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World Colonial
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Posts posted by World Colonial
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On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:
There are countless moderns that are rare but cheap.
World "moderns" is either a US centric term or one you just made up. I've never heard or read anyone else using it but regardless, it doesn't reflect how anyone collects, except at "junk bin" prices. It's a financial limitation, not a collector preference.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:For years I pointed to Soviet 15, 20, and 50 kopek coins from the '60's and '70's that listed for $1 or less. Now many of them are hundreds and hundreds of dollars. They were hard to find because they were scarce but you could find them because no one paid them any attention. Indian coins have finally started moving with many of them up hundreds fold.
No, the coins were hard to find because you were looking for it prior to the internet when communication limitations made most non-US coinage hard(er) to find. I've told you multiple times that this coinage isn't hard to buy on eBay, if you would look there. The 1970-1972 has higher prices and less availability but I've seen these multiple times too (yes, in "gem") in my limited searches. The other dates are easy or very easy to find, in multiple on the same search.
The catalog list price isn't an indication of the actual market value, then or now. It's "made up".
Yes, the value has gone up a lot (proportionately) since you first looked for it, because these coins were issued only a few years prior to when you started looking for it. It should also be obvious that coins issued as recently as 15 years prior to your searches (per your prior post) weren't rare at the time, unless the mintage was abnormally low. Certainly not from a major country like the USSR. Any such inference is absurd.
The coins also aren't valued as you imply now either. Look at completed eBay sales like I have, a large "discount" to a low fraction of the NGC World Coin Price Guide. It varies by set or coin but among the worst are the 1973 15k/20k and 1976 20K. The 1976 20K lists at $450 or $475 as a MS-65. It's worth $20 to $50 going by actual sales. It also isn't scarce. It's really common. Dozens of Mint sets and Franklin Mint "Coin Sets of all Nations" sets the last time Iooked.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:I believe a very high proportion of the Gem moderns seen in the marketplace trading for low prices are from mint sets. These mint set Gems are sometimes in series that are poorly made so even common date Gems might have tremendous potential.
Until more recent decades, there was no internet and less travel. In major collecting markets, most of the coins are almost certainly held locally or in the bordering countries. That's where the coins circulate.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:I believe high denomination Japanese coins are scarce. The coins are mostly low valued due to a nearly 30 year stagnation of their economy but this won't last forever.
There is no shortage of Japanese collectors who can afford to pay a lot more for these coins, if they choose. You keep on repeating this fallacy no matter how many times I correct you.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:Many European, African, and South American moderns are grossly undervalued. There used to be a ship that set sail from S America to Japan every month laden with coins to make refrigerators and appliances. Many Central American coins are elusive as well but these are harder to identify.
No, these coins aren't undervalued as you claim, really.
There is no local organized collecting in hardly any African country and virtually no demand for it virtually anywhere else. Why would collectors elsewhere want it at the prices you think it should be worth? The only one I know directly with any meaningful scale is South Africa and these "moderns" are definitely not "undervalued".
In Europe, collectors have over 2000 years of coinage to choose from and there is no basis to claim they will pay "high" prices for coinage with such a low preference which is more common than most of the predecessor coinage. (No, earlier 20th century European coinage does not have equivalent preference to comparable period US coinage. It was never the focus of collecting.)
Same outcome for South America. Most of these "moderns" aren't scarcer than the predecessor coinage (that's a fact), have a (very) low preference, there is limited to no local organized collecting either, and the prices of earlier coinage aren't that high much of the time anyway.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:30 PM, cladking said:New Zealand moderns began in 1947 and they can be quite scarce especially as Gems.
Some earlier base metal New Zealand coinage is actually legitimately at least somewhat scarce in high quality, but these coins aren't moderns. NZ collectors didn't and don't arbitrarily distinguish between silver and base metal as you claim or imply. If they did, they would have had virtually nothing local to collect, since their coinage only dates to 1933.
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On 7/12/2023 at 8:56 PM, cladking said:
Many of the pop top moderns are grossly undervalued also.
No, that's what you think. Aside from exaggerating the significance of minor quality differences as US collecting does generically, you either don't know the actual prices or compare it to even more ridiculously overpriced "top pop" 1933-1964 US coinage.
