the Wall Street coin funds in 1988-89: too much money coming into a small sector. I've seen this with small-cap and micro-cap stocks where you get 1 or 2 hedge funds or mutual funds looking to buy and they move the stock up a ton. I do think that the Internet can be useful in spreading the joy of coin collecting (and bullion collecting/investing !) to people who otherwise might be buying gold ETFs or other gold telemarketer scams. And you wouldn't need millions to become coin collectors to invigorate the hobby and also strengthen pricing across the bullion and non-bullion coins. A few thousand people a year going to their LCS....buying via HA or GC or SB.....attending the regional or national coin shows from time-to-time. It's a question of time and learning about what is out there. I know for myself, just like people have learned about collecting and stocks and home repair during the Covid-19 shut-down, I have been at my most active in this hobby when I have been working PT or been between jobs.

TSLA is being valued as an energy company not a car company. The market has decided that TSLA was like AMZN and would do to autos/energy what AMZN did in retail. That's why the stock is up 10-fold from the March lows. Private equity has so much $$$ that they need to do SOMETHING soon with it. They don't earn fees until they invest. And if they are earning fees, they are supposed to be invested. Saying "prices are too high, we want to wait a few months...quarters...years" for the next bear market won't cut it.

I had forgotten that PSA is either complicit or tied to the "trimming" and overgrading scandal that could lead to huge liability in refunds: https://www.actionnetwork.com/general/darren-rovell-card-memorabilia-fraud-national-sports-collector-convention https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1298835 This would have me running in the opposite direction from any person or firm who believes this: "...Trading cards are easily the most liquid of all tangible assets, and this factor is continuing to drive attention towards them, especially new wealth”

Looks like some Middle Eastern Christian medallion but not sure what country or region.

Remember....all it takes is a small % of 20ish or 30ish tech billionaires to move a small % into what they liked as kids 15 or 20 or 30 years ago and it can move the market. We see it in art all the time. Imaginge if just 1 or 2 more billionaires said they wanted to emulate Bob Simpson and accumulate Saints. You'd have panic buying at the rare and ultra-rare high end it would filter down to semi-scarce coins, too.

Steve Cohen bought my Mets and in a good year he MIGHT make $125 million from the team. That's when he gets the broadcast rights back, CitiFIELD is packed, and the team goes deep into the playoffs. Last year, Cohen made $1.4 billion on his personal fortune. 10x what the Mets might make in a good/great year.

And yet RSN values are in the toilet. I don't get it. Broadcast rights for the teams per se are still going up so I don't know why the RSN values are dropping. Have to get a sell-side report from one of my old contacts.

That's been the gameplan in the past, but they paid an all-time high price. They didn't buy this on a decline or buy a busted company. And the non-core asset may be the PCGS coin division. We'll have to see. Maybe they see growth in all their areas including coins, who knows. But the HOT areas seem to be cards and collectibles (non-coin).

WC, it appears to be a baseball/collectibles play, not a coin play per se. Heck, even MeTV has a "Collector's Corner" show that airs with famous entertainment and comic book and other collections. Alot of this stuff (costumes, etc.) has to be authenticated to realize value.

That collapse in the PCGS 3000 Index the last 10 years is mostly (1) decline in PM prices after the 2011-12 spike. Gold and silver fell and prices had been bid up expecting a RISE.....(2) huge declines (if what I am reading in these and other coin forums is correct) in purely numismatic coins with very little metallic value (SLQ's, Franklins, Barbers, Morgans, etc.). Select areas can do well. Liberty Head DE's got hit, but lower-graded Carson City Liberty's have doubled as people who can't afford rare or mint state CC's gravitated down and bought there.

The whole baseball card revival seems to be in new and fad cards....holographic cards, special signed cards, premium cards given away in boxes or raffles....etc. It does NOT seem to have lifted prices for all the stuff me and my cousins were buying in the 1980's and 1990's: the old stars (Brett, Gibson, Seaver, Ryan, Mays, Mantle, etc.)...or the then-current ones (Griffey, etc.). But maybe I'm wrong and those have been lifted in price, too. Also seems to have moved into the sports that have not suffered baseball's general decline (hockey, basketball, e-Sports). Football seems to have its fans play the gaming apps. The Covid-19 crisis does seem to have gotten more people into collecting in general and also coins. HA and GC say they've seen nice increases. Not as big as the daytrading apps that have people buying speculative stocks and options (that will end well when the Fed decides to start hiking rates). What is "HGBL" ??

