Now I Am Getting Worried.... The Future Of Our Hobby

You can get thru it in one day if you go non-stop.

 

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Gotcha thanks...seems like it's 1/2 way between a local show and the big FUN and Long Beach ones, huh ?

 

I'd say about 60% of what the Winter FUN show is. Just an estimate.

 

You'll be there as a dealer ? If I go to Baltimore/FUN, I'll look you up.

 

Not really, we price things at what they are worth now, not at what they will be worth at some unknown date in the future. My laptop at some point in the future will be worth zero and we know that when we buy them. Since they will eventually be worthless does that mean the store should just give them to us?

 

Your analogy seems a bit off though. A laptop is an appliance. It's a commodity bought with the expectation that it will have a limited useful life, and we assign it a value based on how long we expect that life to be. I'd pay considerably more for a name-brand laptop that's known for lasting a long time and providing years of trouble-free usage, than for a no-name laptop that I know will probably need to be replaced in a year or two.

People don't buy coins for the same reasons and with the same expectations of near-term obsolescence. To many, they are an investment (or at least a sort of hedge) as much as they are a personal collection. Most of us tend to think that our coins will last forever (or at least the next couple generations and be something we can pass down or sell in older age), and we also often think they'll hold their value so long as we keep them and they stay in the same or close to the same condition. So if we pay a certain amount for our coins and keep them for years or decades, then suddenly it turns out they're not worth anything or certainly not worth anywhere near what we paid for them, we'll tend to feel a bit ripped off or at least disappointed by the fact.

As they are currently considered valuable collector items, we tend to expect that in 5 or 20 or 50 years they will still be considered valuable collector items. If the market shifts dramatically and this hobby dies down considerably, then the argument is that they simply will no longer be valuable collector items anymore, as they were when we bought them and expected them to remain. I don't quite agree with that argument, I think rare and unique coins will always have a market and retain a good bit of their value, though I do see many coins decreasing quite a bit in value as we are seeing happen right now before our eyes. In 5 or 20 years we may see these same coins shooting back up in value. That's the nature of collector- and investment-type markets, they're usually pretty cyclical. Still, that's the argument made by many in this hobby, and I think they have some good points. In my view, if you plan on selling most of your collection when you retire or passing it on to your kids or grandkids to sell when you die, much of the value of your collection will just depend on market conditions at that particular point in time.

 

But coins, aside from aesthetic appreciation and value, have an investment side to them as well.

 

November said it best, and I say that not as a guy with extensive expertise in INVESTMENTS like stocks and bonds (which pay dividends/interest and GROW) as well as SPECULATIONS like gold and commodities and coins/bill/baseball cards (which are speculative based on time and/or PERCEIVED value).

Look, ultimately I know that the ultimate downside for any bill I buy is the face value of the bill. Unlikely that my SC's or Gold Certificates or others approach that, but I know the score.

Similarly, I can buy a numismatic coin that is 1 ounce of silver or 1 ounce of gold -- those are my floors, respectively. The Morgan Silver Dollar I purchased for $750 can go down a TON even if not to $1 just like that rare MSD in the 1960's when they found a bunch in a Treasury vault. My Saint-Gaudens can go down as well, as overseas hordes were found in the past.

And that "floor" of $19/oz for silver and $1,450/oz. for gold can go lower if the underlying commodity goes lower, too.

So while I don't expect it, if or when I purchase a HR Saint for 5-figures, I have to know that if a stash of Gem Mint HR's is found in some auxilary vault of a European bank and hundreds of MS-65's and 66's and 67's hit the market, the price is going alow lower.

Ditto for any other year or mint of Saints in limited high-quality. Imagine what happens if thousands of 1927-D's hit the market ? Price drops by 80-90%.

So while it's unlikely these scenarios happen, they have in the past, and this hobby of ours entails a SPECULATIVE aspect that is different than regular investing which is why the two should be kept separate.

 

It switched from baseball to pokémon cards and coins were never a consideration.

 

Prices will continue the downward drift due to lower pop of collectors.

While there are new collectors they don’t have as much money or inclination spend. The 89 crash still serves as an important lesson.

I believe the sticker fad will go bankrupt at some point in time along with a merger of the 2 major TPG (or one drops out) or replaced by some tech advance / change making the TPG obsolete.

This year we had the demise of PCGS currency grading and PMG now the undisputed leader if they weren’t before. What’s next on the table?

 

HEY! I haven't gone anywhere Randy! Lmfao

 

And, they don't know what "change" is. They live by Debit and Credit and never see coins.

 

I started collecting in 1948. You are right, it was different 40 years ago. It was even more different 60 and 70 years ago. As a youngster I was still finding 20 cent pieces, IHC, SLQ, all Barbers, Liberty and Buffalo nickels in change routinely. I was there in 1959 and 1964 when serious changes were introduced. And that was traumatic for the coin collectors. Everyone began to hoard anything made before 1964, anything. Those hoards slowly depleted the access to fun finds in circulation. I'm sure this was a disappointment to collectors and potential collectors. Todays collectors can reasonably expect to complete any series that starts after 1958 for cents and 1964 for all other denominations.

 

Regarding the Great American Coin Hunt, I have an incredible number of "gold dollars". They are worth at best one dollar. I have started carrying some in my pocket for tips. The young girls that work concessions at the golf course get rather excited when I give them a gold dollar as a tip for a drink. They don't see stuff like that, and they thank me. Of course, they get excited about me when I tell them, jokingly, that I have a million of them.

 

Which prices ? Lots of stuff appreciates, it's the modern and memorabilia junk that keeps sinking.

That was a bubble that I don't think most collectors believe is relevant. If anything, it teaches novices and experts to know what you are buying and be wary of paying rapidly inflated prices over face value for bills and coins.

I wouldn't mind computerization taking over the grading of modern coins and bills, the technology is there right now.

Save the human grading for the older stuff where you want an expert pair of eyes to spend more than 20 seconds on a $15,000 Saint-Gaudens.

Do we know WHY PCGS left bill grading ? Unlike NGC/PMG, PCGS is publicly traded. They may not have been making a decent return on their investment. They may find they can earn better returns investing in coin grading.

I'll do some sleuthing of the 10-K's and report back.[/quote]

 

The Mint seems to be doing what the BEP did to kill numismatics. The 2019 Mint offerings number over 100 individual items, the total cost of which would be over $30,000. https://catalog.usmint.gov/product-schedule/2019/

 

I started collecting US Stamps and US Coins in 1948. I stopped with stamps in 2000 because the USPS was printing wallpaper that represented hundreds of new stamps every year. I quit with new coins about 2 years ago. The mint is making too many coins that cost too much and make them more difficult to get. I stay with the board to keep up with and improve my current collection.

 

A friend of mine who worked for the American Bureau of Shipping was assigned to a team that was to clean out an old vault that dated back to before the US started issuing postage stamps. The people on the team had to demonstrate that they were not stamp collectors. The ABS knew that there were many rare and valuable stamps on envelopes in the vault. And, they knew that they could saturate the rare stamp market and destroy values if the stamps got out. I don't know what they did with them, he never would tell me.

 

How long ago was that? Was it recent?