It's accurate to state that US moderns are frequently or usually a lot less expensive versus this US coinage as a "top pop". Both are absurdly overpriced for the actual collectible merits, but you don't want to hear that. Many "top pops" in both don't have low counts for condition census coins anyway. Many dates have multiples, as in dozens and sometimes more.
On 7/12/2023 at 8:56 PM, cladking said:If the buyers of these coins had to do all that work they might not even collect them. If I had it to do over I might not have looked for things like high grade zincolns. Oh sure I have some great rarities that should be appreciated some day but that day is not now. I'm going to just have to leave my heirs a few safety deposit boxes full of grossly undervalued Gems.
This is irrelevant to the price. Yes, almost none of these buyers will actually look for the coin "in the wild" themself, but that's not why they usually pay these prices. It's either almost entirely due to:
A) They are buying registry points or (attempting to) buy(ing) their registry ranking.
B) They believe they can recover most, all, or more of their money back at resale.
Only a tiny minority pay huge price spreads for "top pops" versus one or a few TPG numbers lower because they think the coin with the higher number on the label is so much better. (No, US collecting did not experience a collective epiphany in 1986.) The price difference is completely disproportionate to the merits as a collectible, and they might not even be able to grade to TPG standards independently anyway.
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On 7/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
But how many coins in the U.S. or globally had virtually ALL of their mintage destroyed and not existing today ? Probably very few...maybe limited mintage coins and/or those that were not melted down if not made of gold or silver, which most coins were made out of probably most of the time.
Just because most don't like the outcome doesn't change it.
There is a difference in perception of scarcity or rarity, but that doesn't change the number (outcome). 2+2 always = 4, never something else.
On 7/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:I get what you are saying about "rare" and "scarce" but I think it's a matter of semantics. The 1927-D Saint is a rare coin, only about 7-13 coins are known to survive. But Saints in the aggregate are NOT scarce so should the 1927-D be called "rare" or "scarce" ? How about the 1924 Saint....in MS-68 condition ?
The coin date is an actual coin attribute. The TPG label isn't. "MS-68" isn't a coin attribute. The label "MS-68" isn't specific to any coin. It's usually rare but the coins in it virtually never are.
Absolute number remaining is the traditional standard of rarity.
However, since it doesn't necessarily coincide with how most collectors collect the coin or series in more recent years, that's why US derived TPL label rarity has current perception.
A far more meaningful standard reflective of how most collectors collect is "acceptable quality" or "high quality".
On 7/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:Type of coin....year struck...Mint....condition....the more qualifiers or filters you add, the more "rare" something becomes potentially.
Yes, which is why it's actually usually a contrivance.
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On 7/12/2023 at 8:28 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
But I don't think with the TPG's creation and the Internet this could have been avoided. The LACK of information 40 years ago and the LACK of communication on a daily basis with fellow coin collectors left a vacuum where downside FRAUD then (overselling junk) has today been replaced with UPSIDE chasing of coins based on specialization and TPG label marketing and the like.
Think about it. There is more communication in a day now on chat boards, social media, the Internet, email...on coins...than than there was 40 years ago. That leads to higher volumes of activity, knowlede, bidding, and collecting interest than there was40-50 years ago even though the demands on our time have increased such that outdoor sports and indoor hobbies no longer occupy most of our time as kids/teenagers/young adults like we spent in the 1950's and 1960's.
My inference is that the internet accounts for much of what I wrote in my earlier posts.
This is what makes most coins so much easier to buy versus the past. Collectors mostly don't like to collect coins or series with abnormally low availability, but they also often want something of a challenge which is where specialization and collecting by grade label comes in.
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On 7/12/2023 at 10:13 AM, cladking said:
Most of the '51-S nickels that haven't been submitted look like junk or are charitably called "chBU".
Doesn't make any difference to my prior posts. It still doesn't mean that there aren't far more (as in huge multiples to the current TPG counts) outside of a holder versus in one. The actual number could easily be at least dozens of times the current 2500 graded by NGC and PCGS. There is no financial incentive to submit coins up to at least MS-65.
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On 7/12/2023 at 10:00 AM, cladking said:
No. I never paid much attention to catalog value since I was a child and used them to deduce the surviving populations. Now the guides are simple wrong for the US coins and every other world coin made after the elimination of silver from that country's circulating coinage.
