World Colonial

@zadok I started looking at this topic for two reasons. First, to compare the scarcity of better-known coins (mostly US) to those I collect(ed) to obtain a better idea of the feasibility of completing my sets. Second, due to differences of opinion I continually had with South African based collectors who consistently exaggerated the scarcity of their coinage for the same reasons US collectors usually do. South Africa has a TPG preference similar to the US (something most or none here will know), so the TPG counts are a lot more representative of actual availability versus practically all other non-US coinage. The counts are usually at least somewhat low and definitely by US standards but have increased a lot since TPG became widespread around 2004. As one example, the 1948 half crown has a mintage of 1600. In Kaplan's 1950 price guide, it lists for 60 shillings (24X FV) or more than most prior dates, all but the 1931 and 1925. This makes it evident that almost no one found it in circulation which isn't surprising. If it were a US coin, at least 80% would still survive and mostly in AU-MS. The last time I checked (8/22), NGC and PCGS recorded 73 MS or slightly more than 4%. It's not "common" but a lot more available than they thought and probably something like 10% to 20% (at least) actually exist. The big unknown is the large scale melting up to 1980. Even my primary interest which is definitely hard to buy potentially has a lot more available than is apparent even in better quality than almost always seen. It wasn't until I bought Yonaka's reference than I finally knew the mintages which are not low for the time for the 1/2r, 1R, and 8R. Due to the availability of other coinage (mostly Liberty Seated in this instance), absent hoards I doubt there is a large number floating around but it's still potentially many more proportionately than what I or anyone else sees. On your comments on 20th century US coinage, I'd only describe the 1933DE, 1913 LHN, 1927DE, and maybe some of the proof eagle and double eagle dates as hard to buy. This is based upon my assumption of holding period. A few of the Saints (like the 1929-1932) have low absolute survivors but due to the price, presumably can be bought mostly within a few months and almost certainly within one year. Every other series (including all Barber denominations) can be bought in one day "nice", except when arbitrary quality criteria is applied.

I presume you are referring to my reply and if so, what I wrote should not be a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the topic. The only reasons for a different opinion are 1) They haven't looked at the data 2) They would rather believe the inflated perceptions of US collecting which intentionally exaggerate the significance of what everyone collects. When projecting "top pop" grade availability since it's an arbitrary rarity, there are other factors not included in my last post, such as the strike quality. However, as a general principle, look at the examples below and anyone will immediately see how I reach my conclusion. If these coins exist in these numbers regardless of the specific circumstances that led to it, it should be evident that the majority of US and European coins are a lot more available than is evident from the numbers any individual collector sees. 1853 Bolivia 1/4 sol 7 MS Rhodesia 1977 1/2C 13 (nine MS) Sarawak 1941H cent circulation strike 46 (37 MS) Spain 1726M Real 28 MS (2 MS-68, 7 MS-67 and 9 MS-66) Mexico 1751 1/2 Real 31 MS Mexico 1861 MoCH 2R 175 MS (26 PL, 10 MS-67 and 53 MS-66) 1712 Peru 8E 37 MS, 1821 Guatemala Real 369 MS (264 PL), most MS-64 to MS-66 1774 Bolivia 8R 91 MS (MS-66 top grade), No date (1542-1555) Mexico 4R 52 MS (up to MS-64); Many more in AU-55 or AU-58 1754 Mexico 8R 566 MS; 1921 Canada 50C 27 total (11 MS), excluding ICCS. First Jewish Revolt shekel 66-70CE 42 MS + 139 AU.

