This year Im looking at gold pieces. I just bought my first gold piece. I bought the 1894 $10 gold piece. On ebay: its in a PCGS slab with an MS61 grade. Primarily, I was looking for a slabbed piece. Anyways, before I bought it, I looked at the PCGS price guide, so the price I paid was reasonable. I didnt overpay for the coin. But when I bought the coin, I didnt pay attention to the mintage quantity. I see a lot of gold pieces had low mintage quantitties, from 30,000 to 300,000. My 1894 $10 piece is over 2,000,000 mintage quantity., yet what I dont undertsand, is a lot of the gold pieces with low mintage quantities are relatively cheap in price from the very fine grade up to the MS 62 grade., The $2,50 gold pieces have a lot of low mintage quantities, but a lot of them start at $300 in the low grades. Is my 1894 a bad investment? are the low mintage coins Under-priced? is the coin market going to see some big increases? and lets talk gold quantity? The $10 gold piece is a half-ounce coin. at 90% gold content, its fractionally under a half-ounce of gold. So gold content on my 1894 is $275. I paid $385PCGS lists my coin at $435 and going down. Coinworld magazine January 2007 edition lists the coin at $500. Where is the hobby at right now? Are the more common gold pieces going to hold their numismatic value? or are the coin dealers heavily looking at the gold spot-price in buying and selling these coins? [misc rambling: ....I posted on this site in 2005. In 2005 I was experimenting with Morgans. In 2006 I stayed away from coins. I love ebay, but Im not buying any more coins on ebay that are not in PCGS or NGC slabs. I was buying 1880-o morgans. Thats a great semi-rare date to collect. I lost a little money on some of my coins, but the 1880-o I was getting some serious pocket money on that date when I dumped my morgans at the local shows in mid 2005.]
IMHO, gold pieces (except the really high grades, really low mintages, etc.) follow gold market value. You can buy older $20 gold coins for about the same price as current moderns (they'll be above spot, but you'd think it would cost much more for a 100+ year old coin). I bought a couple of $20 gold coins at the end of 2005 (a 1900 and a 1904) for $575 each (slabbed MS63's). At the time, spot was ~$525. Now gold spot is ~$625, and I could sell them for more. On May 12, 2006, gold spot was at a high of $725. If I had sold them then, I could have probably gotten $775+ for each. In other words, I think they are neat (being 100+ year old coins), but I don't see them bringing much higher than spot any time in the future. I see them more as gold investments, and less as coin investments. Example: This is a 122 year old coin: http://cgi.ebay.com/20-00-liberty-e...9QQihZ011QQcategoryZ39472QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem and it sold for $20 over spot. Might not be MS61, but you get the idea. Higher grades will command more, and PCGS slabbed coins will command more, but MS61 isn't a terribily high grade, and this raw coin gives you an idea of the "worth" of old gold (verses new gold).
The reason, I believe, is that there are not a whole lot of date collectors in gold coins. In the event that this ever changes, you will see an explosion in pricing for many dates. Good luck.
I looked up the population report for that 1894 and that date has the highest numbers of coins graded MS61 than any other gold in that series [4,755]. There are also over 6,000 coins graded higher than 61 in that date as well. So based on that I would say that coin will be the last to see major price appreciation compared to the others in the set beyond bullion. Still it is a beautiful coin, but if you are looking at this as an investment then I would have to say that is not the coin to be holding.
... and to be honest, I'm not even sure it's a great "gold investment" since that coin I posted the link to sold for less than a run of the mill 1oz. modern bullion gold coin (currently priced ~$653). One would think there'd be at least a little bit of "numismatic value" in a 122+ year old coin, but... there isn't. If gold tanks, so will the value of the coin you bought (on the flip side, if it skyrockets, so will the value of that coin). You might do better just buying modern bullion, especially if it has a -W mintmark. People seem to be willing to pay much more than spot for that. Whoooo weeee. :rolling:
About three years ago I noticed the same thing. Lower mintage $10 Liberties seemed like a bargain because there was little or no premium to higher mintage coins. I talked to a local dealer about it and he basically talked me out of the idea so I didn't pursue it. I still think that when you can get a $10 liberty for close to the same price as a 1/2 ounce modern gold coin, the liberty should be preferred.