Maybe you're relying on prices that were never right.
I don't rely on price guides, at all. I've also told you repeatedly that Krause and presumably other non-US price guides are just "made-up". The South Africa Randburg and Hern editions I own certainly bear no relation to reality.
For US coinage, I have no idea how accurate the Red Book, PCGS, NGC, or Greysheet is either, but I know that no coin sells for a fixed price but a price range. I've seen it consistently for US moderns on eBay too. It's somewhat different (as in not exactly identical) coins sold by different sellers to different buyers at different time points.
I've also told you that you have no idea how much most if any of this coinage is actually worth because your posts don't demonstrate that you do. In your prior examples for world coinage, you have either quoted inaccurate price guides, used isolated outdated examples, or just made the price up.
On 7/12/2023 at 10:00 AM, cladking said:Moderns are mostly far scarcer than listing imply.
No, you don't actually know this.
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On 7/12/2023 at 9:55 AM, cladking said:
I have relatively little knowledge in this areas but I know what the coins look like. I really don't care whether there are three or one MS-67 of a given date because this information has no real bearing on what that coin actually looks like in the wild. It is simply enough to know the range and shape of the curve in which the coins appear using any specific definition for quality. This is part of the reason I don't track "pops"; the definitions of the grading companies are different than mine. I don't care how many MS-67 '82 quarters the services think there are because they grade these with little consideration for strike and die quality. These coins are tough clean, they are even tough in BU, but the real scarcity lies in quality coins struck by serviceable dies.
The TPG populations and grading standards matter because that's the coin market's standard.
Your quality standards are exactly that, yours. No, I'm not using your standards as a baseline for market quality and then agreeing with your subsequent exaggeration that these coins are scarce or rare.
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On 7/12/2023 at 9:43 AM, cladking said:
You call "quality" minutia but other collectors might call things like "historical importance", "date", "country of origin", or even "rarity" minutia.
I don't call quality differences generically minutia. I call quality differences reflected in one or a few point increments in a TPG label minutia.
On 7/12/2023 at 9:43 AM, cladking said:As I keep saying when most of an issue like '76 Ikes look like garbage right from the mint it is only natural that collectors seek nicer examples.
I've never disagreed with this claim.
On 7/12/2023 at 9:43 AM, cladking said:And many times I've pointed out that some moderns are unique or there are only two known. Many many are "rare" by any measure at all.
Yes, and for US coinage, in every instance it's due to US specialization practices which are seldom or not at all practiced anywhere else for the reason I gave you.
There is nothing unusual in your claim. I also haven't disputed that prominent US moderns aren't significant by collecting standards. I disagree with you that what are actually obscure coins have the significance you claim.
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On 7/12/2023 at 1:24 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:
Don't you believe that in high grades, even "common" coins should command a premium ?
Yes, I think "better" coins should sell for a premium over inferior ones. ("Better" doesn't always coincide with a higher number on a label.)
The price is what it is, whatever it is. My comments have nothing to do with any belief that I should be able to buy a coin for less than current value, since I don't even want most of these coins at all.
My claim is that the price variances often have essentially nothing to do with and are (completely) disproportionate to the quality difference as a collectible. It's somewhat due to general inflation and a more affluent collector base. But substantially or mostly for coins above nominal price levels, marketing and/or financialization.
On 7/12/2023 at 1:24 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:The supply in that GRADE is certainly less than a grade 2 or 3 increments lower, right ? JPM's nickel example from above.
Yes, your description is the usual distribution, something like it. But see my above comments.
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On 7/11/2023 at 10:28 PM, J P M said:
So is it a rare coin ? It is to me.
Yes, that's how US collectors in the TPG era view it.
I'm not trying to convince anyone not to buy any coin they want to buy. I'm stating that US collecting is the worst at exaggerating the significance of what most collectors can afford or collect and it's accurate.
There is no absolute definition of rarity or scarcity. It can only be measured relatively.
Concurrently, under US criteria, somewhere in the vicinity of at least 95% of all coins ever made (hundreds of thousands) are "rare" in some TPG eligible grade. Everything but a 70 and a low percentage where a slightly lower grade has "many". For US practiced specializations, probably in the vicinity of 98%, at least.