Evaluating the TPG data for a series like this one has limited if any value, unless the one performing the evaluation incorrectly believes that the population counts won't increase noticeably. Unless you know that the vast majority of Roosters have been melted, there isn't any question that the actual supply across the grade distribution is a (big) multiple of the current counts. The only reason it won't happen is because submitting a much larger number will be self-defeating. It's the same reason I gave when commenting on post-1933 US coinage. Outside of maybe the "top pop" and occasionally one grade below it, the actual supply is almost always going to be a large to huge multiple to the current counts. It's just that if most or every coin currently worth grading was/is submitted, my future prediction that most MS-66 and lower grades will sell for no more than the slab fee or nominal premiums to silver spot will definitely happen. The future increase in the collector base will never be able to absorb the actual supply at current prices. Here is an obvious example, the 1964 quarter: Mintage: 560MM NGC: 3941 graded, 1388 in MS-66, 92 in MS-67, and two in MS-68 PCGS: 3553 graded, 839 in MS-66, and 63 in MS-67 It's a coin which hardly circulated (due to the transition to clad) and was widely hoarded by the roll, even if this hoarding is only 1% of the mintage which I doubt. Same concept applies to most prior dates and denominations, though the proportion differs. Coin Facts shows a Heritage sale for $51 in 6/22. There should easily be more than 10,000 in MS-66 for this coin, if it made sense to submit this many which it doesn't. That's why I claim this coin should be worth a nominal premium to silver spot. It's a bullion coin and so are many others.

Yes, I understand all of this. I know what external and internal auditors do. What I don't remember is if Mazar was the FTX auditor or the one for Binance. I might have the two confused. I know Mazar announced they are dumping their crypto clients, whoever that may be. On a related note, there is a CNBC article where apparently the EU will start regulating this nothingness (aka, crypto) in about 12 months. More moral hazard in store for the future, leading the public to believe that nothing really is something.

Maybe I misread. I thought Mazar was their firm, and they were resigning from all crypto engagements. They might have been the accounting firm for the others.

Their accounting firm was supposedly a global one. I've never heard of them. I'm assuming someone is going to go after them for the shortfall too.

The reason it doesn't make sense is because there is no sense to it. Crypto is literally nothing which only in a mania would the market assign it any value.

The $8B comes directly from the article. It's presumably account balances even after the 50% to 75% decline.

Yes, it took more than one person and no one is going to cover for him now. He's toast. Probably, but this is different than actually getting it back. With the $2B Binance purportedly has at risk of a clawback, there is also the potential unintended consequence of causing another "run on the bank". No one on the outside knows how solvent they actually are either. I'm just waiting for all these "native tokens" to reflect true value, zero. All crypto is actually nothing and should be worth zero but with "native tokens", it's a self- created "asset" recorded on their balance sheet at a managed "value". I'd like to know how "solvent" these firms are if these "native tokens" are recorded at zero. I have the sneaking suspicion all of them might be insolvent.

Though much of it is inflated fake wealth, FTX customers are apparently up to $8B poorer too. Like the article states, a lot of people built future plans assuming their "wealth" was there and now it isn't.

The grade on the TPG label is more than that. Your description is theoretically feasible for technical grading but that's not how TPG works. You can't program subjective opinions, like "eye appeal" or the dividing line between "market acceptable". I also presume you are limiting this to US coinage. The volume doesn't exist for non-US coinage, and they don't apply the current US-centric grading standards consistently either.

How Sam Bankman-Fried ran $8 billion fraud: Government prosecutors (cnbc.com) This says it all.

Not under market grading, except for NCLT and coins like most modern proofs.

Yes, and not just by the TPG's but also by financially motivated buyers. If it wasn't for the financial aspect, few would care, as no one needs to tell the buyers which coin to like more. Grading consistency would be a lot easier if US collecting wouldn't over emphasize what is actually numismatic minutia: one or several points on the Sheldon scale in MS grades, strike designations...

My recollection is that this 95-W sold for this price when there were a handful of 70's in the PCGS data. Now there are over 500, to my recollection. Yes, I guess losing five or even six figures is worth "winning" for some people. Power of marketing. The series has a strong following, but not at higher price points. That's just a fact. Between $200 and $500, it ranked #23 as of the date I pulled the data. Between $500 and $2500 (admittedly a very wide range with likely different buyers), it ranked #50. For the $38K (or whatever it was) for one sale of this 53-S above in this thread, you could have bought this coin and had plenty of change left over: 1853 $20 Assay Office Twenty Dollar, 900 Thous. MS63 PCGS. CAC. | Lot #4188 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com) It's a real tough choice, isn't it? I just can't make up my mind.

