World Colonial

The form requires CC information and if you don't pay this way, bank account details I believe. By signing the form and submitting the coins, you are agreeing in advance to pay for the services rendered. When I have submitted to NGC, my recollection is they charged my card after the grading results were finalized. The submitter can dispute the charge but good luck winning that. As you know, in exchange for the fee, the TPG agrees to provide an opinion on the authenticity and grade. From what I can tell, that's what the OP received. We can debate the amount of the fee due to the declared value but like a few others have written, the submitter (OP) presumably provided their own estimate. You can't complete the on-line NGC form without declaring value. There is nothing unusual in how it works, no different than getting your hair cut or any number of other services. Disliking the service you received doesn't mean you don't have to pay.

I don't know much about comic pricing but infer that any key comics which have increased noticeably are more prominent than most (supposed) key date (mostly US) coins. These comics have a (much) higher cultural appeal than any coin too, most of which have none. This is my concurrent inference behind the reported recent price for the Jordan GM-10 rookie card of 700K where I understand the population count is already 316. No duplicates for sure so the price can't be based upon any supposed rarity. For very common key date US coinage (all of the most widely collected series) to increase 100%+ per the OP, the general coin price level would almost certainly have to increase noticeably with it. Anything else would make the coins even more uncompetitive since it isn't remotely scarce or interesting enough.

I stumbled across this thread yesterday but have not read all (only some) of the posts. It's a rant and nothing more, the only thing it is expressing is that the outcome was contrary to their personal preference. I have seen similar sentiments before, but without the conspiratorial accusations. Somehow, I have the sneaking suspicion it has a lot to do with the amount of grading fees paid. I'd be disgusted too, but at myself if I wasted that kind of money

I think the answer to your question is because the physical market is actually very illiquid. I have not read anyone else admit it but this seems to be the reality. I have read plenty of claims about a shortage and on the golddealer.com website, they have been out of many products for months. Above I surmised it might be a hedging issue because if it isn't that, I have no idea why dealers don't raise their bids. Surely that would make some difference. If the demand is so great, why don't they cut their spreads to try to make more profit on volume? Physical silver is a horrible "investment" right now with these spreads. Even if it went up 50% overnight, the profit to the retail buyer wouldn't be a meaningful %, especially with the existing unfavorable tax treatment. In the example I gave above, 50% increase = $39 +$2 premium (roughly) = $41 sell price. Buy price is $36.50 leaving a profit of $4.50. In my state (GA) 34% marginal tax rate (federal and state) leaving a net profit of a whopping $3 per ounce. That's right, less than a 10% net gain on a 50% increase.

The premiums have been near current levels since last March when the price tanked to $11+. I mostly check golddealer.com but have also looked at APMEX on occasion. Spread is $8.50 for the ASE, $27.99 bid and $36.49 ask. Somewhat cheaper at APMEX if bought in volume.

It depends upon the valuation measure used. By what I consider to be the little of value P/E ratio, maybe. I don't follow it as closely anymore. By others, definitely worse now. Recently, several foreign markets have "broken out" or appear to but valuation wise, the US is still on an island alone in deep outer space. The absolute worst are credit markets, not something like crypto or NFT, because that's what's propping up this whole house of cards. There is no question that credit quality and leverage is far worse now than 2000, even as economic conditions have noticeably deteriorated. Look at living standards. It wasn't that bad for most Americans. Five weeks, maybe not. Were stocks cheap at the 2020 low? Not even close in the aggregate. There are always pockets of relative "value". To be clear, there are advances and declines of different scales. Buying a "dip" like 2020 has worked to this point because the bubble is still inflating, not because of any supposed favorable "fundamentals". I'll admit I underestimated the current "policy response". But the point I was making is that it has mostly "worked" because there appears to be no cost to it. That's going to change "soon", because the actual "fundamentals" are far worse than most people believe. The trigger isn't some specific event, but negative psychology. I'm not getting into politics but you should be able to read my inference. As an example of a future negative "fundamental", there is a noticeable segment of the population who has been led to believe "happy days" are finally here for them. It's only possible at someone else's expense because there isn't enough "pie" for everyone, not now and not ever. Many are going to be disappointed and when they are, a lot of them are going to get angry. This is a primary difference between the US and many others, totally unrealistic expectations. It's one thing for a society to experience declining living standards with modest expectations. The US doesn't have that, not by a long shot. I'd say the sentiments you expressed in a prior post are a relatively accurate expectations of how Americans think, not all but enough of them.

