World Colonial

That's funny but true.

Anyone who can comprehend at the level of an elementary school education should be able to understand the Sheldon scale. Or is that too much to expect now? It's obvious that the real reason is marketing and what I wrote in my above post. The grading services are private enterprises and actual investments to their owners, so shouldn't be any surprise in that.

I don't believe the grading scale has much if anything to do with it, though I'm prepared to change my mind with sufficient evidence. I'd attribute this belief to the fallacy that those who collect other mass produced collectibles actually want to collect coins when they don't. They aren't interested, just as most coin collectors aren't interested in other mass produced collectible segments either. This attempt to create "crossover" appeal is simply another step in the financialization of collecting to turn collectibles into "investments". If someone is in favor of that great, but it has nothing to do with collecting at all.

These other bidders probably don't have your experience buying what you do. I look at a lot of coins though not as many as before, but mostly to see what's available (how many or how hard to find) or aggregate data (such as PCGS Coin Facts or the TPG data), not a "deep dive" into the prices of specific coins or series. Since the coins I mostly buy virtually never have a recent sale in the same TPG label or comparable quality, I'm mostly guessing. I do benchmark versus other coins I bought or other prior sales vs. other date/denominations in the same series, but even then it might not be comparable due to the time gap. Usually, it just comes down to how much I'm willing to pay and still be comfortable with it.

The coins I primarily buy now sell so infrequently (maybe never previously publicly) that I'm sure I've overpaid. I'm the high bidder after all in a thinly collected segment. Those I bought years ago, I can comfortably sell for more, but probably not those I bought in the last few years. I usually win the coins I really want but there have been a few in the past few years I did not. These are coins which I haven't seen anywhere near comparable quality, as most of the coins in my primary interest are dreck when available. But even here, still avoided a bidding war. If someone else wants it that badly, they can have it. There is no reason for most collectors to get into a bidding war because most coins (the overwhelming majority) are common or when not, not that hard to buy. This is especially true of US coinage, as only a very low proportion are actually hard to find unless it's with some arbitrary TPG label or one of the (mostly practiced US) specializations. It's different for non-US depending upon what you collect, but most of these are harder to find due to the less developed collecting infrastructure in other countries and the lower price level. It's usually not because the coin is actually scarce or rare. Generically excluding patterns, I'd guess maybe 100-200 US coins struck by the US MInt (out of around 4000 I believe) I'd describe as hard to buy. Maybe fewer, as I haven't compiled a full list. This is going by what's available at auction (mostly Heritage), eBay, and Collector's Corner. It doesn't include other primary sources like all dealer websites, the CCE, or the dealer network which can be used to acquire coins not publicly available for sale.

That's presumably because Heritage doesn't really want to auction those coins. I've never worked for an auction firm but logically, it's unprofitable to support the selling of such low-priced items with their corporate overhead. Smaller firms presumably can be more competitive or else they are just accepting lower margins and/or handling it as a loss leader to generate volume. I've bought coins priced in the same range you describe from Heritage, but none are US. The reason I did is because it's difficult to find in the offered quality or at all. I'd never buy any US coin in this price from them, as I'd expect to find it from another source for less without having to wait that long or look hard either. The only exception I can identify might be a very low proportion of strike designations like the FS nickels I understand you buy or obscure cherry-picked varieties. In 2016, a local PNG dealer told me Heritage was trying to reduce or eliminate consignments below $250. I can't verify the claim but a minimum buyer's fee of $29 (or whatever it is now) is consistent with it. This has also changed the coins I buy, as I'm not interested in buying a large number of low-priced coins with limited marketability which will later have noticeable "slippage". It's a lot worse for most non-US, but it really adds up with this economics. It was different years ago with eBay when fees were lower and from what I've heard, auctions (vs. BIN) were more competitive. It's doubly worse when the collector doesn't even really like what they buy that much. I'd prefer to buy fewer higher valued coins I like more.