Yes, an above post includes a link to the "gradeflation thread". There is/are also one or two threads about the sale of some FBL Franklin half for $150K+ (mentioned in one of my prior posts on another thread) which I recall later resold for $40K+. I don't remember the specifics and might have one or more details wrong. If so, someone can correct me. The price structure is common among strike designations in the highest grades, though the premium doesn't seem to be uniform even for equivalent relative scarcity. There are also very large premiums on some Mercury full band dimes which are also very common but considered "rare". As I write this post, NGC has graded 19 and PCGS 50 across all grades for the 53-S. (I understand that PCGS is more lenient on the designation and there are some duplicates, but potentially others not in a holder too.) NGC: 3 in 66; PCGS: 2 in 66 and 1 in 67. It's a relatively shallow market at this price range for this series. If you remember my thread covering the relative ranking by price tier from the Heritage archives, between $10K and $50K, Franklin half circulation strikes rank #80 out of 108.

Are you kidding? If eBay did that, a huge proportion of their coin listings would be removed. The better reason for them to do it is that, by now they must know that many dealers are potentially only using their platform for free advertising with limited interest in actually selling through them.

I've seen this seller offer large numbers of hugely inflated South African coins on eBay. They have succeeded in building an on-line museum. The reason this won't work is because it's a one-way market. Any buyer at anywhere near these levels almost certainly isn't going to recover more than a fraction of their cost and the merits of the coin as a collectible aren't remotely compelling enough either

My opinion is he will be "hung out to dry" to make it look someone is doing something.

Maybe it's one but don't have a clue either. The difference is that the coin is distinctive. The problem is that it's really small. The 1848 "CAL" quarter eagle maybe is another one but even more of a stretch. Other US federal (or coinage generally) isn't going to have "cross-over" appeal because non-collectors couldn't care less about coin dates, except as it impacts the price. They aren't going to buy it except as an "investment", because if they "must" have it, they will buy a much cheaper one of another date and/or lower quality for a (tiny) fraction of the price.

I used the 1861 CSA half dollar and 1792 Getz pattern because both are (roughly) comparably scarce to many Federal issue rarities but usually much harder to buy. Some US federal coins are quite hard to buy, like the 1822 half eagle. Four owners in 115+ years. The 1804 dollar which is or at least was considered a comparable coin has sold over 100 times in the same period, easily. Adjusted for availability (8-1), still a lopsided owner preference. I'd describe the longer holding period for the CSA half due to a much higher collectible substance, what the coin actually is as a collectible. I presume the buyers don't buy it with the intent of losing money but it's not an "investment" coin either. It's also a coin with potential "cross-over" appeal, in this instance to those interested in the War. There isn't a single US federal coin I can think of that has actual "cross-over" appeal. Same for the coins I collect.

I'm not disagreeing that they (the buyer) find the coins interesting while looking for it or as they buy it, whichever coin it may be. Reading this post, I think I agree with you, maybe The buyer has initial interest, which is why they bought it, but they lose interest a lot faster than the other examples I gave which actually have a lot more "collectible substance" not just to me, but those who own both. I got off track trying to explain to @GoldFinger1969 attempting to illustrate why many coins don't show up in the TPG data, "trophy" coin or otherwise. Many collectors don't see a need to grade coins (no matter the value), until they sell. They probably usually wouldn't buy many of the same coins now outside of a TPG holder, but if they bought it decades ago before TPG became prevalent , keep it that way.

It's not that I misunderstand your point. I disagree with this commonly held view. The fact remains that if the buyer usually finds it as interesting as the general collector population who cannot afford it claims, why don't they own it as long as the other examples I gave or at least near it? The length of the holding period versus the examples I gave is the only or at least most objective evidence of continuing interest. This isn't just true for coins, it's true for anything, as long as the owner can afford to keep it. Claiming continuing interest and then selling it is a logical contradiction. The opinion of those who can't buy a coin is secondary (if not irrelevant) to those who own it.

