This was in the recent postings about the ANA Convention and note that the collection, upgraded will be on view there. While a tremendous collection, it represents to me part of an issue with modern "collecting" of coins. I suppose it is only a normal evolution that as money becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands that this new era of "check collecting" (or Bankwire collecting) comes into vogue and that those with endless funds just put out buy orders for coins at any price. So in short order, we have an era of super buyers (and biased that I am, not collectors in the traditional sense). Huge collections of large value coins can be put together in months or even a few short years. Nothing to be done as it is what it is. So it could be written off as me being envious although I do not think so, and I believe it to be harmful to numismatics and collecting as a whole. If the top echelon coins are removed from attainability, mid rung collectors have little to aspire to. It is with some satisfaction that "Super Collections" such as this are blocked from filling out complete sets of the very best on occasion; sort of like rooting for the underdog. Not long ago, I was happy to see an acquaintance of mine get hold of some extremely rare and well preserved coins that blocked them of necessity from this huge conglomerate completing the "Best of" collections. Oh well, just expressing some thoughts....
Regardless of the buying patterns at the top, this has always been and will always be the case. If mid-rung collectors are able to obtain top echelon collectables, then that means that there is not much of a market for that particular collectable (thankfully, this tends not to be the case with coins). I can see making an argument about whether brute-force purchasing of "collections" by throwing infinite funds at the market over the course of a few months would not qualify as some definition of a "Collector"......but that is just a matter of degrees and opinion. The activities of these types of buyers have very little direct impact on 99.9% of the rest of us. There are, however, some benefits to their behavior. For instance, the community as a whole actually get the opportunity to view the "Best of the Best" items of their dreams via public exhibitions as described above. If these coins were distributed throughout a large number of lesser collections, then this would not be possible.
I have been a collector since 1960, and have paid more than face value for coins since 1961 or so. I have some very nice coins, but only a couple are the "finest known," and they are die variety items not rare date or date and mint combinations. These super high flyer guys are simply beyond my league. I have a few coins that many people would call "high priced," but they are nowhere near 7 figures in value. I've been collecting "expensive stuff" (in some people's opinion) for over 45 years so it didn't happen overnight.
Yes, you sound to be a real collector and count myself to be one to. I will admit to also having the luck or maybe the connections to get a couple of coins that stopped major "checkbook collectors" in their tracks, and taking some satisfaction because as you have I have collected since being a kid in the '60s...
I agree with much that has been posted. Coin prices have skyrocketed in recent years, across areas of collecting: ancients, world and US, although I've been out of the loop in that last area since the early 80s, but I assume this trend applies with US coins as well, if not more so. Premium coins and even coins in very nice condition are the focus, it appears, especially if they are encased in a slab. There's a lot of money pursing coins as one haven to park some funds by the very wealthy. I've never focused in my years of collecting on "the finest known". No, my interest has always rested on coins that interest me historically and artistically. The vast number of coins that I have are mid-grade, and I wouldn't have it any other way. A coin is bought, I think, to enjoy and study, and as means to appreciate history and civilization, both the bad and beautiful sides. If the coin doesn't "click" at some level, I won't buy it. There are still nice coins out there. There are lots and lots of e-auctions at any given time and venues such as VCoins and MA Shops have a good number of new coins every day just about. I think many are under the radar of the big spenders, and they offer a means to continue collecting nice and interesting coins in this period of mega hammer prices for coins that often do not merit such lofty prices.
I agree with your sentiments in general, but I'm not sure I agree with this one. It seems to me that there are worlds of aspirations beyond "get the very best". One example is studying and discovering new information about a particular issue, or mint, or era. Until the very rich start hiring armies of researchers and/or commissioning AIs, they'll have only the same twenty-four hours per day each of us get, and the same (roughly) human-sized intellect for collecting and correlating information.
Not sure if this is what you were implying. But, while it probably does have some small trickle-down affect, I do not think that the overall price jumps in recent years can be attributed to the hyper-wealthy buying up the top coins. I think that the spikes were triggered in 2020 by a combination of people being cooped-up in their homes with nothing to do (lot of people finding new hobbies or picking up old hobbies) and the fact that most of these people had some extra cash burning holes in their pockets from Covid relief checks. From there, the high rates of inflation have kept the prices steady at the new levels.
A few years ago I went to a coin fair with the sole intention of buying an English civil war Carlisle siege shilling, it was being sold by a particular dealer. I found him at the fair and asked him about the coin that was for sale and he looked me up and down and said “it’s well out of your price bracket” I was dressed in a football shirt and jeans and I have a quite strong Liverpool accent, he tried to poke fun at me for daring to want to buy the coin. I looked at him and pulled the wad of notes totalling £3500 from my pocket and said “this could have been yours but it’s obvious that you think I am not worthy of your coins” and in the vernacular I told him exactly where to stick his coin as I would find one elsewhere and would advise all my friends not to deal with him in future.
Well, probably my ego but I feel like I do have some knowledge and some collection of later milled Brit silver and copper pre-decimal issues. I have been collecting since the early 90s and so have some coins that would nowadays be completely unattainable thanks to "checkbook collectors". Because I don't like this hoggy-boy or girl tactics, then I take some satisfaction on getting the best of them, and if for whatever reason they fail or fall short in hogging off all the principal coins in a series I do not feel at all sorry. because IMHO they are very aggressive and do not have a sense of fairness at all - this used to be present amongst collectors. Then comes the braggadocio and this I can't stand either. Many of us choose stay relatively quiet and NOT beating chest
I learned quite early that you could not judge a book by its cover when you are a dealer. That goes for collectors judging dealers as well. I remember a show I attended in Lakeland, Florida. I had an early U.S. silver dollar that sold for about $2,500 at the time. This guy, dressed in jeans and a farm shirt asked me "how much?" I quoted him a price. He reached in his pocket and started counting out $100 bills. I had another customer, who was not well spoken and had rough hands from hard work. As it turned out, he was a building contractor. He spent $10s of thousands with me. As for dealers, some of the guys in coats and ties are the people who have watch out for. I also used to be wary of dealers with the word "investment" in their name. Sometimes their "investments" were traps.
What do you mean by aggression and fairness in this context? Unfair because they outbid everyone else? Whoever offers the most money gets the coin, can't really get more fair than that.
How true! I grew up in a part of California where for many years there were people cruising around that had fabulous money - and you would NEVER know it. They were down to Earth, regular people... One used to babysit for me when I was a toddler and had no compunction at changing my diapers while sitting on top of many millions even 60 years ago.
Because traditionally we did not try to hog up everything and shared what came up for sale - there was a sense of sportsmanship if you will, and yes even fairness. You probably don't remember this as likely before you time. So in the modern age, camaraderie does not seem to exist - its screw it go up for the gusto. So no Cherd you have it wrong and I would not expect you to understand.
