Wow, was I ever impressed when the bidding for this hit USD 3150 the other night and this for a silver proof of the maligned Franklin Mint (BTW, I was NOT the buyer!): Note that the 1983 250. Colones is much scarcer with taxes and all 3350 was likely bill to buyer
Wow!!! That does my heart good that such a common coin can bring this much money. Mintage was over 1100 and odds are good that 8 or 900 survive unless you know something I don't. There are far more interesting, better designs, more important, and much lower mintage moderns. I just finally found my FM catalog and was looking through it today. Fortunately I haven't scrapped out any low mintage medals yet.
I can't see paying so much for modern coins, no matter how nice they are. I love modern coins and have a ton of them, but there's a point where I'm just not going any higher.
It does seem like you should be able to find this cheaper. This has been the problem all along with moderns and FM in particular. Most of the demand is from collectors who see it and like it but they aren't looking specifically for that coin. Moderns that are worth a lot are things like a scarce high grade one cent coin that someone needs for a registry set; they need that specific date and mint. My guess is a couple or few collectors got caught up in a bidding war because they wanted a coin with a jaguar or a cat of some type so needed this specific coin. Since they are not often available they were willing to try to outbid one another. I can certainly imagine how many bidders might chase a few of these low mintage FM coins in the future. There are lots of coins with mintages of a few hundred that might appeal to a very broad audience. Many even have themes that would appeal to US collectors or any collector of exotic animals, events, etc. FM made great very high quality coins, token, and medals in often very limited numbers. Even their common coins had mintages of fewer than 20,000 and the attrition can be very high on some. Future collectors will care more about the mintages and quality and less about whether or not to original buyer paid too much. They'll care more about the artistic quality and integrity. I've been saving all the low mintage and interesting pieces and everything in very high grade. Most of the rest is being melted but I certainly wouldn't have melted the 250C if I had one. FM is grossly underappreciated and this really applies even to the most common issues of world coins.
Yes, I totally agree. However the 1982 and 1983 Costa Rica 250 colones have been on the rise for at least 5 years and just go higher and higher. I would say there is some chance that there may be collectors in Costa Rica as there are more people with money down there. So one possible variable in the future is that "home markets" may develop. I have seen some of this in Panama also as another example. I too find some of the designs and work quite well done, and although not an engraver appreciate the competence of some of theirs. Everhardt (sp?) went to the US mint for many years after the FM. If you have a chance test out the execution of the bust of Belisario Porras on the Panama 5 Balboa coins of 1975-1982; facing busts come off generally very poorly but check for example how they handled the subjects glasses and all.
This same thing has been going on in India, Russia, and China for years as their middle classes explode. Some of the old Indian mint sets couldn't be given away at a dollar or two each and now list for thousands of dollars. It just never occurred to me that it could happen in Costa Rica. But, yes, they have a rich history of coin collecting but never used to have a middle class. It will be interesting to see if the modern base metal coins ever attract any interest since they were mostly melted and some are pretty uncommon in uncirculated condition.