These posts have gone somewhat off track but anyway, you seem to be misreading my sentiments. From the accounts I have read, I don't think it would be inaccurate to claim that Greece experienced something worse than the 1930's depression. I have no idea what it is like now (don't follow it anymore) and don't know if what I read was fully accurate, but it was quite bad after 2011. I don't see a Greece here for the foreseeable future but I do expect living standards to be noticeably worse for a noticeable proportion of the population than you apparently do. Another thing I will add is that though this is somewhat different due to COVID (a negative too), circumstances never look bad or terrible at any peak. This happens at the bottom. The best explanation for the current myopia is what I would describe as the unfounded faith the public has in the ability of the government and central banks in developed countries to prevent declining living standards. I can anticipate that I will receive disagreement on this also but they cannot. It's unfounded optimism (the cause of the mania) which is holding up the economy and the financial markets and nothing more. The "fundamentals" are poor.

I'm not specifically claiming JP Morgan will or won't become insolvent. I was using it as an example as part of my earlier rebuttal that the banking system is in such great shape. The financial system and the economy isn't either. I wasn't stating it is imminent. My primary claim is that the living standards of most Americans are going to decline noticeably,, whether it happens suddenly or protracted. Given the current political response, I expect it will mostly be protracted which will be worse. The current economic performance is substantially artificial. How can anyone not see that? Fake prosperity from the loosest monetary policy ever with most or all "growth" since 2008 attributed to increased government deficit spending. Like many of my opinions, I presume it is an unpopular one but there you have it. It's unpopular because of the implications it has for society both individually and collectively. As for the fall of the superpowers, if you are referring to the US or any other leading developing country, my comments don't have anything to do with that, at this time.

My posts were hardly apocalyptic. Claiming the majority of Americans are going to be poorer or a lot poorer because the country has been living beyond its means is hardly radical, it's completely rational. Anyone who knows anything about market history knows this is a mania. Anyone who claims it isn't a mania believes that it's somehow different this time and that somehow, the United States economy and American living standards are exempt from reality. Why would anyone believe that? The 1970's weren't "doom and gloom". By any sensible standard, it was a time of minor difficulty for a segment of the population but that's all. I'd also like to know the last time the stock market overreacted to the downside in my adult lifetime. I can think of maybe one instance, October of 1987. It certainly didn't happen after the dot.com bubble or the GFC. The US stock market never really got that cheap during either period. It was cheap in August of 1982 after the 16 year bear market in inflation adjusted prices.

Absent some really unforeseen event, I don't think JP Morgan will fail in the traditional sense but this doesn't change what I wrote. My primary point is that the banking system as a whole only appears "sound" because of everything else I wrote. I don't place reliance on models. How reliable would these models be without the distortions I described? The financial and economic community (publicly anyway) was also almost completely caught off guard by 2008. There is no "new normal", not in the sense that I interpret this sentiment. This "new normal" infers something for nothing in perpetuity which is ridiculous. There is nothing unique about the US economy where this society can live beyond its means essentially "forever" with so little if any consequence. As I wrote here recently, this doesn't just contradict economics but physics. It's my claim that most wealth is fake, from the inflated all-everything asset mania. I also believe that most people are actually not that far from being broke. The worst of 2008 lasted only about six months where asset prices crashed first and then millions lost their jobs. It won't take much to create a repeat. By comparison, the US (and much of the world economy) and most of the population is in a far more precarious position versus 1929 before the Great Depression. Far more inflated markets, far more debt, and far less fiscal latitude to offset declining private demand. Hardly anyone is even close to being self-sufficient either in the sense of being able to produce or obtain the things they need to survive. I'm not a "gloom and doom" believer. My position is that the average American is destined to become poorer or a lot poorer in the future but not linearly.

It will be viewed as "too high" if and when people ever correlate it with declining living standards. That's one of the points I was trying to make. Up to this point especially in the prior year, most people (even many who should know better) seem to believe there is no consequence to this unprecedented issuance or claim it can be worried about later.. It's probably not "too high" yet because the actual public debt that must be serviced is "only" about 85% of current GDP. This is the nominal $28T+ less amounts held by government "trust funds" and the Federal Reserve. It's still "manageable" but the more immediate problem is the exponential growth which is completely unsustainable. Some have tried to rationalize it with a comparison to Japan where it is much higher. There is no specific point which will trigger a USD crisis. I believe it will be far lower than Japan (American society isn't remotely as cohesive) but there is no possibility of knowing this in advance.