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On 7/11/2023 at 6:57 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
Any of the popularly-traded Small Denomination US coins post-1900 and certainly post-1930. And also MSDs and gold coins, including Saints. I don't know what the population numbers were for some Saints in the early-1990's (I have prices but not pops) but they had to have been much lower than today, even if we didn't see the multiple increase we saw for MSDs.
Barber series are much scarcer than the later ones of the same denomination or otherwise. Also a big difference starting around 1933 versus previously. This is evident both in the prices and the TPG data, though some of the earlier date counts are hardly low even in MS.
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On 7/11/2023 at 5:50 PM, cladking said:
How can the finest twenty coins in bags and bags of '60-D cents have no market value at this time?
It has value, just less than you think it should. 20 bags is how many coins? 100,000? Why would such a common coin be worth more than now, especially with so many more available in somewhat lower quality?
On 7/11/2023 at 5:50 PM, cladking said:This is a very unnatural situation but you act as though no coin made for the last 90 years should have any value beyond face or metallic content!!!
Nope, never said what you claim. There is also nothing unusual about it.
Yes, I have said that the vast majority of US coins dated 1933 and later should be worth no more than the TPG fee or nominal premiums to silver spot. That's because the coins are both very common and have a (very) low preference. I state this because I infer the supply is higher or much higher than you believe.
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On 7/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, cladking said:
You imagine moderns are all common and like many you publish your opinions. Then the opinion that the coins are common is the reason that people don't collect them. The low prices listed in catalogs then discourage in would be collectors because you can't actually buy them for catalog prices.
Total BS.
I back up my opinions with much better claims than you do. Read my last reply to you. As for catalog prices, are you referring to world or US coinage? Not that your post even demonstrate that you know what these coins are actually worth anyway, since you rely on outdated catalog values when coins sell within a price range and not a fixed value anyway.
If anyone is "discouraged" by what I write, then that just means they don't like the coins that much.
On 7/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, cladking said:You talk about the commonness of the hoarded coins but then ignore the fact that coin collecting in the US is still very robust.
I've never ignored what you claim here. I disagree with you. When I tell you a coin is common, it's because it's easy to buy and that's a fact. This is independent of the price.
On 7/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, cladking said:Try finding really nice '51-S nickels or high end '41-S half dollars. The '51-S 5c is tough even in nice gemmy condition. There aren't that many collectors so it's not well known.
Except that if I wanted one, I'd buy one on eBay right now. PCGS has graded about 1600 51-S nickels. NGC, closer to 900. That's about 2500.
eBay has multiples for sale in grades of MS-64 or better right now. This is supposed to be hard to find? These coins meet the quality criteria for at least 95% of the collector base, whether it meets yours or not.
Any other arbitrary coin you'd like to claim as 'scarce"?
On 7/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, cladking said:Sure they are hardly "rare" by your standards but it would only take 10,000 collectors to get get interested and push the price sharply higher. Like many moderns they are simply tough in truly nice MS-64 and better.
"10,000" is an extraordinary number to you but in 1965 there were 25 million collectors and the '50-D nickel went for $300 in today's money.
Except that these 25MM (assuming it's even close to accurate) were almost exclusively collecting at FV which means this isn't relevant to your claim.
The price of the 50-D nickel was a bubble, I've told you this before, you know it, and yet you bring it up repeatedly to support your claims anyway. It's irrelevant to your claims, as there isn't a single example of a common coin like this one which increased exponentially to any actually noticeable value decades later. That's what you are implying now.
No, the coins aren't "tough" to find or buy in the quality most collectors will accept. The vast majority of the 2500 51-S nickels graded are MS-64 or better. You just aren't familiar with the TPG data.
There aren't ever going to be 10,000 new buyers for a coin like the 51-S nickel at much higher prices, except maybe by your standards which aren't material. Besides, the supply is almost certainly much higher than you infer or believe. As an example, in one of your PCGS "Raw Moderns" threads, Wonder Coin stated he has a SDB vault full of US coinage dated from the late 30's onward,. He didn't quantify it but it's not a few. He also stated knowing other dealer and even some collectors with large volumes of this coinage. Read his post for yourself since you don't believe anything I tell you. Most of this coinage isn't visible because there is no point in selling it in large volume due to the price. Lack of visibility does not = not existing.
