What USA Sleeper coin of 2012?

As a wise person posted on this board once, a mintage of two is still too high if only one person wants one. I think they'll be a short term fad and the prices of them will plummet when people realize the supply greatly exceeds the demand. If you're going to cash in on the fad do it quickly.

Over one million of these were minted last year. I just can't see over a million collectors caring much about these in a few years. The only people buying them are people who think they'll be valuable eventually... but who are they going to sell to, when everyone who cares about owning them already bought them?

 

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I don't get your logic. They're going to be valuable because they're slow sellers? Nobody wants them now, so they'll be valuable because people will change their mind and want them later?

A coin's rarity does not make it valuable. A coin's rarity relative to its demand makes it valuable. If nobody wants it now so they don't mint many, it's no proof that the demand will go up because of how rare it is. If everybody who wants one has one, who are the owners of them going to sell to?

Here's some basic microeconomics for you. Price is set by supply and demand. If they're selling slow, that means demand is low. That's not going to raise the price in the future, not in the short term anyway. Heck the mint may melt the unsold ones down eventually. Third party dealers may melt the ones they can't sell down just to cut their losses. Sure, you got a rare Alice Paul coin now, but nobody else wants it. 50 years from now it may be a valuable rare coin, so hey, your great grandkids get a nice inheritance, but what good does that do you?

To sum it up: the fact that a coin is a slow seller should be an indication it's NOT going to be a good investment, at least not in your lifetime. If people thought it was a good buy, they'd be buying it.

 

Nobody wanted the 1996 Olympic $5 gold flag barers in unc... The Olympic cauldron in unc... The unc Jackie Robinsons... There are several others that trade are 4x-10x their proof counterparts... Simply because nobody ordered them.

That's my logic...

 

I can't fault your logic, but I think you're missing one important point...there hasn't been ANY US minted gold coin with a mintage below 5,000 that hasn't skyrocketed in price (eventually). In other words, economic conditions and collector whimsy has a tendency to change over time.

 

OK, so why do people want them now when they didn't want them then? Did the demand go up because suddenly people saw them as desirable collectibles, or because people realized they're relatively rare and think they'll continue to go up in value even more? Because if the latter, that's not going to be indefinitely sustainable. At some point everyone who wants one will have one, and the price will plummet. How are rare beanie babies doing these days?

 

I'm not going to speculate why... All I know if the fact that these low mintage US gold coins tend to go up. I'm also not going to speculate on a timeframe for the appreciation. I don't have a crystal ball to see what's really going unfold. From past trends with the low mintage US gold... That's just what sticks out...

Someone is buying the coins I mentioned...

 

Ah, but you put "eventually" in parentheses when that's actually the most important part of the sentence. Eventually doesn't do you much good if that's past your lifetime. Unless you hope it's going to spike due to a fad or optimistic speculation, in which case cash in quick before people quit caring. A coin is only worth what you can find a buyer to pay. Once there's fewer buyers than coins, the coin won't be valuable no matter how rare it is. For fun I look through 50 year old redbooks to see what some valuable rarities were worth then. It's amazing that, even adjusting for inflation, most of them were easily affordable. Hey great, if you hold on to it for 50 years you really got something. But then I'll be 86 if I'm even still alive. What good does that do me? And what if 50 years from now people decide they still don't want an Alice Paul coin or an S-minted quarter? What if collector interest actually goes down? (Hey how are those bicentennial quarters doing now?)

OK, it's 1997. The mint puts out a $5 gold uncirculated Jackie Robinson commemorative. Not many people are buying them, maybe people don't like the design, think it's too expensive, the collector interest just isn't there. So the Mint only sells about 5000 of them and melt down the rest they minted. 16 years later the price goes way up, because now it's rare. Great, you can sell the ones you bought for a lot of money! Well except you didn't buy them, because 16 years ago you didn't care either.

See where the problem lies? If people think it's going to be a good investment, people buy a lot of them, the Mint mints a lot of them, and then they don't go up much in value in the long run because they're too common. If nobody's buying them, the Mint doesn't sell many, they go up in value, but you don't have one.