Yes, but there is plenty of supply in US coinage already graded. It's not like they have to go out and buy an ungraded coin first. Read @VKurtB prior posts. Harvey Stack made the same claim on Coin Week. There is a difference between new collectors and those who already own it. It's not US coinage, but most (practically all) of the better coinage in my primary interest is not graded. This is from the Sellschopp, Ortiz, and Patterson collections. This would be an example of an educated guess. In Coin Facts, much of that data is out of date. I'll see estimates for MS-65+ which are lower than the consensus "best known" list. Gaps between estimates and "expensive" coin TPG counts are more likely to be wrong, especially if an "investor" coin, like Saints and Morgan dollars. I commented on the 1929 Saint (or some date) in another post. 943 supposedly exist with 321 graded. Seems unlikely for a series I consider predominantly "investor" bought where I doubt the holding periods are unusually long. Agree. But you don't seem to follow a wide variety of coinage. Some coins are a lot more likely to be owned for long periods than others. My explanation? The coins with very long holding periods are a lot more interesting to the buyer. Look at the 1804 dollar and 1913 LHN versus the 1861 CSA half and 1792 Getz pattern half dollars in silver. There are 8 and 5 of the 1804 dollar and 1913 LHN. Four of the 1861 half and 22 of the 1792 half. If you have the money, you can still buy the 1804 dollar or 1913 LHN every few years. You can't buy the other two like that, unless you do so in a private transaction. So, despite that the 1804 dollar and 1913 LHN are two of the best known, most expensive, and supposedly highest preferred coins, the evidence demonstrates that the buyers don't find these coins as interesting as most US collectors think. If they did, the holding period would be longer.

Three things. One, I don't think the TPG want to decrease resubmissions. That's backwards as it would decrease revenue. Second, it would cost something to do it and someone has to pay for it, in higher fees. Third, it wouldn't be retrospective. I believe this coin is an outlier. What some individual may do is impossible to predict which is why, given the size of the US collector base, there are probably numerous hoards for many different coins we don't know about. But these hoards aren't usually going to be for this type of "key date" and won't be "gems" either. It's going to be more common for coins that didn't circulate much, like gold and Morgan dollars. I don't believe the numbers are as distorted as he may be implying. He should know better than me but if he does, where is the quantification? Otherwise, it's just an unsubstantiated statement. It depends upon the coin. Obviously, two things apply. First, the price spread between two grades has to be large enough to make it worthwhile. Second, the owner has to have a reason to believe they have a reasonable probability of obtaining the upgrade. It makes no sense to believe that collectors in large numbers are just randomly resubmitting coins without any basis. With more expensive coins, presumably there are more "c*apshoot" resubmissions but shouldn't be that many proportionately. That's why I gave the example of those 1798 dimes and the coin in my series, though it's not US. These are examples but if this really that widespread, would be more likely with early dimes than most other US coinage. When the South Africa coin forum was active (years ago), I'd constantly read a similar inference. Supposedly, (practically) all available high-quality examples were submitted (none or virtually none left to be graded) plus people were just arbitrarily resubmitting and crossing coins over. Why did they claim this? To exaggerate the scarcity in the hope of inflating the price level as much as possible. Was or is there any basis to this claim? Well, the populations have increased a lot more since the price crash (2012). Some of this could be resubmissions to improve marketability but given the much lower price level, it makes a lot more sense that this would have happened when the price level was much higher. For US coinage, my assumption is that first, it happens more with widely bought "investor" coinage, like Morgan dollars and pre-1933 US gold. Secondly, where the TPG count right below condition census grade (or near) is large making the price spread high. If you own an MS-66 "A" coin (not specific to CAC) with a large count where the MS-67 count is quite low, it makes sense, if you can grade to the TPG standard. Otherwise, the owner is probably just wasting their money and possibly might find they end up with a downgrade instead. I think most underestimate the way collectors view the risk of the latter. I don't know any of the above as "fact". It's a common sense inference.