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On 7/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, cladking said:
No!!! It is not an "invention". These things are true by definition. "FS" has a set definition and the mint didn't make more than a couple dozen '68-D nickels in FS.
Big whoop.
Notice how US collectors are the only ones who practice this type of contrivance? Notice that they didn't do it in the past? Ever ask yourself why?
Let me answer it for you.
It's because these coins are so easy to buy even in "high" quality, the entire series could be completed in one day, depending upon how arbitrary the standards used.
Collectors who collect (somewhat) actually hard to buy or complete series don't do this, now or previously. It's hard enough to find the coins at all or in "decent" quality.
I'm not singling out US moderns either. It's true of every US classic series in the 20th century, except for Saints and Indian Head eagles, as a circulation strike. It's also true of IHC, FE cents, Barber nickels, Barber Quarters, Barber halves, Morgan dollars, and probably a few earlier ones. Maybe for Barber dimes too though very few (like the 95-O) might not be available in MS today. Possibly true of the later dated half cents and large cents plus capped bust half dimes and maybe capped bust halves (maybe not the 1815).
You aren't aware of what I am telling you because you aren't aware of the actual availability of hardly any coinage, including US moderns. Your posts demonstrate no knowledge of the TPG populations (for any coins) or even eBay, much less anywhere else.
On one occasion, I literally found every single proof Liberty Seated dime on eBay back to 1858 with a few earlier dates too. Yes, available the same day. Heritage recently had FIVE 1798 MS dimes in their Marketplace. Collector's Corner had FIVE 1830 QE listed at one time, though I can't remember the grades now, but I think MS. Might still be there.
That you don't see as many of a coin as you think you should Indicates virtually nothing of the scarcity. If the coins and series I listed here are easy to buy (and they can be bought in "high" quality any day of the week or virtually so), the coins you call "scarce" aren't, except due to modern contrivances in US collecting or one you just made up, like your strike criteria for US moderns which you won't even pay for.
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On 7/11/2023 at 5:22 PM, cladking said:
No. It wasn't really a rhetorical question. People grade coins because the demand for the coin warrants the cost.
It's financialization or marketing. That's why I told you it's a rhetorical question. You just agree with the pretense in US collecting that there is significance to this numismatic minutia.
No, US collectors are not more "sophisticated" than their predecessors or versus collectors elsewhere in the world now. They also haven't experienced a collective epiphany to miraculously discover that these coins are so much better. Any such belief (what US collecting implicitly claims) is utterly absurd.
On 7/11/2023 at 5:22 PM, cladking said:People collect coins they like. Some like beauty, historical importance, quality, or virtually any attribute including potential for increased pricing. For the main part all these characteristic impact each of us in varying amounts.
Except that they don't like these coins as much as US collecting implies. Collectors don't pay much higher prices today and in the last multiple decades because they like these coins so much more than their predecessors. That's also completely absurd. Only a low proportion would pay current prices above a "nominal" level without the expectation of recovering most of their cost. You aren't one either.
On 7/11/2023 at 5:22 PM, cladking said:Most of the coins you believe are so common are not!!!
No, I don't just believe it. I know it.
What you claim is "scarce" or "rare" is common. Reread what I told you in our last message exchanges on the PCGS forum. You exaggerate the scarcity of the coins you like which are more common than up to 99% of all coins ever struck, calling it "scarce". You also rely on your unrepresentative experience which you insist is representative, claiming to know what no one can possibly know.
There is also no significance to scarcity in specialization, as it's the norm. Most of these practices are US centric and the best explanation for it is an attempt to make this collecting more interesting since these coins are so easy to buy otherwise.
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On 7/11/2023 at 3:27 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
I think with a few thousand population in the early-1990's you could make a case for a "common" Morgan selling for a few hundred dollars, maybe even low-4 figures.
No, because that wasn't the actual supply. Real collectors don't pretend coins outside of a TPG holder don't exist.
On 7/11/2023 at 3:27 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:Remember, you have TENS of thousands of Morgan collectors (maybe more) so if your population is only a few hundred or a few thousand, price is going to have to spike. OTOH, with TENS of thousands -- and those above are just NGC Populations -- demand gets satiated.