Or here's another analogy: Someone prints up a guide book for Disneyland that says Great Thunder Mountain Railroad has the shortest lines at 10 am so that's the perfect time to go. The book sells millions of copies. You go to that ride at 10am and there's a line all the way back to the parking lot. What happened? Everyone followed the same advice... which invalidated the advice. Moral of the story: if everyone's saying a given coin is a good investment, that's how you know it's not. Because if everyone's buying them it means everyone who wants them has them. Why is that 1997 Robinson unc. worth so much? Because 16 years ago nobody was saying to buy it. So think about that when everyone's saying, hey let's buy that Alice Paul coin, it will be valuable. Even if that ends up being true you won't be able to cash in on that sooner than about a generation. Great investment strategy in the LONG run (well unless everyone's doing it of course). But in the meantime you're spending your disposable income on coins nobody wants and have no money left for the coins you do want. You're not collecting in coins; you're speculating in them. Where's the fun in that?

Am I just off base here? I just can't see the point in diverting disposable income to buy up coins nobody wants (and thus you probably don't either) just to get a bunch of money later when you're too old to enjoy it. Am I just that cynical? Maybe. 20 years from now you'll be richer than me but I'll enjoy my collection more. I can live with that.

 

Investing in something you don't understand will always bite you in the butt eventually. If you don't understand why something's going to go up, you can't count on it always going up. The bubble's going to burst eventually.

The "why" matters. If you can't answer the "why" stay away. Warren Buffett didn't get rich by investing in things he didn't understand. That's how he stayed rich when tons of investors lost their shirts when investments they assumed would go up forever suddenly dropped in the toilet.

I can tell you why they skyrocket. It's because people want them because they assume they'll go up even more because of how rare they are. That will only be true for so long because eventually the buyers run out. Very few of these buyers are buying them because they see them as inherently desirable beyond what they'll be worth some day. If they thought it was inherently desirable they would have bought them when they first came out, which they didn't, that's why it's rare in the first place. That's just not a formula for it holding high value in the long run. Eventually the fad for it will die. You can try to make money playing musical chairs, but the music has to stop some time.

 

I understand just fine that low mintage US gold tends to go up in price... I think you are making it too complicated. I don't care who buys it in 10 years... There will be a market and there will be a buyer.

 

Maybe. Maybe I'm just being too cynical and/or pessimistic. But optimists who think that something will just keep going up forever tend to be the ones that go broke, and they never see it coming because they didn't understand what made it go up in the first place. Speculators making money selling to other speculators can't go on forever. You can keep playing musical chairs but the music has to stop sometime. Maybe you'll be the one without a seat, maybe not. But it won't be me because I'm not playing.

 

You’re probably drastically underestimating future demand. Current demand has little to do with future demand – especially for a series that is just beginning to hit circulation and could be more popular than the State Quarters. Either way, the cost of these rolls is so low, it’s a small gamble for a potential big payoff.

 

Or you're drastically overestimating it. It could be that the ATB series will be less popular than the state quarters. When the state quarters were running, tons of people who didn't even consider themselves coin collectors knew about them and were saving them. Now most people I meet just don't care anymore or even know about the ATB quarters. The rotating reverses were a novelty in 1999. 14 years later people have got used to the idea and they're just not a novelty anymore. I just don't see an S being on the front bringing that much a premium long term, not when there's millions of them out there, and only distributed through direct sales to collectors, the only people likely to care (there's just not that much potential growth when the only people who want them already have them).

They'd have to double in value for you to even break even on them. Maybe the fad will let you cash out if you don't wait too long. But in the long term I can't see these ever becoming hugely valuable. I honestly think if anything, future demand will be less than it is right now, not more. It's already happened to the state quarters. Happened to the bicentennials too. How valuable are those now, almost 40 years later? Buy them if you like but it seems like a sucker's bet to me. Several people I know have used the "small gamble for a potential big payoff" reasoning to justify buying lottery tickets. None of them are millionaires. "Small gamble for a potential big payoff" isn't an investment strategy; it's just wishful thinking. Current hype is not a good indicator of future demand (in fact it's usually a good indicator that the demand will go down when the hype fades away).

