Prices now, prices then

One way to track inflation is the "Consumer Price Index." It goes up as the price of a basket of selected goods goes up. I made a spreadsheet so you can see the multiple between any past year back to 1970 and now (actually, Jan. 2022). It is here:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/numis/ConsumerPriceIndex.pdf
For example, you can use it to determine that in Jan. 2022 prices were generally twice as much in US dollars as they were in 1992-3 (The number for 1992 is 2.04 and for 1993 is 1.97).
You can use it to see how particular coins sold in the past have done compared with inflation. For example, on that page the number for 1980 is 3.61. If a coin sold for $200 in 1980 and it went up with the CPI, it would sell for 3.61x$200 = $722 now.

Take a look at some coins you bought years ago and compare to what they would be worth now if their costs tracked inflation. Let us know what you find out about the costs of coins.

I'll start. Here is a coin I bought at an ancient-coin dealer's shop in LA in 1982 for $25. I don't think it is a special case or outlier in any way:



Galerius. 24-23 mm. 5.70 grams.
RIC Antioch 112 "early to later 309"

The CPI multiple on this page:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/numis/ConsumerPriceIndex.pdf
is 2.98. That means it would cost about $25=2.98 = $74.50 if it tracked inflation and was bought in similar circumstances. I love the rust color, but I think I could find a comparable coin for less than $75 now. I think this coin, and most others, were relatively more expensive in the 1980s.

Please consider adding to this thread with a coin (or, several) and its inflation-adjusted price.

 

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I started collecting ancients in 2011, so basically yesterday compared to how long others on here have been collecting for. That said, one of my first coins was this Vespasian denarii that I got at a local coin show for $50 that year. It would cost me $63.91 now in 2022.



I don’t really collect denarii or Flavians all that much (or early Roman Imperial for that matter), so I don’t have a very accurate idea of the typical prices of a Vespasian denarius similar to mine. Perhaps $50-75?

 

I believe it depends so much on the other factors (fads, discoveries, major collection purchases and distributions) that we can't expect a worthwhile number on any coin. You might get an average of some sort but I would expect a good size deviation from that center. Should we compare prices of coins in 1992 and today from dealers who did business both times or should we compare coins from 1992 beginners to 2022 beginners and major houses then and now? Like any statistical study, results can be skewed greatly by errors in approach.

Just one from about a hundred I still have from 'the day':
I paid Joel Malter $100 for this in 1992. That was toward the end of his time as a big factor in the coin trade. Would it bring $200 today? Would that say as much about the coin as about how 'smart' or ''foolish' I was? If we did that with every coin any of us has from that period ('92-'93), what would it show? I won't be finding out. It is my bedtime.

 

I remember buying my first ancient Roman coins when I was a 14 year old kid in 1967. I was in a local coin shop and the owner showed me a box of loose, unlabeled Roman coins. All he could tell me was that they were "probably Roman" and they were 0.25 cents for the small ones and 0.50 cents for the large ones. I eventually bought all he had. The "small ones" were mostly antoniniani of Aurelian, Probus, Claudius II, Gallienus, Numerian. The "larger " ones were mostly 3rd century sestertii , and a beautiful , VF+ as of Tiberius with SC reverse, some Vespasians and Augustus with eagle reverse. Also, some turned out to be Large folles of Justinian. I still have every one, but no pictures . In all the years since then, I never had another find like that.

 

There's a 1974 box of Aunt Jemima in the basement cabinet . I'll go see if it has a price. (The house was once my grandparents').

I remember 1990's prices better than some of my more recent buys.

 

A lb. box of Aunt Jemima pancakes was 24 cents !

Hmm, I also found a calendar from 1968. It's funny what finds in old and neglected cabinets.

 

that's neat!

