Why are most world coins relatively cheap?

I've been trying to figure this out. Any thoughts or comments appreciated!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Most of the world coins you see are cheap. There are some quite expensive coins out there, though. Think about it, if you only saw cents through dimes from 1920 to present, you'd think US coins are cheap too!

But they are cheaper than US, without a doubt. That's just because there is tremendously more demand for American coins.

 

Supply and demand? First, there are many coin collectors in the US, whether in absolute or relative figures. Second, most of them collect US coins only. That will of course drive prices up.

Another issue is the more differentiated grading in the US, which also contributes to (sometimes exponentially) higher prices for better grades. Maybe third party grading, which is basically a US specialty and not common elsewhere, contributes to the difference too.

In the previous millennium I would have added the fact that, because non-US coins are not much sought after by US collectors, American dealers may sell, say, a French coin cheaper than what a dealer in France would want. Well, now that people can compare prices and make cross-border purchases more easily, that has changed or is changing.

But again, I find it very difficult to simply lump all non-US coins into one "world" category and then say that world coins are cheap. Bought any "classical" Russian coins in the past couple of years?

Christian

 

they aren't worth anything to begin with, most when trade with the USD are penny's to their dollar. Like the $1.00 to the British Pound $1.27. Thats the exchange rate. My girlfriend loves collecting the World coins, she gets them pretty cheap. But she enjoys them.

 

I don't have an answer for this one but I have plenty of questions.

US collectors can convince themselves to pay several times the regular price for a very minor variation (spacing between A and M) or poor workmanship (double dies 1/100th as obvious as the 1955). Are World collectors as skilled at creating demand for things that would go unnoticed by the population at large?

US collectors include people trying not only to get one of each date/mint but a complete set of grades from Basal 00 to Proof 71 (Its only a matter of time until someone comes up with a coin with more detail than most dies had). Add to this the desire of some to have complete sets of toning variations and there is a market for melters and coins that a few years ago would have been dipped to make them presentable. How many grades are recognized by most World collectors? Do they want more than one or just the best one?

A recent question on one of the ancient boards brought out the opinion that many collectors seek coins that will make them the envy of their fellows (the rare, the beautiful, the interesting). US collectors seem very good at finding new avenues for collecting that will prevent anyone from having a completed collection. What does it take to make you envy a collection?

There can never be a complete set of Ancient or World coins (way too many exist as only one example) so the lack of pressure means demand for rarities will be reduced to the few people who actually want a type rather than those who 'need' it to fill a hole in their Whitman folder. US coins are best documented and catalogued with the most universally agreed upon price schedule for each coin. The Red Book is cheaper than 90% of the coins listed in it. An equally complete set of books covering all coin outside of the US (600 BC to date), it it existed, would fill the shelves in a good size room and 90% of the volumes would either lack all hints of prices or would not have been updated for many years. The cost of this set of books would exceed the lifetime hobby budget of 90% of all collectors.

US collectors consider 1793 really old. World collectors have a term for 1793: "modern".

Fifty years ago an elderly coin dealer told me that the driving force behind the coin market prices was the demand created by the Red Book and (Blue) Whitman folders. Much has changed in 50 years. Has this become untrue?

 

In real estate its location, location, location.

In numismatics its demand, demand, demand.

No waiting necessary - check out ebay's supply of tooled coins.

 

Over time things change. In the past people liked Brit coins, roman coins, greek coins. Whatever is in fashion for the moment. I guess its just a matter of who has the gelt. Japanese yen say Pre 1925 have really started to boom in price. Just my opion.Traci

 

There are very few people and little interest in collecting Varieties in The World coin community or the medals Community. Most likely because of the size of the collector base. Most foreign coins are collected by US collectors. If and when the individual countries pick up on collecting to a larger degree is certainly an unknown.

 

That surely explains why US collectors are by and large not interested in foreign (from their POV) coins.

Christian

 

No it isnt , http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=/SARUSD&FormatAs=Index

Its $1.65 per British 1.00 pound. Which kind of flys in the face of the idea they arent worth anything to begin with.Thats quite a statement , 100% wrong though.

