World Colonial

On 6/24/2022 at 1:50 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

People make mistakes and miss things.  It happens -- humans can't be perfect.

The problem I have is with the subjective application of "market acceptable", with the coins I collect.

I have had it go both ways on my submissions and it makes no sense.  The worst example was two coins of the exact same mint, year, and denomination.  The first is graded XF-40 which was 50-50 to me whether it would receive a numerical grade.  It's not a particularly attractive coin but is for this mint and design since practically all are complete "dreck".  The second is much better but came back "AU details" due to "surface hairlines".  I was aware this might happen but hoped it wouldn't because of what I am writing here.

Yes, it's been cleaned at some point (virtually all have) but it had nice peripheral toning on one side and light hairlines in the fields on the other. It's water under the bridge now since the USPS lost the package on the way back from NGC.

I also have a third coin which is in an "XF Details" holder with gold and blue toning on both sides with somewhat more noticeable hairlines in the fields on one.  I consider it "market acceptable" to anyone who actually collects this series.

On 6/7/2022 at 1:42 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Interesting Comments from JA:  "I would guess that 10-20% of CAC'd XF 40 coins would also sticker as a 45.  In order for a CAC'd XF 40 coin to be awarded a gold sticker , it would have to have claims to AU-50... basically a “48” grade or better.  If I had it my way , there would only be one grade for VG, one for Fine , maybe 2 or 3 for VF and , one for XF. Simplifying and eliminating grades would result in better consistency for collectors as well as grading services."

He didn't mention AU.  I consider AU-50 to be XF.  There is a noticeable gap with AU58 and sometimes AU-55 and it isn't really "almost uncirculated".

I also assume it wasn't a coincidence he didn't mention MS grades.  The price differences between circulated grades are narrower than between one point MS increments, not always proportionately but in amount.

If it were up to me, I'd go back to four MS grades as I first remember in the late 70's: 60, 63, 65, 67.  I'd also get rid of the Sheldon scale for series that I think would be better using the one used for NGC Ancients, strike, wear and surfaces.  In US coinage, that would be colonials and territorial gold.

This subject has come up before.  In my primary interest now, I don't consider it more than a negligible risk.  I mostly buy from known reliable sources, but most of the coins are too scarce to be counterfeited as more than a "one off" without raising suspicion.   (Many I have either never seen or only in "dreck" quality in almost 20 years.)  I have even less concern about counterfeit holders with a genuine coin.

As of now, BTC has recovered to just under $20,000.  

Exhibit one why it will never be a functioning currency.  No one can possibly use it to finance an organization with volatility like that.

BTC last print $18550, down 9.35%.  Ether $960, down 11%.

On 6/17/2022 at 5:56 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

How much does the crypto crash affect the collectibles market place? I'm going to type cast a bit and say that it will have the biggest impact on NFT's and little to none on coins. 

NFT is even more ridiculous than crypto.  It's another bag of hot air destined to completely collapse.

On 6/17/2022 at 5:56 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

Sure seems like it, and now that money is gone. Poof! I don't know that gold rallies as crypto drops. Gold was right around the same price as it is today when BC hit its peak back in Nov, it did make a run at 2,000 in March when BC dropped 30% and was fluttering around 40k, but no real move since early May, other than slightly down, when BC jumped off the cliff again. For purely selfish coin related reasons, I wouldn't mind seeing gold pull back.  I have a feeling it will. Maybe. 

BTW, best Dangerfield movie, Back To School. 

 

Have no evidence of it, but don't believe that crypto (including BTC) is bought as an alternative to gold.  Not at any scale anyway.  It's rationalized as a store of value but it's just another form of speculation based upon nothing.

Despite close to a 70% collapse, BTC is only back near (slightly above) the 2018 peak when it first hit $20K.  It still has a long way down to go, though like any other market of any size, there will be counterrallies.

On 6/16/2022 at 8:16 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Crytpo "currencies" are not currencies at the present time.  They are highly-volatile, speculative, digital assets. 

No, it isn't.  Anything which radically fluctuates in value like that will never attain any meaningful scale as a form of payment. 

Commercially, there isn't enough motivation to accept it if for no other reason due to hedging costs and operating constraints.  From this standpoint, what I just described is no different than a foreign currency.  Companies use derivatives and their operating structure to hedge FX but it's not free and until crypto achieves sufficient scale, have no offsetting expenses to hedge their revenue.  

