GoldFinger1969

21 hours ago, RWB said:

When the unnecessary "grading" and postage and assorted valueless fees are subtracted, one gets closer to a meaningful collector value. Unfortunately, modern collectors have become completely dependent and will die from the "collectors' cancer" before they give it up.

I guess this sort of makes sense for lower-priced coins, but it is good from a handling and protection POV to have a nice slab protecing your $10 penny or $15 dime.

I'm going to buy a cheapo Saint and MSD to handle and feel with my fingers...but my main atrractions I want protected.

20 hours ago, World Colonial said:

I substantially share this sentiment.

Earlier here and on another coin forum, I expressed the opinion that most post-1933 US coinage will sell for less than the grading fee but what I left out here is that I expect it to apply in grades up to MS-66.

This coinage is very to extremely common in this quality measured by TPG grade.  Most of it (at least 95% even prior to SQ) is almost certainly an R-1 (1250+) with the many later silver dates (such as 1955-1964 quarters) possibly having at least 10,000.  This last group was hoarded in mass by the roll and a noticeable supply never even circulated.

Currently, most of this coinage sells for more than the grading fee in MS-66 but that is only because it isn't worth the bother of getting graded.  If most of the current supply was in a TPG MS-66 holder today, practically all R-1 (and R-2) would be selling for less right now even before prices decline any further.

This is also somewhat true for many 1933 and earlier dates in (somewhat) lower grades.

I guess that was the attraction in the first place...you could collect post-1933 or post-1945 coins and get 90-95% of a complete set for minimal money.  Most 12-year old kids with a paper route couldn't afford Double Eagles made out of gold !

5 hours ago, RWB said:

An urgent 2am phone order for 1,000 DE would generate nothing but a sleepy yawn, and a dial tone buzzzz. Add a zero and they'll put on their slippers and talk. The hype we've seen recently about "new hoards coming from Europe" is bologna with a lot of pepper pretending to be caviar - the coins have been floating around for decades, maybe a century or more - and have cycled through more greasy hands than one might imagine.

PS: Did you realize that a solid gold toilet would slowly collapse under its own mass?

No I didn't know that....but did YOU know that if you put Instant Coffee into a microwave you can go back in time ?  LOL

Hey, 1,000 common DE's at $30 profit per coin is a $30,000 payday...not bad in my book.

22 minutes ago, World Colonial said:

Otherwise, the premiums especially on the most common dates are inflated given how incredibly common these coins are.  The most common ones should be worth modest premiums to spot up to low to mid MS grades.

Agreed....I haven't tracked the premiums for MSDs but I suspect they ran up much further in previous bubbles based on what I have read.  MS65 generic Saints had premiums of up to 500-700% to bullion, but in the last few years its been 25-30% or so.

This chart only goes out to 2014 but you can see how long it took to "burn off" the elevated premiums.  

18 minutes ago, RWB said:

Some of the gold ancient coins in Heritage's CSNS are worth the drive and dive.

Which ones ?  Are you bidding ?

WorldC, when a penny or nickel or dime trades for $20 let alone $200 (or egads, $2,000 !!) that's alot more fluff and mumismatic premium than you find in most gold coins.  Same thing with MSD's.  So even though coin prices corrected in those smaller denominatons, I still think you could have trouble down the road.

Most people got into those sets as kids -- I guess -- because starting off collecting them was easy and cheap.  Not many 10-year olds can start out with Saint-Gaudens or Liberty Double Eagles.

For me, my Saints and Liberty's are a numismatic, artistic, and bullion-inspired investment.  

40 minutes ago, RWB said:

Published in February 2017. Data collected through 2016. All major auction companies and available dealer sales.

OK got it...I thought you were talking about the 1836-1942 period.

The Proof Sets are basically a scam.  They have pretty much unlimited supply...anybody can buy them....which means future demand is nil.  Like a penny stock with an unlimited Registration S ability to sell new shares.

Better to buy a proof modern day silver or gold coin, even paying up for the slab.

41 minutes ago, World Colonial said:

It will be a lot worse under anything close to similar circumstances in the future.  The price level is vastly inflated versus the past.

Proof sets ?  Which ones ?

I'm not sure there is alot of fluff in various coins.....the air went out of their bubble a few years ago (i.e., Franklins).  I can't speak for EVERY type coin, and bullion (silver and gold coins) will also track the underlying PMs, but I don't see vulnerability akin to 1980, 1989, or 2007 pricing.