Buyer auctions have been discussed many times here and on the PCGS Forum. It's only a problem for the buyer if they don't know how to bid or insist paying more than they intend or the coin is worth. Otherwise, they can (and should) lower their bid to adjust for it. Higher buyer's premiums are a negative for the seller, to the extent buyers lower their bids. For the coins which are the subject of this post, I'd go with GC over Heritage. I'd probably choose them over eBay too, but that's because I dislike the administrative aspects of selling. If the price differed noticeably proportionately, it would probably be due to the seller having limited to no feedback. GC's fixed listing fees are also more noticeable on lower value coins.

It's the financialization from TPG that made high grade common coins expensive or of "noticeable" value. Or maybe during the 70's at the earlies when coins were first widely bought as "investments". This is noticeable in the prices right about when you started collecting. Previously, All post 1933 US coins except for key and some semi-key dates were nominally valued, regardless of what's on the label now. No one would have paid current prices even adjusted for inflation because there was no market for it. Generic scarcity was a lot more important, just like it is now in most of the world.

I'm a lot more interested in the history of collecting than the history or other aspects of most coins. Part of it is that many "reference" books are not much more or only inaccurate price guides. Even actual reference books, much of it isn't actually about the coins. It is or may be interesting, but wouldn't provide the information I need most, the availability and quality distribution so that the prospective collector can evaluate the feasibility of completing it, if that's what they want to do.

Mine too, another promoter of the financialization of "collecting". My recollection is that he wrote a post on the PCGS Forum in the Hansen mega thread where Hansen was telling "wide eyed" bankers about how coins were undervalued vs. art. Less sure about this second one but also recall him making a similar comment agreeing with Laura Sperber.

@Coinbufprovided a comprehensive explanation. I'll just add that these coins are likely a lot more common than the OP infers now and assuming collecting resembles anything like it does now indefinitely into the future, will still be (very) common later. Collectors today are a lot more aware of proper storage and presumably will better preserve whatever supply exists now into the future versus the past. Second, this coinage has the lowest aggregate preference among US coinage. It's the perception toward the collective coin attributes which isn't a coincidence either. Third, scarcity alone doesn't make a coin a lot more valuable, especially when this scarcity will still likely make it a lot more common than the vast majority of coins currently existing.

Heritage is easily the most user-friendly site of any I have ever used. It's easier for US coins versus non-US because of the DB structure, organized by series whereas non-US is only by country and probably less useful for ancients. When I put together that thread analyzing the Heritage archives, it took me between one and two hours analyzing all US series for multiple price ranges. This isn't possible for any others, with the only two seemingly having a DB at all being Stacks Bowers and GC.

Well, there isn't any physical law preventing it. So, sure it can happen. Since I agree with you that it looks like it's breaking out, yes. But I also think any buyer will need to time their sales if they are using it to improve their financial position for the reason I give. I agree that everyone who can afford to do so should own some metals. Just buy it as a long-term hold and forget about it. Most (not all) "metal bugs" (not you) imply that they hold a high pct. of their net worth and won't sell. Gold is a lot more liquid than silver but buying and selling the physical metal results in noticeable "slippage" because it isn't as liquid as most who advocate it imply. This is evident in the buy-sell spreads. Silver's liquidity has been terrible since COVID. You're more familiar with the premiums to spot over time. That's my only qualification to buying it. Not low to my knowledge and I don't expect it to increase over time either. Maybe temporarily. I've thought about this topic quite a bit, so it's not like I'm hearing anything new. Gold vs. silver; bullion vs. numismatic coins; bars vs. bullion coins; specific name brands of coins and bars; paper vs. physical; US vs. foreign storage; home storage vs. SDB vs. bullion depository; dollar cost average vs. bulk purchase; portfolio allocation. Yes, I've thought about it.

I don't disagree with you that it's going up. I'm telling you two things. One, it isn't relatively cheap versus at least most physical goods. That's a fact which anyone can confirm by looking at the data. There are supposed "reasons" for it to go up anyway which are ALL ultimately psychological, but nothing can be called "undervalued", "fairly valued" or "overvalued" except RELATIVE to something else. This is why I am telling you that at some future date, it's going to lose noticeable purchasing power, whether it's fiat currency price declines or not. As the world or certain areas become poorer, the prices of necessities or useful things are going to increase (substantially) versus gold. Gold is a better long-term hold than fiat currency, but due to the amounts they can buy, most people would probably be better off pre-paying things they will need later at today's prices. Yes, it's hoarding which would make inflation worse, but you can thank the government for debasing the currency for this motivation. Two, the vast majority who want it to go higher are almost certainly going to be worse off anyway. It's better to own than not own it obviously as it rises, but the amount they own is overwhelmingly insignificant where it won't make any meaningful difference. This to me is a contradiction, people wishing they become poorer out of ignorance.