P.S. I've already found some S-minted business strike ATB quarters in circulation. Seems some collectors are giving up on them already lol...

 

I guess a lot of what your saying has to do with market conditions and people not babysitting their investment. There are lots of coins that can be great investments in one timeframe and bad investments in another time frame. Only a round headed twonk would be using the fire and forget approach to a coin investment. The average folks pay attention and check the market occasionally and choose at what level they want out.

 

I'm going to go with the Silver Proof Set in mint packaging.

 

I will put my money on the 2012 gold eagle 4 coin proof set. I see that it just sold out and the final mintages for each coin will be at or near the lowest.
If the mintage premium does not materialize, you still have a nice set of a popular gold coin. A no lose situation in my book.

Lack

 

This thread got me thinking about the likelihood of sets being assembled of different series, since this would tend to make the lower mintage items go up in value more.
Will people make sets of First spouse coins?
What about sets of Proof gold eagles?
What about sets of modern $5 gold commems?

All of the above have some low mintage rarities(?) that sell for little premium. It seems like the first spouse series would have the best chance of realizing their value due to the added Demand for putting together a set someday.

Lack

 

I run a small coin shop in an antique mall - the AtB's are the number one seller there and they've just began to take off in the last few months. Many of these, including low mintage P's & D's are and will be tough to find in circulation. Or, for that matter, try finding a nice BU or any BU in circulation.

About 10% of my customers are buying silver or gold and 90% of them are selling at these prices. The AtB series offers the average person (95% of us) an opportunity to collect an awesome series that probably will be more popular than the state quarters due to its theme.

So, you missed out on the 2012-s AtB's? They're already selling for more than double and will only go higher. Now, I'll agree with you for a Denali P or D at over a 100m mintage each.

Yeah, you may have found the damaged S mints that I spend. Do you actually believe any significant number of S-Mints will be dumped in circulation? Since the 2012 S-Mints have mintages similar to proofs, imagine if the mint sold the proofs only in rolls that few collectors got because the mint cut off sales early, and now imagine those collectors dumping them in circulation. LOL

 

In the early '60s, my Father cherry-picked 28 rolls of Morgan dollars when you could get them for $1 each. He passed his collection on to me, I'm adding to it and passing it along as well. I don't know which crackhead heir will eventually devastate the collection, but I don't really care...I'm doing my part to extend the family heritage. That's the best I can do.

Initially, I didn't collect the First Spouse series. I began around 2008. The Liberty subset really got my attention. As the economy worsened and the mintage figures dropped, I really started to get excited about the series. Some of the coins have seen modest numismatic bumps in price, but most of the appreciate so far is based on the run-up in gold prices. Whatever the reason, I've nearly tripled my money on the coins I've bought so far...3x in 5 years...not too bad.

The two (2) primary reasons (imo) the coins haven't appreciated more are...

1. The series is a long series...2007-2016 and the economy still stinks (reduced demand).
2. Many people that began the series couldn't keep up and sold off what they had (increased supply).

That should continue to have a depressing effect on prices until the modern First Spouses begin to come out. The Elenore Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy coins will generate more interest in the series (imo). That's when I expect new collectors will be "begin" looking for the earlier pieces.

Within 20 years from the end of the series (~2035), I expect the coins on sale now to sell for $30,000 (and up). A complete set of First Spouse coins (MS/PF) will be unattainable for most.

I began buying two (2) of every coin when gold prices were low...in the event that if gold prices rose (which they did) I could sell off one set to fund the completion of the other. As it turns out, I haven't had to do that...not yet, anyway.

Worst case scenario...I end up with over 80 ounces of pure gold, which is a nice inflation hedge for any portfolio. You can't say that about Beanie Babies!

 

1st
Do not buy any coin thing 10yrs it going to be worth $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
2nd
Buy what you can afford!
do not use your rent or family $ etc
buy with your mad/ extra money if you have any
3rd
Read all the fine print do not buy something without checking it out.
:thumb:buy the book before the coin is a good rule of thumb.:yes:

 

4th
Don't quote yourself.