Where to next???

[stgecko]

I'm fairly new to the hobby if you don't include my years of collecting as a child.

When I decided to pick the hobby back up I decided to be more eclectic than just going through my pocket change. I decided I wanted to leave something behind to future generations or sell wayyyy down the road for a nice profit. Ergo I thought that I could accomplish that by buying "sets" and high quality low mintage sought after coins. I went basic at first focusing on proof sets and mint sets of normal coinage. Silver sets were focused on the most. I now have the proofs back to 1956 and the mints back to 1959 and I have all the silver proofs from 1992 on.

Now I'm thinking I'm done with those other than my yearly subscriptions with the mint which will keep me current. I currently subscribe to the silver proof sets, proof sets and mint sets.

Focusing on other coins now I wanted an inaugral year gold Buffalo. It was fairly low mintage and has some American history to it and hopefully a following. I have both 2006 and 2007 in proof and I'm awaiting the 2008 proof as I'm a subscriber for that too. I also like the AE silver dollars so I subscribe to both the proofs and the unc's. I also have some from the past which include the anniversarry set of 2006. I love that set! The coins just grab you and you can't help but stare at them. I also buy the First Spouses as they are very low mintage and I expect some interest in those in the future. I have to buy a bunch of them in the future if I want to have the set.

Now I have been studying the commemoratives and I love the stories and the art work, especially the early ones. I have my first coming and it's the "stone mountain" coin at about an AU grade. I also have the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition coin coming which I look forward to very much. I have many modern silver commemoratives most of which are from Prestige sets of which I now have all of. Thanks to a great tax return!

 

Where to now? I seem to be noticing the old shield nickels when reading reference coin material. Perhaps I should look at doing something there. How does one buy coins that are less than perfect if proofs are all you're used to? Unless I get real rich real quick I won't be buying perfect older coins any time soon.

 

Well I've rambled on enough. I was wondering if you all had a new direction for me to go that's all. :-)

 

Thanks

[michael]

early type coins and a type collection of american/state historical colonial coinage (thumbs u

 

great history along with opportunity and value

 

and also a great type collection of many wonderful coins filled with history and i hope will lead you to finding a specialized nitch for yourself

 

besides having a great collection adding it piece by piece

[michael]

(thumbs u

[jtryka]

On a lot of the earlier coins, the proofs are not outrageously expensive, like the shield nickels, liberty nickels and 3-cent nickels (many of the common ones are several hundred dollars, but less than a proof gold buffalo). That might be a nice area to branch into. Early commems are interesting too, you might decide to focus on early gold commems, the gold dollars, quarter eagles and maybe even the mother of them all, the Pan-pac $50. So many interesting areas, so little time! Good luck and have fun, whatever you decide.

[EZ_E]

I've often thought that a complete set of proof three cent nickel (3CN) coins would make an affordable and neat set.

[TomB]

Take you time, look at everything you can, ask any questions you think of and realize that mintages do not alone determine relative scarcity or value. You mention that the Buffalo proof bullion and First Spouse coins are low mintage, but I stronly believe they are very high mintage. These pieces have a nearly 100% survival rate in a very high state of preservation and the collecting pool that needs them is quite a bit smaller than the numbers produced. Therefore, these are not scarce coins.

[stgecko]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! You've given me some food for thought.

TomB you certainly gave me a different perspective and I appreciate that as it gives me something to think about.

TomB even though I'm working on completing my gold sets (Spouses and Buffalo's) which are just starting you don't think it's a good idea to get in on the ground floor of a new set or two? I didn't realize that that many people would want a full set of either of those since forty spouses can be cost prohibitive. I guess I was thinking with that and the fact that the first three spouses sold out in less than two hours that it may be worth while down the road. I must admit I am a bit baffled by 20000 being a high mintage. I was thinking that my 1905 Lewis and Clark was low mintage at just over 10000. Now I'm starting to doubt that but I still love the coin and I believe that it is low mintage and I'm counting on it increasing in value over the next twenty years or so. I hope I can stick around that long to see what my coins do after twenty years of time. I'll keep you all informed with stories and pictures of my lastest acquisitions and I look forward to seeing all of yours and about them as well.

Peace

[EZ_E]

Demand plays a much greater factor on pricing than mintage. I have a Gold $1 Pan-Pac commem in MS63. It had an original mintage of but 25,000 with 10.000 of those melted. So, here's a near 100 year old coin with a relatively low mintage and it price has pretty much remained static over the last 5 years while the rest of the coin market is going crazy.