4700 is a lot of ms61 coins in that date, but still its alll relative. over 2 million minted in 1894. if a lower minted date has a mintage of 200,000, probably a best guess would be around 500 MS61s. and over 6000 1894 graded higher than MS61: its a lot, but that still only 10,000+ slabbed coins. wheres the other two million plus that were minted that year? still some degree of mystery. theres still SOME degree of rarity If gold drops back to $300, oh well, thats the hit all coin collectors take. if gold went back to $300 an ounce, my 1894 $10 piece would then be worth about $200. right now, Its still a nice coin worth $400 to $500. Ii could get at least what I paid for it, $385. the stock market is a better investment than precious metals. Precious metal markets go way up during investor panic attacks. If a terrorist attack hits us again, that will drive gold and silver markets up.
Personally, I'd rather have all my gold holdings tank than this happen, but I know what you mean. There's a typo above though (unfortunately)... it should read, "When a terrorist attack hits us again..." -as IMHO it's inevitable.
One other point---the PCGS price guide and the CW Values aren't the best guides to use---they are over hyped price guides---use ended auctions--such as Heritage. Speedy
PCGS prices change daily. I would think they base their prices on reasonable basis: dont they get their prices from the auctions? ....rule of thumb: common-date coins: any school of thought that common dates should be stayed away from? Two people each have a $2000 "collection" for example: one guy has ten common date coins. no problem coins. they are low MS coins. the other guy has just one coin worth $2000. which is more preferable? I bought my common date gold coin, as I described. for the same money, I could have bought semi-rare date Morgan, like an MS63 1880-o, or a Low MS CC date morgan. I guess its all personal preference?
That's a good one. They say they do (what auction is the question), but there's a hint that the price guide is intended to work the other way around (set the inflated price, not simply report realized prices)... Quote: "The market's most influential price guide." Look at Heritage, Teletrade, Ebay realized prices (auctions that have ended).
I don't know---but I get in problems when I think Take my word for it---use Heritage auction for the price guide--its free to join Heritage and more than likely you can bid and win some nice coins from them for cheaper than dealers or such. Speedy
I think you've hit the nail on the head. I adopted this approach a couple of years ago when gold was around $450-$475 an ounce. Bullion coins/rounds just didn't do it for me, and common XF-AU DEs could be readily purchased for under $500. I found a very, very trustworthy dealer and bought some unslabbed coins, others I bought slabbed if the price was right. Those same coins today are going for $670-$710 eBay. True, their value is tied more to the price of gold than to numismatic considerations, but in my opinion they possess sort of a happy medium between the two most common methods of establishing the relative value of these types of coins.
No, they don't. From the PCGS Price Guide - " The prices listed in the PCGS Price Guide are the average dealer asking prices for properly graded United States coins. The prices are compiled from various sources including dealer ads in trade papers, dealer fixed price lists, significant auctions, and activity at major coin shows. Prices for the most actively traded coins are updated daily. Other issues are updated as needed. All prices are reviewed at least once a month. " Now then, who here has not seen greatly varying prices when looking at coins offered by dealers ? Dealer A may be asking $625, dealer B asking $525 and dealer C asking $700. Yet all of the coins are the same coin graded the same by the same company - why the difference ? Easy, because that's what they are asking - simple as that. But when PCGS quotes thier values, they say they use an average - horsepuckey. If you took the time to do the searching what you would find is that they use the single highest asking price, the single highest realized auction price and the single highest recored price at a coin show. They do this for one reason - it's the same reason all of the price guides do it - because it stimulates more business. If collectors think that coins are worth more, they will submit more of them for slabbing - that generates more fees for the TPGs. If collectors think that coins are worth more, they will buy more coin magazines and price guides. If collectors think that coins are worth more because dealer asking prices are high - they will visit the coin shops more often and buy more coins, at the higher prices. No, forget the price guides - any price guide ! Base your assumed values for any given coin on the average of realized auction prices for any given coin in any given grade - nothing else !
