...and down she goes!

You'll get what a coin is really worth on eBay, even though you'll get hit with its fees. That's where I'll sell my numi coins if I ever want to take profits.

 

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I think I'll plan on doing some E-bay every day in 5 years when I retire and have some time for it.

 

Boy that is a terribly broad statement. Especially considering I have bought coins worth hundreds for $8 on Ebay. Ebay is retail, and if you can sell your coins at retail USUALLY you will get a better price than selling to a dealer, but I cannot in any way agree with a blanket statement "you'll get what a coin is really worth on Ebay".

 

On top of this many operations incur new cash outlays when shutting the doors - reclaimation cost for example.

 

This statement about gold not being used in technology is not in fact true. Many industrial electronic devices use gold as a option contact medal. Gold plated contacts in relays and magnetic contacts have been available and used for many years. Gold contacts are to help with corrosion/oxidation.
Thanks Biged

 

But when an ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire a mile long, it doesn't take much. The point is not that gold isn't used in industrial applications - it's that it's not used in high volumes.

 

I understand what you are saying and agree. He made a statement that it was not used in technology. So I was just making it clear that it is. If you have a company sell 1 mil. in special relays and they used 1 ounce of gold. multiply by 1000 companies and so on and so forth over a year they will use a few ounces of gold. Just using an example. Industrial products using gold is not as small as you make it appear. I have been an industrial engineer for over 30 years an use many switches, relays, contacts, wire and cable, and circuit boards in applications requiring gold. Compared to the jewelry and bullion industry I am sure they are not the same.
Thanks Biged

 

Yes, my statement about eBay was broad, and there are exceptions in which extreme illiquidity can be evident. On the other hand, as a general rule, I regard eBay as a truth serum of sorts on the value of coins. It's possible some coins are not properly categorized or are misspelled, leading to lower prices, or perhaps the timing can be unfavorable to a seller.

 

I guess I do not. I find Ebay to be less educated buyers who overpay for certain things repeatedly, and underpay for others. I use this observation to my advantage at times, but I am finding myself less and less willing to have to wade through mountains of overpriced trash to see decent coins. I am finding this more and more, serious collectors like me with well above 4 figure coin budgets for the year simply abandoning Ebay. I could name 5 serious collectors who are friends who have all stopped paying attention to Ebay at all nowadays.

When you can go to a coin show and buy as many coins as you can carry at well below what Ebay prices are, and do this month in, month out, I simply do not know how you can characterize Ebay as a "truth serum". Its another weird venue like local auctions are, where for decades buyers have vastly overpaid for crappy US coins. In fact, that might be the best comparison there is.

 

and now it is hovering steadily at 22.590, every time i check it (like once a day) it is at that

 

Yes, eBay (or FeeBay) is a weird venue. I don't get why people pay so much for worn, common date Morgan dollars. But whether we admire the bumpkins who bid there or not, they are a part of the overall numismatic market. I know at eBay I have picked up numerous coins well below the Grey Sheet values, or the values at the local coin shops or shows. In fact, I sometimes get the feeling that coin shows tend to overprice many coins, although I suppose there are techniques one can use to haggle. Also, eBay is superior to many coin shows in that it has a very wide selection of coins. To give you an example, I like Chinese Fat Man dollars, and at my local coin show there might be just one vendor with that coin type, and that's because I once asked him to bring them in. So while eBay prices may be higher in many cases, it comes with the convenience of having a wider selection.

 

At $20/oz, yes it's a good call. However at $50/oz those premiums will be eaten into by spot price. If you believe the price will rise then you're better off not having premium coins. If you believe the price will fall then it's just for collecting purposes anyway so nothing wrong with buying what you like, but no sense in the purpose of investing if you don't believe the price will rise.

 

Yeah, what I meant was the price of gold is not impacted by technological demand. It's a monetary metal, and the only thing it does better than silver is resist corrosion so it has it's usefulness there, but it's not cost effective enough to gain a foothold in the technology sector.

 

I personally like a blend of numismatic and bullion. I also think silver will easily rise above $30 in the next economic crisis, and in that case both my bullion and premium coins will ride the wave. Whether we like it or not, the bears have the upper-hand at the moment, but I expect in the next crisis many of them will be silent like the way some bulls that have mysteriously disappeared are right now. It's the nature of the market.

 

Weak hands maybe, but I'm still here but you are right. I have my share of semi-numismatic coins as well because I think the premiums will rise, having gotten them for close to spot. I was talking about more expensive coins mostly. The guy who runs my local coin shop told me if he had purchased bullion instead of rare coins 20 years ago he'd be retired already, and he's not very old either.

 

I agree. The numismatic premium is very variable both by collector tastes and by PM pricing. Many things that are junk silver today used to be a premium item, and if silver goes up many more things will lose their premium. While I always recommend to those interested to "collect" junk silver to get more enjoyment out of it, there is a danger of putting money into premiums that will evaporate when the market rises.

 

Nowadays hard to separate. Recently was checking the price of a Mexican Onza (the one with the scales) with a dealer and he made a statement along the lines of it not being a bullion issue, but a collectable since it had a date!

 

Lol, so does a xf 1962 dime.

 

True, gold is not used in high volumes in individual units. For example, a typical cell phone contains about 0.0333 gram of gold. But, given the hundreds of millions of cell phones in the world today, this represents a significant amount of gold. And in Japan, they have been able to recover 10 kilograms of gold from 300,000 cell phones. The Japanese government also recently launched a campaign to recover gold and rare metals from discarded cell phones and other electronic appliances.

 

Look, I'm skeptical. Thats $500k worth of gold at $1500/oz. How many man hours of labor does it take to process 300k phones, plus chemicals...doesn't seem like a profitable Japanese project. Do you at least have a link to back that up?