I was correcting my prior post. I thought these coins were harder to find. As for the earlier ones, I haven't looked often but when I have, seems most of those are available too. The 1796 "No Stars" is estimated to have 125. To my recollection, I've seen it every time.

Tightening in credit conditions is mostly visible in the financial markets, not bank credit standards. That's where most of the borrowing occurs, measured by dollar volume. I consider credit conditions in the public markets very loose, but it's not nearly as loose for the weakest borrowers as it was 12-24 months ago. Sure, US Treasury might want banks to go somewhat easy on borrowers, but that doesn't mean the bank supervision function at the FDIC, FRB, and OCC will go along with it. No different between FRB monetary policy and its own bank regulators. Regulatory oversight failed with SVB, but there is serious personal career risk in being a political lapdog for the field examiner who actually downgrades loans, and they aren't going to do it voluntarily. Banks have presumably already tightened lending standards for commercial property (especially office buildings) and shared national credits. I've read anecdotal reports of banks taking losses on some of the latter. Credit for consumers by my standards have been very loose since at least 1995. Mortage credit is stricter than HB1 but still pathetically lax and with most mortgages federally guaranteed, no incentive to tighten there. Consumer credit quality remains at sub-basement level. Practically anyone who breathes can get an auto loan or credit card. It's going to take noticeable tightening in all three before the average person really feels it. Even during the worst of the GFC, it was still easy to borrow for anyone who had a decent credit score and a job.

Hard to find and actual availability aren't the same thing. No, Seated quarters as a series aren't common. But no, your personal experience isn't representative either. In participating on coin forums and reading the numismatic press for many years, I can't count the number of times I've heard this sentiment. There are a variety of reasons why any collector doesn't find what they are looking for when it exists. Usually, it's the price. Most collectors don't think in these terms because they aren't familiar with much else outside of what they collect. In the examples I used above, I'm quite confident that the 1830 Capped Head quarter eagle is scarcer than most Seated quarters including in comparable quality, so if five are available right now on Collectors Corner, it should be evident what I am telling you with the relationship to the price is the primary reason. The second reason is that if you do the math, you will realize there should be no expectation of finding this coinage that often. If 500 exist for any coin and average holding period is 10 years, this = four coins for sale per month. That's across thousands of dealers and all auctions, including eBay. A third reason is that you're looking for mid-grade coins when there might (in some instances) be more AU or MS. Maybe it's a similar distribution to the 1901-S Barber quarter, which has a lot of low-quality dreck, not hard to buy MS coins, and not many in the middle. I know that if I look on eBay or Heritage, I'll find most of these dates offered either now or within months to within one year, but potentially not in the quality you want. This isn't unusual. I have collected my primary interest (a Spanish colonial series) almost exclusively for about 12 years but undoubtedly, others bought many coins I want before I could. I own somewhere in the vicinity of 1/4 to 1/3 of the better TPG coins (higher excluding the more available dates), so anyone else wanting to collect it now is also partially "locked out". The difference is there is a lot less to collect from this coinage than practically any US series.

One other comment on this one. You misunderstood me. I don't believe gold will increase as it did in the 70's because it's already very relatively overpriced now. That's the inference when I hear any comparison to the 70's. As for 70's economic conditions, I must be reading and have lived through alternate version of the one you have in mind. The 70's economy wasn't that bad. The primary difference with today is that asset prices are very inflated, credit conditions are much looser, and borrowing a lot cheaper. I'm expecting this to change, drastically.

