If I were to go with genre, I think most error coins are on the over-hyped side. For specific coins, I have three. I do not understand the current fascination with Libertads or modern struck Peace and Morgan dollars. On the flip side, what do you see as underappreciated? I do not feel knowledgeable enough to answer that one. If anything, I am surprised that silver dollars don't generally have much premium to them while ASE's seem to regardless of spot price. The current spot price appears to have eroded the premium for Morgan and Peace dollars.
Lots of over hyped coins. I'll go with the underappreciated. And this is based on me becoming a coin collector in the late 1960's. Wheat cents were the thing. Anyone I knew that had any fascination with coins were excited to find a wheat cent in their pocket. And that was only ten years after their demise..... I never understood why that fascination didn't translate to the memorial cents when they stopped in 2010. I think the entire run of memorial cents is under appreciated.
Other than "errors", to me toned coins are over-hyped. Some of them are butt ugly unless you catch the light just right, but people are going gaga over them. Underappreciated is personal taste for me. I love hub transition varieties - there's a ton of them in the Barber series and some quite scarce - but almost nobody else cares. Which is fine.
Over-hyped? The list is endless! Toned coins (to me, toning of any kind or appearance is just so much damage, and it will almost always turn uglier the older it gets). Almost any coin, especially bullion silver, sold as "collectable" or "highly collectable," such as the political or movie character themed coins from small countries. Privy marks. The list goes on and on.
Over-hyped to me are every commemorative, ever. Okay, some of the older half dollars are alright, I guess, but other than that I would not miss seeing any coin that isn't meant to be used.
Maybe mintage numbers figure into it? LMCs ran much longer and regularly had numbers in the billions.
They both ran for 50 years, but I bet the total mintage for LMC is way more. Wheats had all but disappeared from change by around 1970 when I first started pulling them for albums, but 15 years later now for the LMCs and I still get a high percentage in change. Anecdotally not many 60s or 70s though; I think a lot of that is people pulling them thinking they'll make a killing in copper.
NIFC coins I don't believe are overhyped at all. They're a narrow area of collecting that is overly un-rejoiced by the collecting elite, who feel that only classical coins of the realm, that circulate, are worthy collectable items. Most non-collectors don't even know these items exist.
I get your point Greenie, they just don't do anything for me. I look at them as items the mints make to generate income. to be clear I am also not a fan of the non-stop quarter varieties either, so in that I am consistent.
Too many people are interested in "error" coins because when was the last Merc, Buffalo or Walker you saw in circulation, but anyone can pick up a cent and say "Oh, look, this looks different, I bet it's worth MONEY".
Real collectors aren't looking at what the worth of errors are; I couldn't care less how much I could sell for since I'm never selling. The ones constantly asking for values aren't collectors, they're simpletons who spend too much time on their devices and believe whatever they read.