Once the mania ends, it won't be used for a store of value either.

On 6/16/2022 at 10:18 PM, zadok said:

...possibly u mite be over thinking this thing....seems to me its much simpler.....if u collect something n u need/want it to complete ur collection, u just buy it if u have the means to pay for it...not really a question of present or future worth, just a question of getting it or possibly never being able to get it again....fairly basic concept...i know i personally do not consider todays price or future possible prices for a coin i want/need, i let the other bidders do that n then i bid one more time when they stop...less thinking that way...

For what I buy, I don't either, to a point.  Usually, I have to buy what comes up for sale when it comes up for sale or get "locked out", as there isn't another opportunity anytime soon.  For some coins I didn't buy, not a second chance since.

Going back to my prior post, I know some collectors do the opposite of what I stated. Most collectors agree with my post because, above a relatively nominal price, they do not treat this type of purchase as a predominant consumption expense.

Ultimately, it's based upon someone's approach to collecting.

On 6/7/2022 at 8:04 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I think you both are saying the same thing.....a generally "common" coin in "exceptional quality and/or beauty"....is  more likelty to be a condition rarity or other exceptional coin. 

No, not really.  I infer from my prior posts he knows what I mean.  What you are describing is a form of rarity under modern (financialized) US collecting.

From our prior post exchanges, you know my thoughts on the future financial prospects for this type of coin. 

If someone doesn't care if they lose a noticeable proportion of their purchase price, great.  At any price the collector deems "meaningful", the available evidence (mostly from coin forums and coin articles) indicates the vast majority do.

To believe otherwise is to concurrently believe that collectors miraculously experienced a collective epiphany in the late 1980's.  They didn't.

On 6/7/2022 at 4:59 PM, MarkFeld said:

For many of us, there absolutely is a point in paying strong money for common coins - when they’re of exceptional quality and/or beauty and we want to acquire them.

I know people do that.  It's substantially an outcome of the financialization of collecting.

Treat it as a consumption expense and it doesn't matter.  At any "meaningful" price point as determined by the buyer, anecdotal evidence indicates they usually don't.  It's based upon the belief that they will recover most, all, or more of their money back.

On 6/6/2022 at 7:56 PM, zadok said:

...define scarce n rare....to me less than 50 n 5 or less.....arbitrary numbers im sure depending on whom u ask...just curious urs?....

Yours are reasonable.

Availability is more important.  That's what I was explaining with the three factors in my post.  Because of the price level and numismatic "infrastructure" (such as auction and dealer network), any US coin with 50 can usually be bought within a year or less close to "market price".

On 6/6/2022 at 2:15 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

You have to make a decision.  If I know a coin RARELY comes up for sale -- and the one on HA is really really pristine-looking -- then sometimes you swallow hard and pay up.  You probably kick yourself more if you pass and never find a coin as nice....rather than pay up and at least you got your Dream Coin even if you paid up for it.

Coins that are always available you can afford to wait for your price.

There is never any point in paying "strong money" for common coins.

I don't collect any common coins by most collector's standards, but by my definition, most supposedly scarce or rare coins are common.  There is also a big difference in availability.  US coins are invariably more available than those from elsewhere even with the same scarcity.  The value also makes a difference, as many owners see no point in selling inexpensive coins that are actually hard to buy for the amount they can obtain. 

A low to very proportion also sell (very) infrequently due to the affinity (for lack of a better term) collectors have for it.   As an example, comparably scarce or even (somewhat) more common US colonial and territorial gold in my observations are much harder to buy than most US federal coinage.  The 1804 dollar and 1913 LHN are both rare, but not really that hard to compete for, for the limited number who have the funds.  Both come up for sale every few years.  The reason?  The buyers like it a lot more, even if most collectors do not.

I have consigned to GC twice but never to another.  I have no complaints with my experience at Heritage (or Stacks, Sedwick...)  as a buyer but would be more interested in those who have sold with any of these firms.

On 6/2/2022 at 7:10 PM, Alex in PA. said:

That lady sure was a looker.  96 now and still Queen.  Long live the queen.

The epitome of class too, as opposed to the increasing barbarism I see in modern society.

On 5/23/2022 at 3:46 PM, Hoghead515 said:

I just looked up those type coin holders. Those are very neat but your right about them being expensive. I seen some around $80 to $90 a piece. Very beautiful though. Bet they look good filled with some lusterous coins. 