$385 is a decent price for a PCGS slabbed 1894 $10 gold price, right? The PCGS price guide for me is the most convenient price guide to use. Collectors want to see the prices go up. but when prices go down, collectors see cheaper prices and think they can buy more stuff for their collections. bottomline, in the long run, consumer inflation will increase prices on collectibles anyways. I also collect pocket watches. The main price guide is the book by author cooksey shugart. But where does he get his prices? The guy is an old man now on social security. The prices in his book are up, just when he and his co-author are selling off their collections. So I trust PCGS for coin prices more that I trust Cooksey Shugart for watch prices. MS61 is a safe grade anyways. The higher grades have more risk of price fluctuation. you could spend a lot of money on an MS64 or MS 63 that could come back lower on a re-grade. okay Ive exhausted myself on this topic. Do coin prices really need to be a weekly thing, like the stock market? Meaning, the bookstore has the usual guides that come out once a year. Are those good enough for the average collector and dealer?
Is it convenient for you to knowingly use a flawed guide?....is it convenient for you to lose money? Wrong---collectors don't care about prices---INVESTERS care--- No grade is safe---a MS61 can come back a MS60 or even a AU58..... Yes--for some coins---and no for others---the market can change overnight! Nope--those books are good for looking up mintages and such and not much else----any dealer or collectors that knows how the market works and is much into coins will not use such a guide for buying or selling becuase it is easy to get ripped. The guide might say that a coin is worth $1000---while at the time being the market is down and you can get the same coin for $200---if you use that guide and such you will be over paying by $800---also most of those guides are printed 1-2 years before the printed date--so a 2008 Red Book would be printed in late 2006. Speedy
I'm not going to check everywhere, but here's just a few recent Ebay auctions. Did you pay too much? http://cgi.ebay.com/US-GOLD-COIN-18...ryZ39471QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem http://cgi.ebay.com/1894-10-Gold-Li...ryZ39471QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem http://cgi.ebay.com/1894-P-10-Gold-...ryZ39471QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem The most convenient and most inaccurate. Suit yourself, no one is going to tell you you can't use it. But I will tell you that if you do, you'll pay too much... again. Sure you could use a book that comes out once a year to buy something that changes price every minute. That seems smart, eh? Here's what the price of gold has been for the last year. Do you think a once a year price will cut it? http://kitco.com/charts/popup/au0365nyb_.html Please read it again... Mr. Horse... meet Mr. Water (and I'm not even going to touch the phrase "properly graded" -as that's a whole 'nuther bag of Morgans).
The problem is almost no one collects that gold series because there are 179 coins to finish it and the cost is enormous. Yes most people will buy a few coins thinking they are bargains but without major demand those coins won't ever see high prices on the average grades on the most common coins. If you were looking to make some money you might consider buying the lower mintage modern coins, even those that bought the 3 coin silver set this year doubled or tripled their money.
Logic It does appear that low numerical production of a new coin that has not been passed around could and probably is a better hedge . Looking for great old coins is no longer fun but a job in and of itself of hard core collectors. The enlightment of the 2006W uncirculated gold set ,the silver set three coin reverse, and the gold reverse have all proved to be of interest to those who wish to see a profit at least on paper. I like to look at old coins and think of the hand work to produce them. To think who owned them etc. Ultimately it all comes around to picking" Phar Lap" or a fair horse.
Just remember that the PCGS guide is really a promotion for their service. They show high prices for THEIR slabbed coins, higher than a 'normal' raw or a piece slabbed by another service. Why not, it works!
