Is it time to focus on clad coinage?

It's really not just clads but all modern coins; all coins minted after 1964. A lot of people today who are advanced collectors still have a bad taste in their mouth from the way the mint and government treated modern collectors in 1964. Government actions crashed the modern markets which were sure to come down eventually anyway since it was tulip bulb market. A 1959 bag of nickels was going for more than $1000 which was just a huge premium and such coins simply crashed. The premium was enough to by a VW car.

When clad was introduced they took the brunt of the criticism and some of it was fully justified. The new coins were ugly, debased, and made in huge numbers. The government was intentionally trying to fool the public into thinking no change had occurred and most didn't even notice. 25c was still real money but the new quarter didn't even have 2c worth of metal in it. Collectors felt cheated everytime they got change. To make matters worse this garbage token money was chasing good silver out of circulation.

This is still the mindset of many hobby leaders though attitudes have been changing finally after many decades. Some people are never going to consider any modern to even be a true coin. Seen from this perspective it's not hard to see why they cringe just hearing that somweone wants to collect such coins.

 

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Post-Clad coinage

If the government comes to its senses and eliminates some denominations and/or changes the composition of some to plastic or aluminum, will that coinage still be collectible or will that signal the end of collecting, at least new coinage?

 

Essentially, all circulating coins now in use here in the United States are worthless or nearly worthless. Even the quarter dollar has very limited utility. It would take 20 of them just to buy a coke at a major league baseball game. As for the lower denominations, especially the penny, their existence continues for only one reason. They help perpetuate the paradigm that the dollar itself is still worth something, which as we all know is getting to be more and more questionable with each passing day. The idea being, if the government thinks the penny is worth something, than surely the dollar is worth something. Its dubious logic at best, but so far it appears to be working, at least in so far as there haven't been any bank runs yet followed by mass conversion of paper currency into precious metals. Once that comes, coins will cease to circulate for anything. The vending industry will be wiped-out and replaced with kiosks run by folks well connected enough to get permits from the local city to run them. Soon after that, there will be a currency reform, 3 zeros will be lopped off everything, new coins will be minted, and almost the instant they enter circulation the exact same scenario will play out AGAIN, with bank runs, conversion to hard currency (in this case precious metals). Could be this cycle runs 3 or 4 times before a stable currency is introduced, and by the time that happens, imports into the US will have dropped to almost zero, and the economy will begin growing --real growth-- for the first time since about 1950. All the old coins from 1965 until present will get melted down, as will any coin subsquent to the introduction of a stable replacement for the dollar. By the time they are finished, Queen Elizabeth II will once again povault past Lincoln as the most ubiquitous portrait on coins worldwide.

 

I like prince of waldos what if scenario, here is another one. AS inflation takes off, even clad coinages metal content exceeds its nominal value, people start to trade exclusively with hard money, electronic money is tried to be foisted off on the people, but it becomes considered even more worthless than paper money. Banks not only do not have change to give people, but they no longer even have paper dollars.

The government tries to demonize all people who do not accept the exclusive electronic money, but a new election returns a government that disannuls all the electronic thievery, and jails all the main principals involved in the scheme. It turns out that the actual people involved are internationalists who in destroying the USD and other currencies were trying to subvert democracies in favor of a moneyed oligarchy.

The government solves the whole issue by simply canceling all electronic money held by individuals over a certain limit, this causes some hardship because of old court rulings that ruled that corporations are individuals. Overnight the whole economic landscape changes, the very richest just become upper middle class, the very poorest just become the lower middle class.

Or not.

 

I am unsubscribing this thread.

 

There will still be paper, no question about that. But right you are about the electronic representation of wealth. If you can't trust the banks, why would you trust them when they claim a specific individual is "wealthy" simply based on a cloud of electrons swiriling around on a hard-drive somewhere? Which brings us back to scaricity and why precious metals are so superior to anything else as money. While paper currency seems unlimited, its really scarce compared to the potential number of electrons out there which can be used as electronic money. And so paper will continue as the "scarce" commodity that it is compared to electronic banking.

If you go inside the data center of a major bank, its not difficult to imagine future archeologists one day seeing the same thing and saying to themselves "This was the very center of their culture, the elaborate security and check-points of the data center all to prevent only the chosen few from venturing inside to see the most holy icon". --Kind of like ruins I once saw in Peru where all these intricate passage-ways lead to this inner chamber that contained an oblisk that they worshiped. In fact, almsot exactly the same.

 

You forgot the part about zombies roaming the land and meteors striking at least hourly.

 

Another fine point many forget is that the gold based monetary system failed and the fiat system is still in use.

This is ironic but the bottom line is that it's politicians who destroy the money. In a democracy it's we the people who vote for politicians who promise to increase spending and decrease taxes. They rarely deliver on promises but these are a couple that almost every politician from the begiining of time have kept. So long as we have a failed educational system it will be difficult to elect statesmen.

Anyone who thinks that a gold, silver, or any commodity based system might work is forgetting the lessons of history. These have always failed periodically because the perception of the commodity changes. Monetary panics in the modern world could prove deadly since even food production runs on money. There is no food that doesn't come out of one sort of factory or another.