 

I think tying the value of coins (ancient & modern) to the CPI is an exercise in futility for the reasons dougsmit posted. Not only for those reasons, but there has been an important split in these markets, certified versus uncertified (slabbed /raw). Slabbed ancient coins are selling for 2,3,or 4 times as much as the exact same quality as raw coins. Will this trend continue , for the short time I believe it will. So what could shake-up the slabbed ancient coin market , the same thing that shook-up the American coin market, census reporting . When collectors see the amount of coins certified for a specific grade, & realize that MS, strike 5/5, surface 5/5 coins are more common than previously believed, prices for those coins will drop . Some coins, ancient & modern, will always defy the current trends; the $20 gold coin pictured below is an example. This is a very common coin that has been accurately graded MS65 by PCGS. I bought the coin in August 2018 at a Heritage auction for $2,400, & today it is listed for $6,000 in the PCGS Price Trends. The $6,000 price is too high, but the coin would easily sell at auction for $5,000 today. Has inflation doubled over those four short years ? Hardly . The same coin graded MS63 would have sold for $100 over melt in 2018, & could be purchased for about $100 over melt today.



I bought the Roman denarius pictured below for $15 in the 1980s. I spent about $50 to get the coin slabbed a long time ago. What could this coin fetch at auction today , I'm guessing $200/400. In a raw state I think it might sell of $150/200.



I don't know if this comparison proves anything, however, over the short run I'm much happier with the performance of the $20 gold coin .

 

Very interesting @Valentinian...and in this case, perhaps a bit depressing. Below is a drachm of Alexander the Great (actually, post-Alexander), which cost $75 in 1987. It is one of my first ancients; I was in school and that was a fortune, but I was so happy with it in hand...I couldn't believe I owned something this old and this beautiful - a typical ancient coin collector's early experience (I still feel this way now, but you never forget your first big purchase).

I'm horrible at math, but if I am doing this right, $75.00 x 2.53 = $189.75.

The style and strike are pretty good, with a full reverse legend, the metal is nicely toned, and there is a bonus half o' Pegasus in the field. However, my guess is $189.75 is high-side retail for something like this at best. Here is one just like mine on Vcoins for $195.00 - but the obverse is grossly off-center:

https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/va...ampsakos_mint_price__1393/601925/Default.aspx

More realistic is this mid-grade, nicely-centered example that sold at auction for € 81 in 2020 (about $87 today).

https://www.catawiki.com/en/l/41764...-alexander-iii-kolophon-mint-circa-310-301-bc

A whole bunch of metal detector finds, eBay, etc. has made these quite common. If I listed this on eBay I might get a hundred bucks for it on a good day (or $87.00). Which is to say it has not been a very good investment.


Macedonia Kingdom Drachm
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
(c. 320-306 B.C.)
Lampsakos Mint
Head of Herakles in lion skin / AΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, Zeus std. left on throne, eagle & sceptre. Controls: obv. forepart Pegasos left; rev. AI below throne.
Price 1385; S-6731.
(4.22 grams / 17 mm)
Argos Num. Aug. 1987 $75.00

Back in '87 I was limited to professional dealer's mail order catalogues and brick-and-mortar stores, and it was hard to find cheap stuff, at least in my experience. That is why I went dormant on ancients for a long time, until I found I could get some real deals on eBay if I didn't mind wading through a bunch of junk.

For instance, this one is not quite as nice as the one above, but I paid $33.88 for it in 2019 (eBay). $33.88 x 1.12 = $37.95. I think I could get that back easily - probably more like $50.00.


Macedonia Kingdom Drachm
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
(c. 320-301 B.C.)
Kolophon Mint
Head of Herakles in lion skin / AΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟ[Υ], Zeus seated left on throne, eagle & sceptre; Φ in left field, Π beneath throne.
Price 1817; Müller 811; SNG Copenhagen 920.
(4.15 grams / 16 mm)
eBay Oct. 2019 $33.88

I'm not into ancients because of the investment - the low-grade stuff I get does not qualify as "investment grade" but I'd like to think I could at least break even somewhere down the line (or my heirs). If not, well, it's been fun and I've spent money on stupider stuff!