What coins do you collect, what coin books did you hit ?

I did. Probably not, but I'm hoping as a loyal client and buyer of the book they might be able to send me a PDF copy.

Aspet ? You mean Aspen ? What do you mean by "muted definition and detail" ? They look pretty sharp to me...not sure who did the striking for the NPF but modern technology you figure would do a much better job than equipment from 100 years ago.

On a serious subject, since we're talking about book printing.....is the SAINTS book available in a PDF format (or Kindle-type online form) from Heritage ? I may ask them. Would love to have it on my smartphone where I can read the year and mint mark chapters. Or on the couch at night.

Best way to thank Roger is to plug his books.

Roger, you've seen the gold and silver commemoratives produced by the National Park Foundation in honor of Augustus Saint-Gauden, right ? They came out a few years ago...some in high relief, some ultra-high relief. They created the Winged Liberty and also the Indian Head coins with unique obverses and reverses. They were all based on the Judd patterns that you went into detail in the book. Just wanted to know your thoughts on them. I've bought a few of the silver ones.

Yeah, I looked at the pictures in your High Relief Chapter and the potrusion looks like it could amount to that. I had forgotten you included some great examples of the Fin vs. Flat in that chapter. Good job !

Really ? What was the tolerance allowed on the low-end ? If the wire fin got worn, heck even if the entire wire fin disappeared, it doesn't look like it could be more than 1-2% of the entire weight of the coin. But maybe I'm guestimating wrong.

Chile has (active) volcanoes ?

Next coin show I go to I want to look at a Wire Rim and Flat Rim side-by-side. Pics don't do justice but I'll try some HiDef views and hopefully close-ups stay sharp.

Right, Roger....I thought the split was 2/3rds Wire and 1/3rd flat ? Your book I believe notes that once the production was fixed the wire fin disappeared and they were all flat. But all the labels with WIRE or FLAT do so beause before your book and research some thought it really was a different type of coin instead of a production error that was fixed by Leach as you noted. Nope, and over the last few years I agree with his price observations for all but the ultra-high end. I just think his pricing was off a bit and was looking for more color on a surge in supply of 1907 HR's MS63-65. No articles on that, but maybe it was something talked about amongst dealers. This could be something where you have "creeping supply" -- not a flood, just a slow trickle -- and then when the price decline is big enough you have folks wake up in another year or two or three and say "Wow, look at the drops !" and then you see the articles in CoinWeek and other publications.

Doug Winter, a specialist in gold and double eagles, wrote this in CoinWeek when discussing 2020's Hot and Not stuff. For "trophy coins" he said this: In 2019, an average quality PCGS MS63 1907 Wire Edge High Relief $20 typically sold for around $20,000. In late 2019/early 2020 a substantial hoard of High Reliefs in MS63 through MS65 came onto the market and prices dropped to $14,000-15,000 by the middle of 2020. Prices rose slightly towards the end of the year but these are likely to remain flat in 2021. https://coinweek.com/us-coins/classic-us-gold-coins-whats-hot-and-whats-not-2021-edition/ Does anybody have any comments on this ? I agree with the general thrust of 1907 HR Saints falling in price, but I was unaware of any "hoard" or even a floof of MS-63 through MS-65's suddenly hitting the market all of a sudden (although my previous comments about demographics and inheritors/estates selling coins from original or 2nd-hand owners would be increasing). I also would say that MS63's were going for a total price closer to $18,000 and MS65's closer to $25,000 - $30,000 (going off the top of my head). I was tracking the prices pretty closely for a while and one can always check the internet for actual sales prices.

Does that have the 1933 Saint-Gaudens listing ?

My Lighthouse holders are good for PCGS and NGC. Don't have any ANACs or ICG.