How Rare Is Your Collection?

I agree that collectors that hold on to high grade, common date PM coins will see the numismatic value rise. All those coins being melted increases the rarity of those left behind … how much is impossible to predict. The big melt will make the already inflated population reports of grading services even more inflated. Doubt few, if any, of coins cracked out for melting have their cert. nos. reported to the relevant TPG service. Mike

 

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In the long run this will happen if the price remains high. In the short run What gets sent to the refiners is very random so large numbers of chBU '64-D quarters will survive for a very long time.

There may be some interesting exceptions.

 

Same here. I have my collection but I also have a silver pile which includes a few junk silver coins, several ASEs and a 1 oz silver bar.

 

The premise of my post was about how rare your collection is. It's the end of the year the metals market is "correcting" and that concerns most folk's coin collection. I think all collectors should reassess their coin holdings from time to time. When silver was low is how I ended up with so many raw BU silver coins. That was the census on these boards even at that time. Monster boxes of silver eagles was the rage. That in turned opened up the numismatic coin market to cheap rare coins in plastic. I made raw coins a very small part of my collection at that time.

This is different, the rise in precious metals is going to eat into the BU coin market of silver and gold. Up until recently the numismatic value in precious metal coins seemed a guarantee if you bought BU coins. With the grading of coins MS-66 could be the bottom of one or two silver coin series. The Roosevelt dime series was already approaching the 66 bottom. Coins without the FB/FT designation never brought book money without nice tarnish. Franklins will follow this path with the FBL designation. Washington quarters seem to have found a bottom at MS-65. Other series are no different.

The sets I am currently working on seem to be safe from becoming bullion pieces. 2 of the 3 sets are close to finish. I'll never finish the 3rd set. I'll probably focus more on high grade coins outside those sets. The sets will become secondary. It may be time to finish those folders and albums of raw coins. This time with BU crackouts worth melt.

 

How rare is my collection? I may be the only collector who has all 21 Barber dime hub transition varieties 1899-1905. So who knows, it might be R9. Obviously the individual coins are not "rare", but the collection could be. Same holds true for many registry sets with 100% completion, etc. Does the owner of an 1894-S dime care what the price of silver is? It seems like you're trying to define rarity as a premium over metal price, and redrawing the line between "rare" and "not rare" at certain grades for certain coins for the purpose of profit. I guess that makes sense for people who are in it to make money, and to decide between keeping and melting. Personally I find the concept of melting to cash in rather distasteful, because once it's gone it's never coming back, and these are relics of history. You could make a few bucks on those 60+ year old coins, or they could fill a hole in a kid's collection.

 

Do the coins actually get melted? I thought that was just a shorthand way of saying sold for metal value. I thought people preferred to invest in U.S. coins as bullion because it's an identifiable amount and would be easy to use for money in a future financial collapse.

 

Sadly, yes.

World silver (92.5% 72% etc...), US silver (90%, 40%), generic silver rounds (.999), silver proofs, maple leaves, kangaroos, brittanias, National Park 5 oz. rounds, you name it, is being literally melted.

 

I've had the same thought regarding gold. If you're prepping for financial Armageddon, don't you want discreet known usable quantities? I suppose with silver there are more industrial uses for the raw metal than gold, and some people might want the .999 pure bar thing instead of the mix of percentages. Otherwise I guess it goes into jewelry or silver platters/containers/flatware? Or new modern "collector" coins from the mint at outrageous prices? Where does it go?