Coin market in the last decade - how has it changed?

That is my point. The thread asked about general trends. I pointed out how supply and demand can explain general trends. I also pointed out that people can overpay and underpay, because the lines are idealized.

While I can appreciate your theoretical argument about momentary equilibrium, you aptly pointed out in your reply

Which is why I said that people overpay and underpay.

There is theory and there is reality. There are plenty of people who equilibrated themselves into bankruptcy based on theory.

 

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eBay has also changed how people rate sellers and buyers. It's no longer possible, for example, to give someone a negative or neutral rating for failure to honor a bid. Just about every seller now has a rating over 98%, making them more or less useless in assessing someone's honesty.

 

And actually a very good seller that I've patronised for some time has a rating of around 98%, I think. Such a 'low' rating might be taken as a warning sign, but I've found it's just not correlated with seller quality. I once got a nasty comment in feedback when I declined a seller's request for more money because shopping was more than he expected!

 

In my area and quality of collecting, I've noticed a few trends:
1. MoUs between U.S. and various source countries have put a premium on coins with verifiable provenances vs. "fresh coins".
2. Hoard material seems less prevalent, pehaps because new finds are dwindling or maybe as a result of the MoUs.
3. High quality material is commanding very strong prices, though I've sensed a bit of pull-back in the market over the past 6 months.

 

I think part of this can be attributed to the fact that more sellers and even auction houses were willing to give information about hoards even as recently as 20 years ago, but this sort of thing is now unheard of except in cases of decades-old published hoards(and even then, is generally omitted) because of the current legal climate. I've been chasing down photographs and emailing dealers and collectors in an attempt to piece together information about a small but important hoard of RR quinarii which I believe to have been "distributed in commerce" around that time and even a dealer who proudly boasted of the hoard to collectors at the time won't acknowledge the existence of it now and all these related coins with similar patinas are just an "old collection" that was sold.

 

Tragic unintended but obvious consequence of bad laws. The UK went another route, and here finds are meticulously recorded. There's little cost to doing so; worst that can happen is a museum buys at market value. Detectorists sell at a market near my office and proudly show off the evidence that their finds have been properly reported.

 

The last 10 years? Well, the change has taken more time that that. I too took a break for about 10 years and when I came back things had changed exponentially. Many of us remember the heady days just prior to the internet, the time of seemingly endless hoards of cheap coins.

Hoards were bound to run out of course as the supply has always been limited (they are still around of course, but have declined significantly). And with the advent of the internet it was bound to happen that those who were our suppliers before are now our direct competitors. Some kid (in any source country, use your imagination) may find a stray coin while kicking a bottle. Before, he would not know what it was and had no resource to find out. He may have just sold it to some antique store or dealer. But now he can pull out his phone and a world of information is literally at his fingertips. He doesnt need to spend $10,000 on basic books. He needs nothing except to sign up on Ebay and viola! He is now a 'dealer'.

That of course is one change. A marked increase in competition. One might think that beneficial, and it is to some (but not to others). But with regards to Ebay. Ebay has changed like everything else, but overall those changes were for the benefit of the whole, not the part. Ancient coins are just a tiny part of it. In order to attract more business they allowed anyone and everyone to list, and to do it for free. The result has already been pointed out by Ed. An endless list of overpriced junk which will absolutely never sell (at least for those prices, and certainly not on Ebay).

And other sales venues have changed. Ancient coin dealers have always been an older bunch, and we have lost a lot of them in a decade. In order to replace them, some venues have allowed just about anyone to join up (cant say I blame them, they have to eat too). Overall there has been an influx of inexperienced dealers who really dont quote grasp what it is they are doing. This has resulted in a lot of over-pricing, over-grading, poor shipping, the list goes on.

So, on to prices. I see them as constantly changing, as, well, they do and are. Sure, the days are gone when you could buy an EF Gordian Antoninianus for $10, just as the days when you could buy movie popcorn for a dollar! Prices will always rise and fall, but ultimately rise for the obvious factors.

There is increased competition for coins now, both by dealers and collectors. As I already pointed out anyone can now become a dealer, so why sell to one? Reputation, experience and knowledge means little when considering the almighty Dollar, does it not? Most of us while collectors at heart still want to see our collection sell for the highest amount we can.

In this increased competitive world good material is getting 'scarce'. Its one reason why we see so many tooled coins nowadays. Add to this modern collectors who are getting into ancients and demanding slabs. If you look at Heritage nearly everything the sell is slabbed. That will be the future 25 years from now, and thankfully I wont be around to see it happen!

Anyway, I digress. What was the original question? I honestly have forgotten!

 

I've been buying and selling on ebay for at least 15 years and I have noticed changes as most of you have. Uncleaned or 'fresh' coins have dramatically decreased probably due to regulation. I'm not sure if they still exist elsewhere, but I don't see them offered openly as much.