 

I happen to agree with Tom that your current pursuits will be profitable only if bullion rises despite their mintages. It seems like you are repeating a pattern oft repeated by new collectors. It certainly patterns my life. I used to seriously collect coins as a kid, sold them to buy my first car, lost touch with the hobby for years, got reintroduced to coins, enthusiasm was high, bought a little of everything especially modern mint products, sought to establish collecting goal and patterns, eventually led towards 19th century coins in proof and mint state, continued to evolve from there and now I am a full blown type collector seeking on of each major issue minted by the United States of America.

 

Personally, I feel that as soon as you can wean yourself off of modern mint products then the better off you will be. This does not mean that you cannot be an advanced collector and still collect modern mint coins (like our own respected Bill Jones) but is does encourage you to start branching out for some of the scarcer, high grade classics.

 

But, whatever path you choose to take--enjoy yourself and the hobby!

[jtryka]

Mintage is a funny thing. As humans it seems we naturally like to count things an then estimate what things are "worth" based on the count. With coins it's the "mintage" and when you compare coins like first spouse bullion coins with a maximum of 20,000 to modern issues minted in the BILLIONS, they seem really low. But, really, they aren't that low compared to some other recent coins, like the mintage of the 2002-W $5 Olympic unc coin, just 5,727 minted. Unfortunately the coin was ugly and no one really wanted them, but people still made a profit from issue price simply because gold jumped from $350 to $950. Then there is the flip side, take the 1925-S Saint-Gaudens double eagle. It had a mintage of 3,776,500, yet due to the gold recall and massive melting in the 1930s, this coin is very scarce today, or the most classic example of the 1927-D Saint, an original mintage of 180,000 (not a lot, but by no means the lowest mintage) yet for the same reasons, perhaps only a dozen exist today. Keep this in mind when using mintages to estimate scarcity.

[James_OldeTowne]

I have a suggestion for you: consider working on a complete run of proof sets from 1936 through 1976, including SMS coins. That's a run of coins that will keep you in a realm you are comfortable with, yet you will end up with investment-quality coins (assuming you are diligent). Also, unless you are hopelessly rich, you'll be working at it for awhile.

 

Good luck!

[physics-fan3.14]

Take you time, look at everything you can, ask any questions you think of and realize that mintages do not alone determine relative scarcity or value. You mention that the Buffalo proof bullion and First Spouse coins are low mintage, but I stronly believe they are very high mintage. These pieces have a nearly 100% survival rate in a very high state of preservation and the collecting pool that needs them is quite a bit smaller than the numbers produced. Therefore, these are not scarce coins.

 

The 100% survival rate might not be quite so accurate anymore. There was an article in Coin World saying that rising bullion prices are causing alot of the First Spouse coins to hit the melting pot.

[stgecko]

As a collector of those that is great news!

 

I'm awfully curious to see what the Elizabeth Monroe coin sells for after the price jump that was the Dolly Madison coin.

 

Has anyone got an inkling on prices yet? The coin goes on sale this week and I haven't seen anything at the mint in the First Spouse section.

 

I guess I'll have to wait and see Thursday.

[TomB]

The Monroe coins are priced at $600 for the MS and $620 for the PF.

 

Truly, I am not trying to convince you to not collect the modern Mint issues directly from the Mint; I am simply trying to help you realize that their availability and, hence, their investment potential, might not correlate well with their mintages vs. the mintages of some earlier pieces. As has been pointed out, some of these have likely been melted already due to higher bullion prices, but we are so early in the game on this series that it is tough to know those issues that have been hit and those issues that will prove to be tough in the future.

 

My post was also written to you because your basal level of expenses directly to the US Mint is relatively high compared to most folks since you are currently pursuing the proof Buffalo issues, the First Spouse issues, the ASE issues and the annual proof sets. If you are only buying a single piece of each and are only buying the MS version of the First Spouse coins and not the PF version, too, then you are looking at $3,500 or more as the expenditure to the US Mint this year alone. This is essentially $300 per month and is quite a bit of money to many collectors. Please note that I do not think this is a bad strategy, as long as you enjoy the coins and are willing to ride out their market fluctuations, but I do believe it is too expensive a strategy to keep up in the future for the vast majority of collectors who also have other collecting interests.