I'd estimate at least 100,000 collecting the series in some format. But you need to remember that the most common dates currently have over 500,000 in a holder where there are a large number ungraded and maybe still more outside of a holder than in one. Some of these dates purportedly have over 1MM in UNC or BU. No matter how you add it up, there is no possibility of this supply being mostly owned by collectors. It would require 50%, one-third, or some proportion near it of the collector base owning an 1881-S or one these dates. There is no reason to believe it. It has to be substantially if not mostly financial buying.
On 7/11/2023 at 3:27 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:IRemember, we have 3 levels of collectors: registry players (who want the best and many will pay up).....type and serious collectors (who are more price sensitive with specific coins or in the aggregate)...and the investment group (folks who pay minimally for numismatic premium and are more into the bullion itself).
How many of each determines how high pricing can go for select coins.
I think there has to be substantial "investment" buying by non-collectors even for the "scarcer" semi-key dates though I'm in no position to prove it. These coins are just too common, regardless of the "popularity" of the series.
I'd guess fewer type collectors than set collectors. Most owned by collectors are presumably by those who don't collect the series or putting together a type set. Most collectors own numerous unrelated coins in their collections. They see a coin they like and buy it, whether it "fits" their collection or not.
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On 7/11/2023 at 3:31 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
I agree. But at MS-67 and MS-67+ or MS-68, I do think the populations have definitely NOT shown the increase that you see at lower grades, meaning price weakness should be LESS at the higher grades.
The price of Morgan dollars in these grades has little if anything to do with actual collecting. It's the result of the asset mania.
No one would pay these ridiculously inflated prices for what are actually such ordinary and uninteresting coins as a collectible. They didn't in the US previously and they don't now anywhere else.
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On 7/11/2023 at 3:29 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
I meant it was astounding that the numbers were taken as Gospel 30 years ago. They clearly were way off when you have that kind of increase over the years.
On 7/11/2023 at 3:36 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:WC, Kurt, anybody else ....you guys were active back 30 years ago, I wasn't. Was anybody saying that the then-prices for the coins -- even AFTER the bubble burst and they remained elevated -- was based on population numbers that were bound to explode to the upside and thus would have to fall further ?
Responding to both comments.
I don't know for US coinage, but I suspect the answer is the opposite of what you infer.
When I used to debate South African based collectors, they would repeatedly claim the TPG populations were mostly complete and a few claimed overstated due to resubmissions. The reason they did this is because they thought that by exaggerating the scarcity, the prices would be a lot higher. They didn't recognize that only collectors derive utility from collecting and that the vast majority aren't interested in trying to collect a coin or series when there is virtually nothing meeting their minimum quality standards.
My guess is that dealers peddling US coins as "investments" would claim something similar at the time.
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On 7/11/2023 at 3:29 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
I meant it was astounding that the numbers were taken as Gospel 30 years ago. They clearly were way off when you have that kind of increase over the years.
Now....I would be SHOCKED if we saw any kind of multiple-fold increase in those population numbers in 30 years from today. In fact, I believe the rate of change for most coins HAS slowed....population additions have slowed even with resubmissions, gradeflation, etc.
Depends what coins you are talking about.
No, you're not going to see a 30-fold increase in Morgan dollar populations but for some dates, still potentially more outside of a holder than in one.
For lower priced 20th century US coinage other than Morgan, and Peace dollars + US classic gold, there is a huge multiple not in a holder versus in one most of the time.
Also true for the lopsided proportion of world coinage.
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On 7/11/2023 at 3:10 PM, VKurtB said:
There’s nothing hard to understand here. In the past, there were quite a few dates of Morgan dollars that were (correctly) deemed not worthy of being graded. As time and marketing have marched on, there’s no longer such a thing. If it’s a Morgan, any piece of common garbage ends up in plastic. I still don’t get why. Never will.
Me either.
I've stated here before that the most common dates are actually bullion coins, even in a grade like MS-65. In "high" quality, no way anywhere near enough actual collectors for the supply. Hundreds of thousands to over 1MM for many dates. With .7236oz of silver, maybe $50 tops and only that due to the ridiculous premiums on ASEs now.
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On 7/11/2023 at 11:09 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:
These numbers to me are ASTOUNDING even taking into account that more coins were bound to come out over time !!!!
Not really, considering the size of the GSA hoard.