If prices on ebay have gone down I feel it has to do with its listing structure that changed many years ago. They used to charge for every listing whether it sold or not, which caused many to not list. I found cheaper coins went for more a decade plus ago. Now I get promotions to list 500 coins for free all the time which saturates the market and causes common coins to go down in price.

I do see more 'recycling' of listings for coins that do not sell and I think that puts off a lot of buyers by having to see the same listings over and over.

15 years ago was great for finding varied and high quality coins and lots starting at 99 cents. Many good deals could be had back then. I can not speculate on total supply but think those particular sellers simply couldn't get more of what they were selling. To get good coins at cheap prices can't last forever. There are still some that have kept that pricing strategy, but there are not many left that sell at high quantity levels with no reserve.

 

Yup. Nobody wants to say anything anymore, unless it is old....and documented as such.





Same Hoard. Documented yet unpublished, therefore absent from the public corpus of information. Frustrating... but reality is often frustrating.

 

That material is still out there but dwindling. But keep in mind that type of material is almost all just random surface finds. There is only so much of that around, and few who want it. And of course since it is almost all junk/unattributable/little value, etc. there was only so far those could go. Ebay is what created a market for them. I think that collectors in general are getting to a point where they know not to ever bother with them.

 

Wow all these graphs take me back to Economics lectures at Uni.

Can we apply basic economics to items that are so unique? Each item depends on what a particular buyer is willing to pay for it or if a serious buyer was in fact looking for that particular coin at that time. Some want a great portrait, some good metal quality and yet others a good strike or even flan etc. etc.

Quality coins will always command a price MUCH higher than the next one below it. Yes I know I'm talking about the hated 'coffin' again but most of the guys who are willing to pay the big bucks want to know that an 'expert' has checked the coin out and 'graded' it. Many of them are investors not passionate collectors. Otherwise these items would cost just a little bit over their bullion value.

One just has to look at historical prices, at say Heritage, and its pretty obvious that the Highest Graded sells for 2 maybe 3 times the next best graded, in both moderns and ancients. So I humbly say, old economics, while a helpful tool, will not apply strictly in this case.

As for BiN or Best Offer listings, do they really sell well?? My experience is that people often by-pass these listings and end up paying more for auction style items when the BiN option was available all the time for another coin (more relevant to Moderns which are more standardized). Most are hugely overpriced anyway and the seller is only prepared to give a 10% discount on a coin priced 60% more than its true worth.

I agree eBay has lost the plot. It is more an electronic shopping mall rather than an auction place in most cases plus it has also lost its reputation among serious buyers. Perhaps eBay with an eBay or online shop could be the way to go??!!

 

As I have repeated over and over SUPPLY and DEMAND curves can only apply to general trends. Not to unique specific transactions. While each coin is unique, you can still use supply demand curves to display the GENERAL trends of almost anything.

Don't know who you are debating here. But if you read this, below you will see I tried to address it, in part

I am done with the economics lessons. I don't feel like arguing over things that will not help me buy coins. I have bids in on auctions and I don't intend to overpay.....although in theory, some say that is not possible.

 

Sure, economics has plenty to say about it. It's hard to generalise from markets in very rare or unique items, and lots of challenge to data, so few top-flight economists have had much to say about art and collectibles markets. Montias is major exception; he was an economist with serious interest in art history. Mechanistically applying supply and demand curves doesn't get you far, but there are lots of other useful ideas, particularly from behavioural economics that looks at things like status. It requires a lot of subtlety in moving between model and real-world. Point isn't that you can't overpay (I've done so plenty of times!). It's just that the fact some people pay more than they needed to doesn't invalidate supply and demand analysis. People overpay in all markets.

 

I dont think it is possible to overpay. Not really, anyway. A buyer and seller agree on a price. It can only be considered too high (or too low) in hindsight. At the point in time of the transaction the price was exactly what it needed to be in order for a sale to happen between the two.

 

In the mid 1990's one could see auctions into the wee hours. Many were individuals, some estates. With dial up, catching the last bid was an art form. It was fun, and some real bargains could be had. The fun is gone. Yet Ebay is a source.

 

A bit unrelated to the OP but what is actually considered "high-end stuff"? Is there a generally accepted treshold or is the distinction based rather on quality/rarity?

 

I think we all define it as the stuff we can't afford, so it's flexible;-)

 

Nicely put

 

Transparency is KEY, I am actually very glad, that you can find all fair market prices - to me, this is fun, finding a price and buying great quality coin at significant discount

 

I'll take a shot at this. I'd consider it any coin that routinely sells for maybe $1000 or more, knowing that is really the just the starting point of where prices can go up and up and up. Things seem to start to thin out more above $1000. Also, any coin that sells at several multiples of what the normal rate is. For example, a run of the mill common RR denarius that normally sells for $300-500 but a super special example commands $2000.

These are just anecdotal guesses but make sense to me.