I am aware of this. I used this example as a counterpoint that bank balance sheets are "rock solid". My point is that it is artificial. The only "natural" buyer for mortgages are pension funds, insurance companies and if there is anyone else who happens to have long term matching liabilities. Banks obviously don't think holding most of this paper is such a great investment or else they wouldn't securitize it. Yes, I know they also sell it to maintain leverage ratios. The point I was making is that the relative risk is much higher. I don't see how anyone can dispute it, considering that valuations are so much higher and so far above historical trend, which itself is also somewhat inflated due to the length of the bubble. Consumer debt is lower than 2008. The problem remains in who actually owes it which distorts the aggregate data. The wealthiest and most able to service debt generally don't owe much personal debt. I don't believe this will be the primary source of any future financial crisis anyway. Corporate debt appears to be manageable due to: Artificially low interest expense which improves solvency ratios. This won't change much any time soon (in the aggregate) as it takes time for debt to mature. The artificial economy has inflated corporate revenues and profits which also distorts coverage ratios. This can and will change a lot faster. Look at what happened in 2008 and 2020.

My definition of "rock solid" is a lot different than yours but that's ok. Balance sheets and capital only appear to be "rock solid" since the underlying assets are inflated by the credit bubble. As an example, issuing an 80/20 mortgage in today's residential real estate market at bubble level prices is hardly conservative lending and a "quality asset". Credit quality in the aggregate is the lowest, ever. There is more debt than ever before and measured by either GDP or the value of underlying real collateral, the economy has never been more leveraged than it is now. Whatever risk has been (apparently) reduced in the banking system has just been transferred somewhere else in the financial system. It hasn't gone away. Government debt, corporate debt and consumer debt, most of it is actually low quality, only sustainable by a substantially fake economy, bubble level prices and the loosest monetary policy ever. To give the most obvious example, US government interest rates in recent years have been the lowest in history. Concurrently, US government credit quality is arguably the worst since the Civil War and if not, certainly since WWII. Take a look at corporate balance sheets of a company like UPS. It used to be AAA (which doesn't mean much anyway) but now it's leveraged to the gills. I'd call it and most of the big companies junk credits. It should be evident that any attempt to "normalize" monetary policy (measured by interest rates and central bank balance sheets) and (US) government deficits (as a % of GDP) to pre-2008 levels will collapse the economy and financial system into a deflationary chasm. The economy and financial markets are "sick", it isn't just COVID, and that's partly why we see the current government policy response. COVID and the policy response has weakened both but neither were remotely in decent shape in February 2020. If anyone wants to get an idea of a conservative capital methodology, take a look at the SafeWealth Group's Institutional Survivability Indicator (ISI) rating system. It's been about a decade since I looked at it but at that time, a bank like JP Morgan was a "4" on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being highest.

That pretty much sums it up. Best I can deduce, a portion of the "metal bugs" have concluded that because what is actually mostly credit expansion which they call "printing" doesn't result in their expected outcome, it has to be manipulation. After all, they cannot possibly be wrong, so there has to be some dastardly conspiracy which has cheated them out of their deserved windfall. The current gold price doesn't make any difference either. Gold has increased what, 40 fold since 1971 when convertibility was suspended? It isn't remotely cheap versus other commodities (historically overpriced) and not cheap versus hardly anything else either, but it still makes sense that silver should be equally overpriced. The gold-silver ratio must conform to the 16-1 historical ratio (arbitrarily set by government) and failure to do so is also a sign of manipulation.

I don't know what these agencies would say about it as I have not talked to anyone responsible for direct supervision at one of these firms and they aren't allowed to discuss specifics anyway. What was generally reported when the financial system nearly blew up in 2008, these firms had all kinds of garbage on their balance sheets. "Level 2" and "level 3" assets which I would classify as less liquid and mostly riskier than any equally leveraged position in futures. I doubt it's much better now. IMO, the regulators are attempting to keep the financial system from falling apart but equally more interested in hiding the true financial condition of "troubled institutions" than telling the public the truth. Ultimately, they are going to fail as moral hazard cannot successfully be regulated forever.

I agree with you here, with the qualifications I added in my prior replies. For one, there would be more supply if the spread wasn't an insane 20% to 25% right now. If someone buys, they have to hold as if they don't, they might as well incinerate their savings. The risk reward proposition as a retail buyer isn't that great due to the buy-sell spread. This is presumably the primary reason most opt to buy the "paper" metal.