 

I'm glad there's not much interest in World coins. It makes it easy for me to get high grade 16th to 20th century European coins at a very good price.

 

Don't know how this is in the case of Netherlands ducats, but in quite a few other cases I have heard or read, "if only there was an English version of this or that book." Well, if one collects French coins, being able to understand French catalogs sure helps, if somebody is into German notgeld, understanding German is extremely helpful - because in many cases the literature about some country's coinage is there. Written in the language that suits the collectors in that country though.

What sure makes a difference is what could be called continuity. Coins from a country named United States of America have been around for about 200 years. Over here we had, in roughly the same time span, Jülich-Kleve-Berg, the Grand Duchy of Berg, Prussia, the German Reich, and the Federal Republic of Germany. Coins from before 1949 (when the Fed. Rep. was founded) I don't collect excessively. Others may even decide, "my collection starts with the first euro coins." Easier to have a complete collection than if you've had the same country and the same currency for a very long time ... and I suppose that also contributes to keeping coins affordable over here.

Christian

 

This is a topic I've considered in my head from time to time.

The basis of what I have come up with is: It's not that World coins are cheap, it's that people pay too much for American coins!

Mind you, I'm not complaining. I love both, but I can get a whole lot more for my money buying world coins then American coins.

I find it patently rediculous to pay so much money for a coin that looks exactly like the next coin, but because somebody somewhere says it's better, people pay through their nose for it. I am not one of those people, and I don't play the grading game. Numerical grades mean nothing to me. Less then nothing. I only care about the coin(s) themselves, and weather or not they would look good in my collection.

Some info: The most I've ever spent on a single coin is $25. This was for a USA 1856 Flying Eagle cent. Yes, it's old, 152 years old at the time I purchased it. However, I've been able to purchase Roman coins, almost 2000 years old, for $10. I just bought my first ancient Greek coin for $3! While I am not going to complain about that, it doesn't seem to make much sence, either.

Since I have a VERY limited income, I will always be a low-end collector. Buying world coins, I can do alot more there. I once bought a pound of assorted world coins. It also cost me $25. I got over 100 new coins for my collection that day, ranging in dates from 1893 to 2005, with the bulk of them ranging from the 1960s to the 1980s. Yes, most of them are circulated, some of them are pretty nasty looking. I don't care, I love them! I also added more then 20 new countries to my collection that day.

I collect everything- there's not been a coin or coin series I've come across yet that I don't like and wouldn't want to add to my collection. This in turn gives me almost unlimited leeway in what I buy. But the majority of my purchases will in the future be undoubtedly world coins. I am going to persue American coins as well. But I am going to quickly run into a wall where singe coins are out of my price range. For instance, I will never own gold coins. I just can't afford it. Not American gold, at least. Trade dollars, half cents, any Pre-Lincoln cents that still show any degree of redness, they are all out of my price range. Yet with world coins, many things come into my price range. Silver coins as large as the Morgan or Peace dollar are actually in my price range, on the world stage, in fact, I've already bought my first, an issue from the Austrian Netherlands from 1797. ANYTHING from the USA at that time is so far out of my price range, it's not even remotely humerous.

Basing the prices of the coins on age alone, they should be comparible...but they are not. It goes back to my original theory, in that we, as Americans, tend to pay too much money for American coins.

That said, it will not stop me from doing that very thing, in the very near future. :goof:

Come January, all my other priorities are going to be caught up, and I will have enough money to spend on all my hobbies again; I've been on "just barely get by with hobbies" mode for quite some time...too long! (due to various unforseen circumstances) and that will finally be solved, come January. I am then going to devote at least $25 a month to buying new coins for my collection. On some months, I will get one "big" coin, on other months, I will get assortments of world coins, and get lots of coins for my collection. (For me, a "big" coin IS $25!) Maybe I will get enough that I will actually work on year sets of coins. I've already got multiple yearly examples of several types, some long, some short. I am 24 years old...this pattern starting in January SHOULD be permanent, providing nothing unexpected comes up, and even if it does, I will be saving money each month too, so it should not totally deplete my hobby money. I am truly excited about what the future holds, and even though 2010 will be my third year as a coin collector, it's when the collecting will really begin

 

Interesting to read there are so many and varied opinions on this suibject.

