Hopefully this thread can stay, but with the recent world events going on in Russia, do you think ancients coins are about to go up yet again as they have been these past few years? I would assume it's going to make new ones found & eventually coming onto the market much harder for the time being.
I'm not sure; are there that many from Ukraine and Russia? The question I had; are there any ancient coin dealers in Russia? There were distinguished Byzantine collectors in the past, so one would think yes.
I look at it this way, prices are going to go up across the board. With everyday necessities costing more, it is going to be crunch time for a lot of people. "Want" items are going to be harder to afford and will only fluctuate with the price of precious metals, IMO.
Quite a few coin-issuing ancient cities were located around the Black Sea and there have been plenty of finds of Roman coins in Ukraine, both original Roman issues and local imitative. ATB, Aidan.
And there's a huge difference between the high end ancients market and the regular ancients. Common coins, unpopular coins and VG or Fine coins haven't gone up nearly as much. Granted, I went coin-dormant the past few years, so I didn't closely watch the market, but prices for average Antoninus Pius ALexandrian Drachmae aren't outrageous. They're probably more expensive than they used to be, but high-grade Antioch Tetradrachmae of Philip are proportionally fairly reasonable. Question to ponder; did coin prices skyrocket during WW2? I don't know the answer...
I think ancient coin prices will hold and even go up. Of far more concern are the global financial markets which I think will lose 50% of their value when it is said and done. You may want to find safety in cash, even though inflation is going to be here for awhile. If you are in a position to buy securities I would be a buyer though rather than a seller, assuming your time horizon is at least 5-7 years in the future.
Fundamentally, the factors driving up coin prices are large inflows of cash, a growing collector/investor base, especially in Asia, and the fact that really nice coins have never been "cheap". No, war does no favors for coin prices or anything else for that matter, except for the arms manufacturers. If anything I would imagine it would depress demand, as people in the affected area are far too busy just trying to survive. As for the rest of the world, collectors and the factors I mentioned will still determine coin prices, until, in a worse case scenario, they too bare the brunt of conflict.
The price of ancients going up because of the recent events is irrelevant. How it effects gas, food and medicine prices is relevant.
@tibor Makes sense to me. The best metal buys right now are in gun shops! OP, think hard before you buy, good luck.
I think the past empirical evidence would indicate that war typically causes the prices of ancient coins from that area to drop because coins start flooding out of the region: That's what happened in the recent past in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and the Balkans. Stepping back a couple generations, WWII had many competing effects on the coin market, but caused many massive great collections to be liquidated. Many coins were being sold at desperation prices across the continent and in the UK. As only one early example in the run-up to war, much of the Russian state collection from the Hermitage was sold for funds to fight the Nazis. It was ironically liquidated through Schlessinger, whose coins, library, business, family and life were all then taken by the Nazis. There are also the breakdowns of government controls that keep illegal coins from being smuggled out and, in some cases, museums being looted. Another big effect is that many people will turn to metal detecting for coins/ antiquities as a source of income in economically difficult times. That was a major factor in the former Yugoslavian republics in the1990s.
Very interesting, Curtis. Given the way very modern conflicts go, I don't think this particular conflict is going to last long. While it's a human tragedy, it's not exactly Operation Bagration.
Mat, I don't see anything that is going to slow down the the escalating prices for slabbed ancient coins. Pictured below are 3 slabbed ancients that sold at a Heritage auction over the weekend. Some imbecile paid $480.00 for this coin that's probably worth $20.00. This coin sold for $1,860.00 ! I bought this superior problem-free example at a CNG auction for $960.00 last year. This coin sold for $1,560.00 ! I bought this example 3 years ago for $660.00 .
I don’t expect the war to affect ancient coin prices much. Yes, on the high end, there are many buyers from Russia. However, they’ve certainly moved their money by now to places not affected by sanctions. Only a small percentage of our coins come from Ukraine and even those will halt for just a few weeks. A lot of people will likely lose their lives over this senseless action, but we shouldn’t need to worry about paying a few dollars extra for that nice coin.
In the short term, I agree with @nerosmyfavorite68. Though tragic, I don't think this conflict will last long or impact prices much. If this does extend, I am not sure how long term conflicts affect collectible prices. However, in the long run as the world settles with a new status quo, generally gets richer (the collector base), more collectors (increasing population), the nicer coins will keep getting expensive. I am not in it as an investment, but this is my guess.
The Claudius II is amazing but not surprising. Lately I've noticed that coins of Constantine and sons in good condition are going for $150-200, which is a huge run up for formerly cheap and common coins.