 

As a financial engineer, there is a tendency for me to smile about the CPI and how it affects the purchasing power. While I do not have a concrete coin example to show, I do have something interesting that is somewhat related. During the American Revolutionary War, the state of Massachusetts was suffering from high inflation. This affected the war effort as the payment to soldiers were getting deprecated extremely fast. By 1779-1780, the morale in the army was extremely low. The British captured Georgia and Charleston in South Carolina. Furthermore, the British Navy enacted a blockade in Northeastern United States. In fact, there were several mutinies in 1780 and 1781. To combat this, Massachusetts invented the world's first inflation-linked bond to help compensate solider's for their pay's loss of value. A synthetic index was created using the most common goods and the interest and principal was pegged against it. In finance, some of the most ingenious inventions were done by anonymous individuals, and this is an example of it. Behold, a soldier's compensation bond that is in my collection. This was issued to Josiah Willington who was involved in several of the infamous campaigns during the war...

The index is based on:

Five bushels of corn, sixty-eight pounds and four-seventh parts of beef, ten pounds of sheep wool, and sixteen pounds of sole leather

 

Just for fun look what common denarii were selling for in the early 80’s in Superior or NFA sales. There are some people still waiting to break even.

barry Murphy

 

How about $1500-2000 for a Vetranio in 1981 that you could get today for $3-400.

 

Can you sell it at a loss and take a tax write off? When I sell higher than I paid the tax man cometh. Maybe an accountant member will have some input.
Note for future reference: Posting this on April 15

 

This coin sold in Berlin Auction in 1936 for 25 Reichmark = $5US

I won the coin in 2018 from Sincona auction for 4100 SFRCS
In 2021 a identical coin/ same grade sold for 6200 US
Papal States
AV Fiorino di camera ND
Roma Mint
Pope Alessandro VI (Rodrigo Borgia) 1492-1503
If you equate 1 Swiss fr= 1US $
Coin went up more then thousand times since 1936.

 

@Valentinian 's and @Barry Murphy 's examples show how important the fall of the iron curtain was for coin collecting, as many of these coins are Balkan and/or Pannonian/Danubian-based. Vetranio is a good example for what was in the 1980s rare and you can get now on ebay or even biddr/sixbid/numisbids/etc for 50EUR and also is Procopius, even the not-in-RIC REIPVB type. The same with the Cherson-based "maiorinae" from the 5th century.

 

Just keep in mind the following perspective:

$5 in 1935 would be worth a little over $1000 today, when adjusted for inflation, so the apples-to-apples comparison would be that this coin costs about 6X today what it cost in 1935.

BUT, $5 invested in the S&P index at the beginning of 1935 would be worth almost $50,000 today (assuming dividend reinvestment). So you could buy this coin today and still have $44,000 to spend on other coins.

 

This is a double eagle, 1852 O, that I bought back in March 1991 for $600, at a local coin shop, as a VF-EF, which I think is a pretty accurate grade, given the level of wear. and surface marks I was mainly attracted to the coin's lovely greenish tint. That cost, $600 was a lot of money, at least for me, at the time. I've never had it slabbed, instead keeping it in a poly liner within a paper 2 X 2.

What this coin would bring slabbed and hyped up in today's market? Who knows? I've been out of the US market for decades now.



Given the marked dichotomy in prices between slabbed versus raw coins, of any type or period, in today's market, I agree that making comparisons with prices two or more decades age is problematic. To do a relatively consistent analysis, then the comparison should be limited to raw coin prices now and raw coin prices in the past, an apples to apples approach, I think.

 

This ex. graded PGGS AU-58 sold for $23,500.00 in 2018.
Yours looks way better

 

Thanks for the update! The PGGS coin seems better struck, but with more surface marks. Slabbed coins do tend to bring a substantial premium, to be sure.

 

I would be careful when cherrypicking prices. This AU58 sold last year for $12K:



While I hate grading, robinjojo's coin is closer to a 45 slabbed, which would put it more in the $5-6K range:



Regardless, I'd grade it "very attractive" and "worth owning". The price and grade only matter if you're going to sell or want to inform your heirs (at which point, conservative expectations are better due to transaction costs, etc.)