 

You mention the mintages as being quite small for the First Spouse coins and it is true that 20,000 piece mintage limits are quite small when compared to a country of 300 million, but these limits are not that small when compared to other modern gold products from the US Mint. Modern gold commems have been made by the US Mint since 1983 and there have been two-$10 gold designs, one-$10 bimetallic design and 24-$5 gold designs if one counts the currently produced Bald Eagle pieces. I will ignore the bimetallic issue because it is a bit different than any of the others, however, of the two-$10 gold designs one had a mintage level far higher than the First Spouse coins and it sells for essentially bullion while the other had a mintage much smaller for the MS coins and equal for the PF coins yet it, too, sells for essentially bullion. Additionally, of the 24-$5 gold designs, only two have mintages that are higher yet comparable (within 5,000 mintage) to the First Spouse coins for the PF pieces while four-$5 MS gold designs have that distinction and 12-$5 MS gold designs have lower mintages. Most of these lower mintage pieces mentioned in this paragraph can be had for slightly over bullion. In my opinion, this is an indicator that the collecting pool for $10 gold commems is going to be relatively small since the expense per unit will be quite high for what appears to be little more than a bullion issue. After all, the $5 gold commems have been around for twenty years longer and have had many interesting (and some not so interesting) designs yet they cannot generate significant price movement for most issues that is not related directly to the movement of gold bullion.

 

It is difficult to compare these new issues with the earlier gold commems sold by the US Mint since these earlier gold commems were sold at the onset of the commem series and one thing that you will learn if you study commems is that the earlier the issue, the more likely that a large percentage of the issue was mis-handled or otherwise abused over the years. Therefore, even if only 90% of the First Spouse and other modern pieces are extant, they have a high level of preservation (MS69 or PF69 or better) while the earlier commems have a much lower level of survivorship (let's just say 50%) and their level of preservation will be significantly lower than modern pieces. I would love to tell you that commems will be great investments, but they have been rather shallow for a number of years even in the face of the longest, deepest and strongest bull market in coins that any of us have ever seen.

 

You have mentioned several times that you are counting on your coins to appreciate with time and I would like to caution you that there have been quite a few periods where coins not only remained stagnant, but had significant losses, too. Also, not all segments of the market move together and they don't all end up in the same place after any market cycle. Pick things that you enjoy, pick wisely and ride out the markets over the years and you may do well. I don't know that what we have seen in the last few years can be duplicated in terms of the bullion-fueled, recession-fueled, oil-fueled, war-fueled, credit crisis-fueled background we have been playing in. I wish you well, but will leave you with the observation that more people do not realize significant gains, in my opinion, when they enter coins as an investment vs.those that do realize significant gains under such condition.

[stgecko]

Dude, awesome post.

 

You definately seem on the informed side of the fence. I also like your view of the market overall.

I do consider myself a collector first and investor second. I love the artistry and the history behind the coins. I wish I could afford all that I want. Who's not with me on that one? I see the price of the first spouses is up to roughly 620 and I'm affraid I'm going to have to play a waiting game and see what happens with their market, you saw/see what's happening with Dolly, and what happens with my wallet. As far as investing.... I'm a single guy with no family of my own to speak of. (wife, kids etc.). I still hope to have something to give away years down the road, maybe to a grand neice or nephew. If it turns out I need the money... well I guess that's why I'm single.

 

Thanks again for so much insight and great discussion. As you can see I am a numistatist neophyte (sp?) and I really like the collectors coins, the proofs but I too see that some MS's go for quite a bit more than the proofs due to smaller numbers, I'm guessing.

 

I'll still post the 1905 coin when I get it and since the Red book value is so much higher than what I paid. I'm interested in your opinion of the coin. The reading I've found on it has been very interesting. Found most of it at some coin site that didn't deal in sales or swaying of opinions.

 

Peace

[carson city]

Put these coins away for your great-grandchildren. They won't be popular in our lifetime.

[shirohniichan]

Pick things that you enjoy, pick wisely and ride out the markets over the years and you may do well.

 

Good advice.

 

I've done some research into a different market that may hold lessons for US collectors. In its 2003 Annual Report, the Royal Canadian Mint announced a new strategy to increase sales profits. Instead of over-producing collector coins and having to dump them to favored retailers after a couple years, they decided to drastically lower mintages. It worked at first, and special "limited edition" coins with mintages of around 7,500 were soon selling on eBay for multiples of issue price. As interest in these wane, I wonder how many are in the hands of speculators instead of collectors who will actually hold them in their collectors. The mintages are indeed low, but there have to be at least 7,500 collectors who want to keep them for prices to stay high. If demand drops due to the RCM flooding the market with "low mintage" NCLT, we can expect a number of speculators to be left holding the bag.

[silvermonger-migration]

[quote=stgecko

I'll still post the 1905 coin when I get it and since the Red book value is so much higher than what I paid. I'm interested in your opinion of the coin. The reading I've found on it has been very interesting. Found most of it at some coin site that didn't deal in sales or swaying of opinions. Peace

 

IMO, If you are using the Redbook for valuations you have already lost the value game. (8-)

Pay what you want if you really love a coin but I try to keep at or under dealer greysheet on anything I buy. There are some coins Id really like to have that would certainly command a premium over just being a dealer commodity but I dont see myself ever being able to buy those rarities anyway.