Modern world coin appreciation potential

[Zoins]

Which countries have modern mintages with short to medium term appreciation potential? Some US modern mintages can have short to medium appreciation (few months to ~ 5 years). I was wondering if there are any other countries popular with collectors that generate similar effects or is it a trait that primarily affects US coinage.

[World Colonial]

I collect world coins but I do not pay attention to any of the modern issues. Most likely, the only way any of them will be worth anything in the near future is for the same reason modern US coins are. Conditional rarities third party graded and some commemoratives might meet this criteria and that are collected as part of the Registry sets that NGC has created. Most or all of them are common even though the mintages are low by US standards.

 

An example of one such coin is the Nelson Mandela 5 rand silver prrof. I believe it has a mintage of 41,000 which is a very large number for a South African coin that did not even circulate. NGC and PCGS examples in PR-69 have sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars this year. I collect South African colonial coins and this issue is more expensive than equivalent proofs from 1943-1946 which have mintages of 104 to 150. But presumably that coin would have been a bargain if you could have bought it at issuance.

[Zoins]

Thanks world colonial. That was very informative. I'm still learning about how TPGs have changed the coin collecting field. It's very interesting how much of an effect it's had.

[cladking]

Many modern world coins are up fifty or a hundred fold in recent years even in typical condition.

 

The exact same thing that applies to US moderns often applies to foreign moderns in spades; they weren't saved. Unlike the US moderns though these coins were often destroyed after years of neglect and being ignored. While mintages are often quite high they can be almost impossible to locate in unc. Some are tough in any grade.

 

While the past has been very rosy for modern world coins, it's quite possible the future will be far rosier. More and more people are waking up to the fact that many of the coins made since 1950 are hard to find. There are more and more people collecting them because of the impetus provided by the changeover to the euro and other new currencies. These are now older than 80% of the world population and most new collectors don't even think of them as being "new". They don't have the prejudice against base metal coinage which prevented previous generations from saving the coins. Higher prices may just spur even more demand and even higher prices. There is obviously a huge amount of room for growth since a modern has to be ten or twenty times scarcer than an old coin to bring the same price. Look at the New Zealand shillings for example. The silver issues were made in smaller numbers and saved in much larger numbers than the cu/ ni replacements. Despite the fact that the newer ones are far scarcer they command little more than the silver. You can find this same phenomenon in country after country.

 

I'd generally caution against buying brand new coins except to collect since it takes two or three years to know the winners from the losers. In many cases you'll be able to pick either up at a little discount if you wait anyway.

[World Colonial]

The prior post uses a different definition of modern coins than the one I used in my response. I was referring to legal tender circulating coins or NCLT commemoratives because these are the ones someone can collect out of their change or buy at issuance.

 

The examples used in this post such as the New Zealand Shilling are not common. The same goes for my South Africa colonial which are much cheaper than New Zealand coins but almost certainly much rarer. I have been collecting colonial South Africa for eight years and I have found it very difficult to find any high quality mint state coins. (The ZAR coins are far more expensive but most are more available.)

 

In the Euro countries, certain coins such as German 5DM from the 1950's and some from Spain are already expensive in high grade. But others such as from France are cheap. According to one dealer from South Africa, most of the pre-decimal coins have been melted and these Euro zone coins will eventually suffer the same fate.

[cladking]

The prior post uses a different definition of modern coins than the one I used in my response. I was referring to legal tender circulating coins or NCLT commemoratives because these are the ones someone can collect out of their change or buy at issuance.

 

The examples used in this post such as the New Zealand Shilling are not common. The same goes for my South Africa colonial which are much cheaper than New Zealand coins but almost certainly much rarer. I have been collecting colonial South Africa for eight years and I have found it very difficult to find any high quality mint state coins. (The ZAR coins are far more expensive but most are more available.)

 

In the Euro countries, certain coins such as German 5DM from the 1950's and some from Spain are already expensive in high grade. But others such as from France are cheap. According to one dealer from South Africa, most of the pre-decimal coins have been melted and these Euro zone coins will eventually suffer the same fate.

 

I suspected that you were both using "modern" more to refer to "new" coins than to moderns.

 

The term modern has been evolving to mean those coins which weren't saved because they were debased junk. This varies from one country to another but applied to most places starting in 1950 and was mostly over by 1965. This era still continues in some countries. Later coins can be referred to as ultra-moderns though this term is still not in wide usage.

 

There have been winners and losers among the new coins of all eras. It's probably more difficult than ever to separate these since there are more than ever of every concievable type. This alone could work against them or for them. Don't get caught up in trying to keep up but remember the nature of most collectors if you're trying to outguess the markets. And, of course, remember that collectors may change in what they deem to value. A mintage of 100,000 is really quite tiny if many of the worlds' six billion collectors want one while a mintage of a few hundred is huge where there is no demand.

 

It will always come down to quality, history, artistry, and "desirability". Collectors will probably always prefer coins that have the most coin-like properties. Some of these issues, like the Marshal Islands, aren't even redeemable. Where they are coins in name only, one has to suspect they can never gain mass appeal. They might be sold to millions in mass advertising but there won't be anyone (or few) in the future who wants one.

 

I still think it's advisable to wait a couple years before buying new issues. This is less true now days because most issues don't plummet in the secondary market but it can save you from spending money on issues that you don't really want. It also lets you see the mintages before you buy.