38 minutes ago, World Colonial said:

No, that's what is commonly believed but not accurate.

What is or isn't...my 1987 recollection or my forecast ?

My forecast may or may not pan out -- it's a guestimate -- but my information on the 1987 Crash is bullet-proof, trust me.  I had just entered the business and every hour of every day from the August peak is fresh in my mind.  And I have the actual newsletters and financial clipping still saved to this day.

Over at GC, a 1907 High Relief Saint NGC MS63 CAC went for just over $17,000 including the bp....lots of bidders, auction lasted 2+ months but lots of activity AFTER the global viral thing hit so the final bidding wasn't decided a month ago or whatever.

That price is consistent with recent prices for a 63 CAC, I think a bit lower but nothing dramatic.

1 hour ago, RWB said:

Accurate information about US Mint processes and procedures were never well documented. I had to rebuild as much as possible from thousands of letters and reports. It's a little like the reconstruction of Rachmaninov's 1st Symphony from the parts after the score was destroyed....at least they had a full set of parts.

This is one of the problems faced in researching the US Mint: there is no internal documentation of operations; not now, and never was. People carried the details in their heads and in little pocket notebooks. Only gross information was elsewhere.

If only the jurors had all read FMTM they would have understood 100%.

In other news.....if I could only double my outside shooting percentage, I'd be better than Michael Jordan and/or LeBron James. 

21 minutes ago, RWB said:

When researching the US Proof Coins 1836-1942 book, there was a conspicuous drop in auction prices for most (not all) coins over the previous 20 years. (This was in reported dollars, adjusted for inflation.) Data summaries are in the book.

Which years 20 previous to ?

2 hours ago, RWB said:

Here's a really silly request....Would anyone like to present real, verifiable data relating to coin and banknote markets?  Thanks!  (I presume the original insinuation has long since been discarded.)

Well, I think I said that you weren't likely to see a dropoff in prices right away.  But I am keeping a VERY SHARP EYE on the more popular and liquid coins/currency notes to see if the price drops. 

I'll be focusing on $500, $1,000, and $5,000 bills plus Gold Certificates for currency....and for coins both the bullion price of gold (to track generics) as well as quasi-numismatics in conditions that traded at premiums (MS65-67).  And 1907 High Reliefs in AU58 or higher, a 5-figure purchase that will be of interest to upper middle-class earners and the wealthy.

1987 Crash was caused by the drop in the dollar the previous week....talk of repealing M&A favorable policies on interest deductability...and a rising bond yield that made stocks very un-attractive.  When the market fell apart 6 weeks ago, you could get 1.5% on a 10-year Treasury bond.  In early-October 1987, you could get over 9%.

Markets discount the worst, then look for positive stuff like a FALL in claims (whenever) or a cutback in oil production (whenever).  Doesn't have to be "real" -- it can be a rumour or a Tweet.

47 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

I feel like I need to apologize to Mr. Burdette. When I first read the above mentioned Coin World articles, in late 2010, the 1933 Double Eagle case was getting publicity in the coin press and was being discussed on this forum. I sent him a PM, asking him if the Langbords had contacted him, since he obviously had lots of information that would be useful to their case. I had no idea that he had already become involved in the case, and I am sure he must have thought that either I was a spy for the other side, or, at the very least, extremely ignorant. He was, however, very gracious, and simply replied that he could not comment.  o, Mr. Burdette, I hope you can forgive the overzealousness of this country boy.

 

One of the more disgusting ploys was the willingness of the U.S. Attorneys to smear Switt, the Langbords, and RWB.  They couldn't refute RWB's documents so they brought up sarcastic or joking posts on forums like this...research on unrleated coins (i.e., 1929 Eagles), etc.  A bunch of real slime-bags if you research their resumes and history.

Of course, what you needed was some intelligent jurors who are either coin knowledgeable or able to process information and distill relevant from irrelevant facts.  Unfortunately, most of the people who can afford to spend weeks or months away from a job (if they have one) on a jury tend to be people with neither attribute.

4 hours ago, RWB said:

Bartholomew's document is especially difficult to understand unless the reader has a very clear concept of mint gold operations in that period. Neither the government internal experts nor Mr. Tripp could figure it out - bu the jury's decision was all that counted. The matter is done and closed.

