Bad US coin buys

I agree with inaccurate pricing. A similar thing is seen with world coins. Just like there's modern US coin aversion or negative bias, perhaps Krause and other publishers, critics, and many collectors disregard and show great disdain for world coins. For instance, no matter what scarce world coin I bring to all the shops around me, none will show interest. The only offer I get is to pay for it by the pound! To their defense, it's understandable I guess because there's no market. But that is due to the industry's parochial view of coins. Take the ANA for example. I know they are based here, but it's a numismatic organization. It should highlight the beauty and worth of all coins yet their coverage and emphasis is skewed largely to US coins. I sometimes think that I'd be better off financially by collecting US coins more than I do, but I quickly remember that I love world coins and can't change that.

 

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It's worse than that. Their editorial policy until 1995 was to bash moderns. In promotional literature for children they specifically stated that there were no desirable coins in circulation.

The bashing wasn't even limited to the hobby in those days. Madison Avenue invariably used photos of 1964 coinage in advertising. One had the sense in those days that the mint actually stopped making coins altogether in 1964 and many hobbyists certainly acted that way.

In their defense they no longer do this but there is still bashing that goes on from time to time by contributors. And, no, I'm not asking them to censor this bashing. Even if I were in favor of restricting free speech I believe the bashing is good for moderns since people are so perverse and collectors so contrary.

I've collected everything except ancients and coal tokens and I dabble in them a little. Modern world coins are very important to me because they are such fun and I've worked on them since the mid-'70's. They certainly are highly underappreciated. The only way I could obtain many of them was by trading off valuable old world coins for them.

 

The discussion at this point seems to be centered around condition rarities of regular circulation issues. Since that market is in its infancy, I'm sure anyone who could predict where it's going could be a millionaire.

Another area I am curious about is modern US commemoratives, not for condition rarity but for absolute rarity. There are many recent issues of silver dollars and clad halves with total mintages in the 200K range. Although this is probably not enough rarity to make anyone rich, it represents a thin enough supply to cause prices to skyrocket if their popularity were to increase. And if a preference for OGP were to become dominant, there would be a lot of people kicking themselves for having purchased them in slabs. I've raised this question before and been told that commems have always been the "dogs" of the numismatic world and will always remain so. That may or may not be the case, but I'm convinced that sometime that market will be hyped. It will later come crashing down again but may provide good opportunities for anyone timing it right.

 

Commems are interesting. Although I hear a lot that commems are unappreciated, I think this is more so for modern ones. Classic commems may still have some room to grow value wise, but I think the majority are expensive for budget buyers. The modern ones are more affordable but you end up wondering if these higher mintage pieces (especially cu-ni ones) will ever pick up in popularity. I'd guess some of these at best would end up like the ubiquitous Booker T Washingtons or circulated Colombian exposition halves