I was reading "The World of Coins and Coin Collecting" and the author referenced Coin World's "Price Trends", a composite index of coin prices for as long as Coin World has been published. Does such a thing exist? It would be extremely helpful to map price trends in coins. For example, I have heard it said that because gold and silver are hot right now, cents are taking a beating on price. So NOW would be a good time to pick up a nice 1972 double die?
Whoever you heard that from is wrong in so many ways I couldn't possibly list them all. At least for large cents, the market has never been hotter. Just this year alone so far two pieces have broken the million dollar barrier. Older copper is bringing higher prices than any gold and silver coins. Guy
While I agree to a point, I don't know if you can really count the two that broke the million dollar barrier. It's not like they come on the market much and there was a lot of pent up demand for them. I do see an increase in prices for more common clean and "grade-able" large cents though.
Although it certainly wouldn't hurt to know the history (trends) in the coin market in the past 40 years, I would be loath to try to base what is happening now or will in the future on the past. You never know until you have hindsight to see where you are at any one point. Even though there are stock market investors that do this sort of market analysis, in the end, it just comes down to the fact that you can't predict the future. And numismatics is probably a worse place to track trends for possible future gains than the stock market is. It is more important, I think, in the long run, to buy as nice a coin as you can. Enjoy it, and if you end up selling it for a profit in your lifetime (that outpaces the inflation adjustment you have to make and other factors, like the cost of keeping it safe, possibly insuring it, etc), then consider yourself lucky, not prescient.
Here's the coin market as a whole for the past 40 years - You can find graphs for specific segments of the market, for may different periods of time ranging the past year, to 40 years ago, here - http://www.pcgs.com/prices/frame.aspx?type=coinindex&filename=index
What I find interesting about the graph is the growth prior to "Numismatics on Wallstreet." From 82-87 you see a 5 year period of growth on the index below during a time of disinflation. Also are there any graphs that show specific series? Did PCGS/NGC have a lot to do with this?
Based on books I read, it was based on Wall Street investment firms like Solomon Brothers adding rare coins to their investment portfolios and the general idea that coins were an "investment". Obviously this would create a huge increase in demand if people thought they could invest in coins and make MORE profit than stocks, etc. Gantz did, and still does publish these kind of crazy profitable returns in his books - fuel for the fire I guess but call me a skeptic. Heck, right now I'm worried about not even paying fair price and breaking even but instead paying some overinflated price for an over-graded coin / cleaned coin / counterfeit coin. I may be stupid about these things* .... but at least I know it. If I break even THAT would be a success IMHO. * But learning a lot thanks to the folks here.
i have read many in many places from people in the coin collecting/dealer space that the '90s were a bad time for collectors and values. then the state quarter program reignited the business and helped bring in many new/returning people and lifted prices. i think that graph is a distortion reflecting graded coin prices. as they were a few years in to the grading game and nobody really knew what was out there in what grades some coins went way up. like at one time '81-82s morgans in ms65 got up near $900 before thousands more were sent in and the price fell back to $100-125 a few years later. this happened to many coins in that era so I wouldn't go by that graph. long time dealers will tell a different story.
The graph is no distortion, that is what happened. And it didn't take years for the prices to drop, to get back to where they were yes. They peaked in '89, they dropped 30% by the end of '89. By the middle of '90 they had dropped 60%. By the end of '94 they had dropped almost 90%. And Jason, all of the graphs that are available can be found at the link I posted.
I called it a distortion because it's for graded coins and the market in those wasn't settled in those days because a smaller % of coins was graded.
No, it's not just for graded coins. The TPGs didn't even exist until 1986. Sixteen years after that chart starts.
Which means that all the information during those first 16 years is speculative because it reports prices on coins whose actual grading standars could be questionably different that those after 1986. But still just using the post 1986 part of the graph is very infomative.
Again I will go on record that this PCGS graph is NOT indicative of the whole coin market, it is indicative of high end coin market. I do not see where worn buffalo nickels and the majority of coins bought and sold are included in this graph. Just my caveat and opinion. Doug and I have had this disagreement in the past. Chris
I might be wrong Chris, but isn't that graph based on the entire hobby/industry as a whole? And not on any one specific grade, type or series?
Something happend in 82. Perhaps people were sick and tired of all of the inflation during the 70's and turned towards numismatics as hard assets. They didn't just open up on wallstreet and that was that. Something had to happen before that (possibly TPG's?) and something had to happen during the 4 years from 82-86 prior to PCGS/NGC. Wish I were around to know.
Is it quantity weighted or is the index treating it that one MS65 chain cent is sold just as often as a vf 42s cent? I know the answer, just pointing out the index's flaw. Since its so heavily weighted on 5, 6, and 7 figure coins, how is that really indicative of what conis most of us collect are doing?
Here is the list of coins and in what grades is based on - http://www.pcgs.com/prices/PCGS3000.aspx Chris says it's not valid because it doesn't cover every grade. But it is valid because if any given segment of grades goes up or down in value over a period of time, then the other grades typically follow suit. They go up or down as well and in very similar percentages. Yes, there are times, maybe for a few months even, when the MS grades for a certain series might go down in value. While the F, VF, XF grades for that same series go up for a few months. But the opposite is also true, at times. But over a period of years, the trends in all grades move the same directions and in very similar percentages. Bottom line, the graphs are indeed indicative of the entire coin market - in all grades. Want to prove it yourself, it's easy. Buy a few old copies of CDN, they cover all the grades for every series. Then buy some new copies of the CDN. Compare the ups and downs for the lower grades, percentage wise, to the ups and downs of the upper grades percentage wise. You'll find the percentages are very close.
I think the it's safe to say that the higher priced coins we often hear about has the appearance of weighing more into the trends than the smaller sales/lower graded pieces do. But Doug does make a valid point, in that all types, grades and etc. somehow affect the trends. So in terms of the bullion market, any affect at all in the trends? Looks like when the precious metals market is down, the numismatics value increases and vice versa. Any truth to this?