Also, the vast majority of US coins from the late 19th century forward are either common or very common, even in grades close to at this level. Not mostly common compared to these Morgan dollars but still common.
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On 7/10/2023 at 11:31 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:
I have some 30-year old articles talking about the Coin Bubble of 1989-90. I thought I would post some of the declines of coins noted at that time and also give an updated price from recent sales in the last year or back a few years to see how they have done over the last 25-30 years (I used the Heritage Archive to get a feel for recent prices).
Meant to comment on this post but forgot.
Quite confident what you are describing was the result of a communication limitation which has since been eliminated. Prior to "mature" TPG population reports and the internet, the vast majority of US collectors presumably badly underestimated survival (rates), including in better quality.
It's the same sentiments I read from South African based collectors for their coinage when Union (1923-1960) was my primary interest. Much of this coinage is legitimately scarce or at least hard to buy, but not nearly as scarce as they thought or as hard to buy as it used to be.
The first few years (maybe somewhat more than five) after I resumed collecting, I'd see "old" (mostly 18th century but some earlier too) world coinage from Europe in "gem" or "choice UNC' and thought it must be at least scarce due to the age. But it isn't. Much or most of it is quite common.
South Africa had its own TPG bubble (which has since burst - in 2011) for essentially the same reason as the US in 1989. Other countries haven't due to a lack of financialization of their collecting, though I'm not that familiar with China which may yet burst.
But generically, only a very low proportion are nearly as scarce as most people seem to think or believe.
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On 7/10/2023 at 7:40 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:
Interesting...maybe a 68 today is equal to a 67 years ago ?
When you combine raw hoards hitting the TPGs plus gradeflation and regradings, you can have a lethal combination that increases low-pops a ton.
There isn't a 68 for the 50-D at either service, yet.
I don't believe there are many duplicates for this type of coin. For the 50-D, the price difference between a 66(+) and a 67 isn't that large.
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On 7/10/2023 at 12:47 PM, The Neophyte Numismatist said:
I mean that I used to see raw W quarters listed and selling in the $30-35 range in 2020, and now that same coin is $10-15 raw. Graded examples (MS65-66) can be had for ~$35 now. It was new, it was hot... W quarters are still popular, but no where near as hot as they were when they were released.
I am sure demand has a lot to do with it, but I also think there are collectors who get "new coin fever." This leads to an early bubble in demand, and then a correction. The HOT coins seem to be much more impacted by this phenomenon. Anytime I see a coin come out blazing, I watch it like a horse race... and like most horse races, the early lead tires and fades. It's very hard to run a wire-to-wire victory.
This is an example of a "low" mintage that isn't actually low.
Considering how common any "W" quarter actually is, the prices you quote are hardly cheap. It's more common than over 99% of all coins ever struck in equivalent quality.
Once Red-Hot....Now, They're Not: Fallen Stars
in US, World, and Ancient Coins
Posted
1933 seems to be a commonly accepted date for the beginning of mass collecting in the US characterized by coin folders or coin albums. I don't know if it is accurate, but it's the date I have seen most. 1964 as the end of this period due to the end of 90% silver circulating coinage. These 1033-1964 US classics are the most comparable to US moderns.
I break out US coinage as in the Red Book:
Colonial, as in pre-US Mint
US Federal coinage, those struck by the US Mint
Territorial gold
Other (e.g., Confederate States of America)
Within US Mint coinage:
Circulation strike
Proof strikes of circulating coinage
Patterns
Commemoratives
As for different eras, yes, I see some of that but I'm not sure how representative it is of how most US collectors collect, other than between moderns (generically post-1965) and classics (pre-1965). I think of all Jefferson nickels as moderns. Same for Lincoln Memorial cents. European collectors seem to use post 1500 as "modern", as opposed to "ancient" or "medieval".
I recall NGC and PCGS use a date like 1955 for US and 1970 for "world", though there is no such thing as world "moderns" or world "classics". Non-US collectors seem to distinguish between US and non-US, but I attribute it almost entirely to the hugely inflated US price level vs. everywhere else. I infer most non-US collectors don't find most US designs particularly appealing, but I still believe more would collect it, if the price variances weren't so astronomically inflated vs. any sensible evaluation of the relative collectible merits.