But if the 2 documents are material -- and CW said they were "gamechangers" or words to that effect -- then unless they were struck from the evidence pool, you have to assume the jury just didn't understand their import.  That can happen.

I read a whole ton of articles on the case including the 3rd District opinions a few weeks ago when I had plenty of time to kill.  What struck me was that the judge -- who clearly leaned to the govt side -- kept admonishing Attorney Berke for being too complicated and losing the jury in complex and numerous concepts.  Basically, the judge was going out of his way to tell him to "Keep It Simple, Stupid."   You wonder how badly his evidence -- even solid stuff like those 2 pieces above -- may have gotten lost to the jury if they were being put to sleep or he was losing them in complexity.

31 minutes ago, RWB said:

The articles I wrote for CW were published long before the trial and 6 months before I became associated with the case. The documents you mention were introduced in 2011 but not in 1947.

Got it....well, if the transcript of the court's decision is available, I would think the exhibits would be too.  I may need to ask someone familiar with Lexus-Nexis or whatever it's called.

Lying bastards........

So the Coin World article was incorrect in that neither of those pieces, even though they existed, were really introduced in that trial ?

Roger, I'm having trouble finding the 2 pieces referenced to you in Coin World in that portal.

Here's the 2 pieces I'm trying to find:

And even more important was a letter dated Sept. 26, 1945, from William Bartholomew, superintendent of the Coinage Department of the Philadelphia mint, indicating that production of the 1933 double eagle began on March 2, 1933, not on March 15 as generally believed and the government had long maintained. The March 2 date was believed to be a “smoking gun” because it was before President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order halting production of gold coins. Another document was cited that seemed to bolster the position. It was prepared prior to a trial in Memphis, Tenn., in June 1947, that focused on the “cashier’s daily statement” for the period of March 7 through April 12, 1933, indicating $3,180 in double eagles were paid out by the Philadelphia Mint cashier during the period.

I have a transcript of the trial (somewhere) but I don't recall the exhibits being part of the download so I couldn't see what the jurors and all of you in court were seeing.  I saw them referenced in the transcript but didn't visually see them.

I presume the 1947 evidence is in regard to the Barnard coin case.

2 minutes ago, Revenant said:

Not saying it is one I'm saying we're going to have one at some point. The Coronavirus is the pin that the bubble, it isn't the cause or the bubble itself. We may limp on after this and something else will get the blame later.

No doubt a non-leveraged, low-debt economy fares better but I don't know of any economic system that can withstand a 20-40% drop in real GDP for any length of time.

And a Reserve Currency nation can NOT not have functioning debt markets, which means liquid Government and Corporate debt markets -- and government and corporate debt. 

32 minutes ago, Revenant said:

I guess we'll all see who is right in the fullness of time. For what it's worth, I'd love for you to be right. WC and I don't want this to be a bubble. We don't want a collapse or systemic failure, but I think it will happen.

This isn't systemic failure.  It's a natural catastrophe -- like an asteroid hitting a city.  2008-09 was systemic.

Rev, you sound like the late Richard Russell of Dow Theory Letters or Geraldine Weiss of Investment Quality Trends when I used to read them in the 1980's !! 

You and WorldC's concerns on debt are noted, but other measures of the market (see below) are not as problematic.  And any "put" in the market was erased by the 35% drop in 1 month and the 2 bear markets in the 2000's that declined 45% and 57%, respectively.

Check out page 5 and subsequent pages:

https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/gim/adv/insights/guide-to-the-markets/viewer

It's unlikely we ever see dividend yields on the DJIA at 6% or dirt-cheap valuations like 1932 or 1982 because the markets today are fundamentally more transparent and with much better information, so the equity risk premium is substantially lower than in the 1920's when you got information from your RCA radio.  Or even the 1980's when it was largely from The WSJ or Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser (miss him !).

Good post, WorldC, but my only quibble is there was no bubble at the market peak on Feb 19th or whenever it was.  Valuations were not cheap, but they were not anywhere near prior "bubble" levels.

Oh, trust me, I'm aware of the speed of the decline.  Been watching the markets 24/7 for 30 years. 

You could be right on the gold decline in 2008-09, I just glanced at the first chart that gave me a decent scale.  But the decline was bigger then and so far gold is holding up.  We'll have to see what happens going forward.  

Gold has held up much better than in 2008-09.  Then it declined 25% peak-to-trough.  So far, the decline was closer to 10% and it's bounced back to retrace most of those losses.