It's psychology, not the cause-effect most claim to believe.

Take a look at the relative value of silver versus other things. Is it really that cheap compared to houses? Cars? A barrel of oil? Most things people have to buy? I have been hearing the "manipulation" claim for several decades. If it were actually true and it was that underpriced, there shouldn't be now and should not have been at any time a single ounce to be bought. That's what happens in a freely traded market with price control attempts. There has been nothing stopping anyone (including "metal bugs") from buying up every available ounce on the open market to force the "paper" price much higher. Why didn't it happen? The logical explanation is that these people are irrelevant as the buyer of last resort. One reason there aren't many sellers is because physical silver is a lot less liquid than it typically has been. The current liquidity is absolutely terrible. The spreads (in dollars) are unprecedented. The supply would certainly increase somewhat if physical buyers (like coin dealers) would raise their bids somewhat which they should be able to do since retail demand is supposed to be so strong . That's what normally happens in any actually liquid market. Not sure why they have not, unless they don't or can't hedge effectively. And if they don't, hedge a big price decline through a wider bid-ask spread. To my knowledge, financial institutions aren't necessarily shorting for their own account. They are mostly acting as an intermediary. Some of the short interest (in any commodity) is producers selling their production forward. There is nothing nefarious in short interest. By definition, for every short, there has to be a long. Nobody can take a long or short position without someone taking the other side of the trade. Increased short interest does not automatically suppress the price.

Nothing the upcoming end of the financial asset levitation act won't resolve on the supply side. I have admitted that I have been wrong on the timing on the never ending financial mania many times but it's coming because there is no free lunch in life. I expect enough metal accumulators to turn into forced sellers later. It's not like most metal advocates have much economic staying power. (They are mostly weak hands. Middle class with limited savings and dependent upon their job and artificially cheap credit.) What I do not know is whether there is going to be another 1980 or 2011 spike first. As for much higher inflation, that's what practically everybody expects. To this ;point, the decision to "print" by central banks since 2008 and more recently provide "helicopter money" with "stimulus" has been a painless one. Economic illiterates (most of the public and the brain dead politicians they elect) seem to believe they have found the perpetual "money tree". As for economists, central bankers and the financial community, I'm not sure what most of them believe. Most of them seem to be dumb enough to believe it to but maybe they aren't and act like it out of expediency. My expectation? When the current path doesn't seem free anymore, my prediction remains the same. Those with the most influence will choose to preserve their own wealth and maintain the empire by throwing most of the public "under the bus". They aren't about to "print to infinity" out of misplaced altruism or if the public wants it.

I was being sarcastic. When someone is running a Ponzi scheme, no succession plan required. No segregation of duties either and you don't take vacations so someone else can look at the records.

That was close

No, I do not.

My assumption is the TPG data represents a low to very low fraction of what currently exists in this quality. There is limited "positive selection bias" for the highest TPG grades but decreasing with the price level. I hold the same opinion for the overwhelming majority of low priced coinage. How much will ever be submitted and when is another thing altogether. I don't believe there are massive hoards either. But I do believe that more of these coins are out there than is evident in your posts and more will be in higher quality than you seem to believe. By higher quality, not referring to large numbers of what is currently an MS-67 or MS-68 but 66.

None that I can identify in advance, especially where it is financially meaningful. Back in 2004, I thought South Africa Union and ZAR were and I was correct but could never buy in volume. I made good money but it wasn't material as an "investment". Most US coins are dependent upon the broader market. I don't consider any series meaningfully "undervalued" where it makes any financial difference. No series to my knowledge has overtaken another in 45+ years since I have been a collector, or even prior. Noticeable movement in specific dates though. As for world and ancients, someone can luck out like I did but the demand for most is too shallow to have any predictable pricing.

Look at the TPG data. 4,000+ 1971-D Kennedy's and thousands for many, many other dates. Seriously, do you really believe this is most of the supply in this quality? Who do you think owns most of these coins? Is it really mostly non-collectors buying it from coin TV shows? I understand your point but it's a mistake to conclude that anyone sees is representative. I'm not referring to collections above a certain arbitrary value. Obviously by this metric, there are fewer. There are plenty of active collectors where these sets are a sideline collection. You know some of them from coin forums. Depending upon the criteria, there may be more IHC collectors but not Bust Half. As a series, it's far too expensive for the vast majority of the collector base even in lower grades.