That's really expensive.  I assume it must be the ones for full sets like the Indian Head QE and HE.  Or, maybe 20th century US type set.

I owned the singles back in the 70's.  I believe it cost between $1 and $2.

On 5/23/2022 at 2:39 PM, VKurtB said:

Wow, I never thought it was that high. But it doesn’t affect me anyway. I’m a quality snob. If it looks good enough for my set, it’ll be expensive. I keep my “regular” 1934 - 1938D BU short set in a Capital Plastics holder. There’s only one I might need to upgrade - the ‘34D. It’s not as lustrous as the others. 
 

PCGS has graded about 10000.

There are several thousand "high grade" in the pops (to my recollection) though undoubtedly numerous duplicates.

On 5/21/2022 at 11:03 AM, numisport said:

Not only is a 3 Legger a poor quality Buffalo it is also not rare and maybe not even scarce. Many dealers have several. You could probably buy 10 examples if you could afford them.

It's a common coin.  It would be easy to buy 100 within a relatively short time, in the sense that the coins are available to be bought.

On 5/20/2022 at 8:08 AM, Errorists said:

So would you skip both coins across the pond if they were both MS-68 and above?

False dilemma fallacy.  There are more than two choices.

Someone can also want the coins in lower grade without paying ridiculous prices when they don't care about marketing.  

The two coins are common and don't have a distinction consistent with the market price.  Most US collectors find both interesting to some extent, but that doesn't mean they want to pay the money even if they have it.

On 5/19/2022 at 5:57 PM, VKurtB said:

I try for logical consistency. I see the 1937-D 3 leg the same way you do. It’s an over polished die, period. Why should it be seen as special because of where the polish job was? 

It's in the Red Book and coin folders.  I'm assuming that's the source of its original prominence.  To those who use either as their standard of completion, it was necessary for a complete Buffalo nickel set.

On 5/16/2022 at 8:37 PM, Errorists said:

Errors and varieties?

Yes, overwhelmingly collected by "cherry pickers" at face value.

I have looked in the Heritage archives at the error category a few times.  Heritage is probably the most representative for aggregate US collector preferences, everything except modern NCLT which they sell less of outside of a coin like the 95-W ASE.

21,621 lots sold since the 90's, slightly less than 1% of all US coin lots sold by Heritage.  This is for all US errors combined.  It's also less than number of lots sold for the vast majority of individual US series.

Of these 21,000+, five sold for over $100K, 174 for over $10K, and 3,100 between $1,000 and $10,000.  The balance (over 85%) sold for less than $1,000 with about 60% (13,000+) for less than $300.

By comparison, Heritage has sold 25,345 FDR dimes though the number by price tier is (somewhat) less for the more expensive.  If categorized as a classic, the silver FDR is by my reckoning the US series with the lowest aggregate collector preference.  The clad, far lower, with the exception of the "no S" proofs and the dates without MM.

So, this should give you an idea how US collectors view errors generally.  It's somewhat preferred to the FDR dime but not much else.

It should also demonstrate to you that, if the general collector preference is so low, it's going to be even lower for a (prospective) collector who can afford to buy any coin they want, billionaire of not.

Even worse for varieties generically most of which are also from post 1964 US circulating coinage.  Varieties from non-circulating series sell for more but it's because the coins are worth more generically, not due to the variety.

On 5/15/2022 at 6:40 PM, VKurtB said:

I’d bet none do. I do know that Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban is a high end coin collector. I also know Tampa Bay tight end Rob Gronkowski is into proof Morgan dollars, not that he’s a billionaire. 
 

You have a cockeyed perception of error collectors. Even Ken Potter has the appearance of a smelly homeless guy suffering from schizophrenia who just emerged from a blue tarp tent under a Los Angeles overpass.  

Purportedly, 735 billionaires in 2021 in the US and 2665 globally, both according to Forbes.

I'd guess maybe a few percent (both in and out of the US) are coin collectors at all, of some sort.  Higher in the US than most or everywhere else but the absolute number from this small group is quite low or very low.

Statistically, the probability is effectively zero that a single billionaire or anyone worth anything close to it (when money was worth a lot more) fits the profile the OP is asking about, either now or previously.