From the limited data I have seen, central banks are a contrary indicator. Count me among those who believe that crypto as it exists now is going nowhere. It's nothing, literally. Whatever long-term future exists for crypto is central bank digital currencies, which functionally are no different than what we have now. The "end game" is a global currency replacing all others.

The price and valuation of anything cannot be evaluated in isolation. It's irrelevant that the price didn't move for years or longer, except in the context of other prices. And when I say "other prices", something other than USD. Same claim has been made for the prices of non-US coins. It's somewhat more relevant for gold but the better reason for your outcome is loss of global reserve USD currency status. You have it backwards. From the limited evidence we have, it's not good news. A much higher gold price is bad for the living standards of most people. Even since 1999/2001 even while gold rose 8X and the economy has supposedly been so good, living standards for the average American have stagnated. Supposed prosperity has been mostly or entirely from increasing debt and artificially cheap money. I expect most people to become poorer or a lot poorer, at least in the developed world. A much higher gold price is consistent with this outcome.

Recently, yes. Not compared to gold's increase since the 60's or 70'. My comment has nothing to do with that. The 16:1 ratio was an arbitrary invention of government. I've made that abundantly clear in my prior posts. I've also contradicted silver advocates who use this as a rationalization for silver's underperformance, where it's supposedly manipulated. My claim is that it's primarily if not entirely due to market perception of silver as a monetary substitute where it is clear it isn't viewed as it was previously. This "explains" it. It doesn't change that gold is historically relatively overpriced, as nobody really needs either. It's not a necessity, like food commodities or energy. Yes, you can. That's exactly my claim. The purpose of money isn't to acquire other forms of money, but real goods and services. It's a storage of purchasing power, not an end in itself. You are using the same rationalization silver bulls used when its price was in a bubble. They claimed it wasn't overpriced because it wasn't expensive vs. gold or permanently depreciating fiat currency. The reason you haven't seen a linkage (except to USD, another FX, or silver) is because practically everyone ignores it. They commit the same logical fallacy I just described to you. Claiming otherwise is nonsensical. Looks like it's about to break out but no, I don't think this is a repeat of the 70's. That's what I keep reading in many sources for economic conditions generally. It's entirely possible for it to hit both prices and end up somewhere else but I don't think it will end up lower than $1200 in 2030, presumably higher. The problem with the current and recent financial and economic environment is that due to government mismanagement, most everyone is forced to become a speculator to preserve their purchasing power and living standards, whether they want to do this or not. Guess wrong enough and you lose big. That's what's in store for most people. They are going to lose big.

Compare it historically versus other commodities, it's not close to cheap. I've told you this before. I haven't looked in a while, but others have not moved up enough to create "reasonable" relative value, nowhere near it. I'm not a silver "bug" but gold is expensive vs. silver, even though I explain it by a change in the monetary perception. No price is "reasonable" in isolation. That makes no sense at all. Median priced home in the US is about 180oz (somewhere around here) now which is "low" vs. 2011 and especially 1980, but housing is in its own unprecedented bubble. Never been worse in history. If gold increases 50% to $3000 and housing loses 30% (which it should minimum because it's not even close to affordable except at artificially low rates), that's about 100X ratio, back in nosed bleed territory, again. Yes, I think it's "breaking out" but for those who want to preserve wealth longer term, nothing is a hold "forever", not gold, not stocks, and not real estate. I'm expecting gold to lose substantial relative value during my lifetime. If it happens, that it might not be or probably won't be in fiat currency won't change that those who have a lot of their wealth in it will still be much poorer.

Wrong about at least some of the Capped Head quarter eagles. Collectors Corner has five each of the 1830 and 1832, two of the 1831, plus several other dates. Lists most other early gold up to 1807, in various grades including MS. Lists 1813, 1814, 1818, and 1834 half eagle.

Gold is not historically cheap. It's expensive. It's primarily a reflection of loose credit conditions and yes, currency mismanagement. But look at the relative value, especially versus other tangible goods. Outside of temporary bubble conditions (like 1980 and 2011), I don't believe it's going to maintain such inflated relative value. In 2011, the median priced home was worth less than 100oz.

Yes, looks like gold is breaking out. I still expect it to be cheaper later but "later' will take longer.