Different Labels - Different Priced

I have been buying FS or FDOI PCGS 70 Silver Eagles one of each mint of each year for several years. Today there are so many different Labels for the same coin and each stating a low mintage for that label. Is there any value to buying Mercanti or other specialty label over the cheaper Flag Label?

 

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Sorry to tell you, but you should have bought the coin, not the holder. FS is a joke and labels don’t matter anyways...

 

So, you are saying buy only the regular blue label 70, not anything else?

 

market disagrees and has for many years

 

It's similar to buying redundant examples of coin sets issued by the US Mint. Folks gotta have 'em.........

 

Who is this person named market and where does he/she live? Are there any auction prices to back up this claim that common slabbed ASEs that were supposedly struck first off the dies or were shipped from the fulfilment center (not the mint but from the distribution center) on the first day of sale are anymore special or valuable that the other millions in the same exact grade?

 

Mr Market is real world sales. Sales have continuously shown that First Strike/Early Release/FDOI/Signature labels/Show Labels etc bring a premium over generic labels.

How much of a premium varies, sometimes it's minimal other times it's a lot.

 

OP so there is your answer. I would say generally speaking for FS and FDOI the answer is minimal to none.

 

Exactly. Moderns simply don’t have much of a numismatic value and the label won’t make a difference either.

 

If you want to add a coin to your collection, but the coin. If you want to buy the label for your collection, but the label. While some labels may sell for more today, that is no guarantee that people will be interested in collecting labels in the future.

Paying a premium for a label sounds risky to me, but I only collect coins not labels, so what do I know

 

There are those that collect these things. Not my world but some want matching labels and will step up and pay a premium for something they need.
Not much different from collectors of other things. If you want it, you sometimes have to jump on it with a strong price.
You may not get your money back out of it in the future but that is the nature of any hobby. It's not my place to tell others what they should or should not collect.

 

I pay melt unless its a proof they are bullion nothing else. When its time to sell you will get melt for them anyway.

 

This!

 

In 2006 I bought the 2006-W Buffalo Gold Proof. I liked it so much I decided to join PCGS and have it graded. At that time I didn't know about the FIRST STRIKE label so I didn't get it. It graded 70 so I put it on Ebay and it sold without the FS label...BUT the FS 70s were selling for a $1000+ or more. I bought a FS69 with that money and learned a valuable lesson. Pay PCGS the $18 ($12 back then) for the FS label, it's worth it when you sell.

I don't play the PCGS/NGC grading game now so I'm out of the loop on current pricing. My thinking is if you are having CERTAIN coins graded get the FS label. If you are buying graded coins buy the coin that you like and if it has a cool label you got a bonus.

Here's a shot of the 70 I sold in early 2007. I'll never forget the feeling I had when that grade posted, it was my 1st submission, I was hooked.

FWIW....I just like the Flag Label.

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Each to their own. To me this “first strike” stuff is a bunch of fluff. If those things are worth a premium, it’s a Ponzi scheme waiting to collapse.

 

The mint should stamp a strike sequence number on each coin. The coin with a number of "1" would probably be worth a fortune. There'd also be premiums for binary numbers, radar numbers, ... I guess there will always be people who collect things for one reason or another. Me, I buy the coin and not the holder and agree, there will probably be a point in time where the label won't bring much premium; especially with the proliferation of new labels.

 

it doesn’t matter what you think of what any of us think, it matters what the market thinks. They’ve carried premiums for over a decade now and the ship has sailed on them.

The op was asking about them and that’s the facts of them the market has shown, no need to try and muddy the waters for the op against what the market shows just because someone doesn’t like them.

 

The “first strike” label is misleading. The mints strike a large number of coins before they release them to the public. No one knows which coins were the first pieces off the dies. Given the nature of modern coin dies, especially for Proofs and other special strikes, like for the ASEs, it does not make much difference when the coin was struck.

A more accurate term would be “first delivered,” but that does not sound sexy.

 

But for how long? I have no problem with people spending their money on whatever trips their trigger. But the numbers of new labels seem to have been growing exponentially over the recent years. Will label collecting end up like the baseball card craze? Probably the oldest, more unique labels will always carry some value but the larger volumes of modern labels won't.

 

The overwhelming majority including the buyers know exactly what it is. It literally says what it is on the label. That argument has been used for a decade.

No real reason to think it's going to change. It's actually been expanding for several years not contracting.

They have and not all of them are that popular. The Autopen signatures that NGC used for the baseball coins fell pretty flat as an example. Autopen ones in general aren't very popular actually.

As a whole they're more aesthetically pleasing though which is what ultimately draws a lot of people to them. The baseball players signing the baseball labels was also really cool for baseball fans as an example of a highly successful big premium one.

Premiums really do vary label to label and product to product though. Some it can be as little as $5 if that, but if nothing else they have a bit of added liquidity from the better presentation value.