Errors are even less interesting to the super wealthy than they are to the mainstream collector, affluent or not.

On 2/11/2022 at 11:12 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I'm not sure I understand.  Going BACK in time and paying the then-prices makes sense.  If I have to pay TODAY'S prices, that defeats the purpose, right ?

No, not if what you want to buy isn't otherwise available.  That's my situation since I lost interest in most of the coins I used to collect and never had much if any interest in most everything else.  The coins I still collect almost never come up for sale.  I've bought one this year (so far) and one or two last year.  Outbid on two others.

Four auctions for me:

Bonham's 1996 sale of the Patterson collection

Sellschopp, UBS sale #20 in 1988

Ortiz, UBS sale #27 in 1991

Heritage June 2nd, 2006 Pre-Long Beach, mostly Whittier Latin America.  I bought nine but would have bought more if I could do it over again.

Only other option is to try in a private sale through a dealer at presumably noticeable premium to "market".

On 12/9/2021 at 2:42 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Read the other guys at his company, like Ben Inker.  They're very smart and tend to rely more on numbers whereas Grantham relies more on emotion.  Don't get me wrong....they are all super-smart and even when I disagree with them, I respect their smarts.

You are the one who brought Grantham up to support your position.  So, now you don't agree with him?

On 12/9/2021 at 2:42 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Hussman has great data -- but he's been wrong for decades.  He never turns bullish, even at the bottoms in 2002, 2009 and 2020.

Totally irrelevant to this discussion. 

The data is the data.  We can debate what it means but that's what the data shows. The decision to buy into this historically overpriced market or not is a different consideration altogether.

I'm aware of the counterarguments.  I have heard it all: "It's different this time", TINA (There is no alternative), FOMO (Fear of Missing Out", Fed put...whatever.  If anyone wants to buy into this market or any asset, great.  But that doesn't change that it is historically overpriced.  Just buy into (or not) and live with the consequences.

The US stock market has been relatively overvalued for most of the time (literally) since the late 1990's versus prior history (all but mid-2002 and the low during the GFC) and hasn't been undervalued even once, except maybe by the distorted P/E ratio Wall Street uses (forward "adjusted").

To anticipate one reply, I'm aware that Wall Street also uses interest rates as a counterargument.  That's why I told you that this argument is based upon the bond and debt mania which supporting this entire house of cards, both the financial markets and economy.  So, these people use the rationalization of one mania (bonds) to support another one (stocks) claiming it's "fairly" valued or not particularly overpriced.

Bonds are the biggest and worst mania.  Aggregate credit quality both in the US and worldwide, given balance sheets and the economic "fundamentals", has literally never been lower in the history of human civilization.  It's at the lowest interest rates ever, with the lowest credit standards ever, and the loosest terms (where it applies) in history too.  Even the US government, at minimum the worst since WWII and probably since the US Civil War.  Doesn't matter that they can "print" to pay it back.  Everyone knows that and did.  So can Argentina if they could borrow in their own currency.  It's the value of what you are (likely) to get back.

On 12/9/2021 at 2:42 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Yes, corporate debt levels and LEVERAGE are much lower than pre-GFC.  For instance, banks/financial companies have more TANGIBLE EQUITY than they did TOTAL EQUITY at any time going back to the 1950's.  Leverage is down from 40x to 15x. 

Financial and non-financials are totally different animals.  You may be correct in the aggregate versus immediate experience prior to the GFC but not for non-financials.  These companies have gutted their balance sheets since the GFC through share buybacks.  

It's also evident looking at any number of individual big cap stocks.  I have looked at many of them.  Balance sheets are stable rags and hardly pillars of strength.  Companies like UPS and Coca Cola which used to be "AAA" are now loaded to the gills with debt.  The interest coverage ratio is often low because of inflated profits (substantially or entirely from the fake economy) and artificially low interest rates but their balance sheets still suck.

This is also evident from credit ratings which are lower than in the past, even though I'd never rely on them either.  Credit ratings are low even with the agency's low standards.

On 12/9/2021 at 2:42 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

That was a panic crash with negative futures oil prices.  The stocks are STILL good value between dividends and capital appreciation.  My ex-colleague Paul Sankey runs a free (for now ! ) website with his insights and stock picks.  He was probably the best oil analyst on Wall Street during the 1990's and 2000's.  Check him out.

I'd call these stocks relatively good values but that's all.