This really is drifting off topic but the best monetary system would be one based on GDP and the currency itself would pay a dividend in years of growth. This would require a government that spends within its means almost every single year.

The point of the thread though is that today, right now, clad has been the only money of the land for 46 years and has been ignored by collectors for the main part largely because they don't even consider clads to be real money or real coins. The bottom line is that this is probably a distinction that is going to be lost on future generations who will collect them because clads are what they grew up with. It won't really matter to a collector who needs a nice VF or better '87-D whether its a coin or a token.

 

I do collect some clad coinage, sorry for veering off topic. My point was that in a sense paper is harder money than electronic money, and clad is harder than paper.

I appreciate the knowledge that is being imparted, and the lively exchange of views.

 

What about wheat cents and nickels? They're no good because there's no silver?

 

All of those "cheap" eBay auctions I was following for MS67 clad quarters (80s and 90s) finished last night. Every one that was under $10 when I started watching four (4) days ago, finally sold for over $100...some over $200!

 

Silver won't work in most vending machines any longer. It's not impossible that a deflation would lead to banks being unwilling to accept silver coin at face value since the coins don't work in vending machines.

Obviously such a scenario is improbable but the point is that no matter what the future holds clads have been the money of the land for more than two generations. For the main parrt collectors don't collect because a coin is worth a lot as metal but because a coin is scarce or needed for a collection. The metallic value of an 1804 dollar or a gem 1804 cent is simply irrelevant to almost every single owner of these. The same applies to the owner of a 1975 dime that recently sold for more than a quarter million dollars. As a rule collectors value quality and rarity above almost all else and for many of us the value of the metal is incidental and few desire to sell their collections to scrap dealers.

 

My thoughts exactly. Many collector's collect because of rarity and that is something that the modern clads lack. Outside of a few coins, modern clads have been produced in numbers so large that they don't have a lot of collector interest. Now, there are some people who like certain series and collect anyway...and that's great. There are also the collectors of ultra high grade examples. But, for the most part...clad coinage doesn't have the rarity appeal of older coins and thus isn't that interesting to many collectors. But...to those that liken them, there is certainly nothing wrong with collecting them.

 

Anyone see the record price paid for a 1975 no S dime? $349,600!!! Wish I had been buying 70's clad proof sets from the mint.

 

That is quite amazing. I would love to have one of the later No S errors...which are a little more affordable.

 

I agree with camoro on collecting. Older coins are nice and wish I had more but there is alot of us on a limited income a month for one reason or another.
Sure I would love to have some of the coins that are posted on here. I am happy for the person that purchased it. I have been collecting GEM PROOF MODERN COINS for a year or so that
catches my eye . My main focus now is currency I try and put a little $ back each month for
a special bill that catches my eye. The main point i'm trying to say is - enjoy the hobby -
no matter what type your interested in, it is a hobby for enjoyment not a task.
Sandy

 

Outside of just a very few dates almost no pre-'98 clads were saved.

People saved som kennedy and ike coins and bicentennial quarters and very little else. Even the coins that were saved are often gone now because common wisdom is that all of these are common. If not for mint sets most of these coins would be scarce or rare.

But if you look at the mint sets closely you'll see they don't really change the equation that much. For instance every '68-P cent in mint sets is corroded! Most mint sets have been cut up and the coins spent. Many moderns don't appear in mint sets at all. Almost no varieties appear in mint sets and this means almost all modern varieties are scarce or rare. They made 100,000 1972-D type "b' reverse quarters and there probably aren't even ten of them in unc, and maybe much fewer. They made a few million '85-P sm bust quarters and I'd wager there aren't 50 in Unc. There won't be any in AU or XF and if people don't start looking then there won't be any in VF either.

You claim a 1969 quarter is common but the facts argue otherwise. Sure it was common in 1969 but these coins were not saved!!! The mint sets have been torn apart. There are no rolls and no bags. Even if there were bags and bags of these the odds are there wouldn't be a single nice specimen in all of them because this date had severe problems. The few coins surviving in mint sets have severe problems for the main part.

Let me say this again. There are 2,000,000 nice attractive 1950-D nickels but there aren't even 100,000 nice attractive '69 quarters or 10,000 1982-P quarters. That makes the moderns orders of magnitude scarcer than a coin that got up close to $200 in todays money.

You can claim the moderns are common but it simply isn't true.

As I also pointed out earlier the Russian coins were made in huge numbers just like US coins and they made mint sets as well. A nice attractive 1969 5k sells for close to $1000 now. Are you suggesting that Russian coins made in the hundreds of millions are rare but our coins which are almost equally despised are common?

It's the same thing all over the world; moderns weren't saved because they had no silver and they were made in huge numbers. Now a very tiny number of collectors are seeking them out and are finding many of them (like a '69 5k) are simply unavailable. What will happen if large numbers of collectors beigin looking at moderns.

 

Anyone else notice that we haven't heard "boo" from TC since he started this thread? :lurker:

 

It is still great reading - enjoying it.
Sandy