To me, the answer to the question of why are World coins so '"cheap" in comparison to world coins is really not that complex:

US Coins:
- A relatively limited number of issues, spanning a maximum of 300 +/- years of history being chased by a large number of collectors with a relatively large level of disposable income. In addition to this, all of the Hype, Marketing and education (red book, whitman albums, 7070's) contribute to prop up demand even further. In fact, the U.S is the only place I've heard of where the hobby of coin collecting is referred to as the "COIN INDUSTRY" . This tells you a lot.

World Coins:
- An INCREDIBLY large number of issues, from many countries and regions, many varieties, even civilizations spanning many hundreds of years (even centuries) being collected by a relatively small audience.


I cannot come up with a single area of World Coins, be they Ancients (Greek, Roman, other), Mediaeval, or Modern (post 1500) coinage where people would pay the the kind of money paid in the U.S for a given coin with a given rarity: This is because you just do not have that many collectors of world coins pursuing a particular coin. There are probably some exceptions to this for particularly well known and publicized coins in the Ancients and World coinage area, but they are few.

In other words, SUPPLY AND DEMAND rules, as has been said more than once in this thread.

 

No words are more true. I guess market prospects for 2009 Lincoln cents are pretty good since they made enough that every collector can have a bag set and none seem to be circulating. Relatively few collectors include on their want lists "Things I never knew existed" but that is one of my first entries.


I believe we underestimate the power of those old blue folders. Collectors of most coins approach the hobby like US collectors by type do. The folders served as constant reminder that we needed to save up for that s-VDB rather than spending the same money on a Liberty Cap large cent. Today, few people would actually press their S-VDB into a cardboard folder but many still feel the gap in their box of slabs. I remember feeling good about my folder for older small cents that had a cardboard plug in the 1856 hole so I did not have to feel bad about not having one. Long after we stop actually having coin folders we retain the ideas they fostered about what constitutes a proper collection.

The Ducat set is interesting and I agree GDJMSP is one of a kind in that attempt. I'd go further and say I never knew any ancient Roman collector who was trying to get a set one denarius per year or a mint/year set of Sassanian silver of Khusro II. Certainly there were many of us trying to get everything we could but I never checked 194 AD off my list even after I bought my 100th coin of that date. Many beginning collectors of ancients start by wanting one coin of each emperor or one coin of each Greek city state but I attribute that to a carry over attitude from when these people collected US in blue folders and most get over it in due time.

 

It depends on the meaning of the term "world coins". I supoose we could narrow the definition to include only older issues. But if we include all world coins, including modern issues, there are mountains of world coins of all nations. The sum total of supply from all nations is enormous. Very little interest means low price / face value. When I was in Russia, we picked up Russian coins off the street. Still got 'em.

Even if one goes back to the beginning of time, one finds plenty of coins. The closer to modern one gets, the more plentiful things are - US and world alike.

Yes, I suppose there are several European issues from the Middle Ages which are relatively scarce. But if there is very little interest, the price remains low. The same is true of coins made worldwide by Europeans during their 400 year period of worldwide imperial invasion. Some are scarce, but plentiful relative to demand.

 

Most nations remain underdeveloped. One would not expect much coin collecting activity in Eritrea, and yet there is a supply. No demand, plenty of supply = face value.

The United States is the most highly developed, advanced market in the world. There are large numbers of people with disposable income for luxuries like collectable coins. It makes sense domestic coins are valuable - high demand / supply ratio.

 

There really isn't much of a demand for world coins, unless it is gold or silver.

Check wensy. Lots of foreign coins there.

 

Bill colonial New York City Dutch "VOC" cent in nice shape can still be had for a song.... Less than $2. I hope world coins stay cheap, because I love them and thier history. Traci :whistle: