Coin market soft

baseball21, Thanks for your response, I suspected something similar . I do believe that the entire coin market is in some kind of slump , however, certain sectors are doing far worse than others. As you point out classic commemorative coins have been beaten with a baseball bat (no pun intended), & even worse modern commemorative coins from 1986 to date. Most of the modern gold commemorative coins are selling from melt or less ! Oddly the 3rd party grading companies are partly to blame for this predicament . As populations of once thought of rare or scarce coins grow prices will drop. When PCGS published their 1st population report prices of Morgan dollars had a substantial crash . Of course the TPG companies will deny this . American coins have been overwhelmed by so called "investors", & they have had a negative effect on the hobby. I have no idea where the hobby is going but I'm glad I made a switch to collecting ancient coins long ago.....

 

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The commemorative series seems like its been falling for about 30 years or so aside from stunning toners and the best of the best. Everything else has been a race to the bottom.

But yea when you see that list all I think of is what a debacle of a hot mess this grouping is.

I would actually blame dealers here not the TPGs. The TPGs and the internet has provided a transperancy that 30+ years ago didn't exist. Going into the local store you'd think wow a 1909-S VDB the king of the series or wow what a great Morgan, but now with the TPGs and the internet you see them and go wow I can buy basically as many as I want at any time of the day. The pre-internet/TPG market was over hyped on rarity ect and now things have evened out.

The other thing though where you really can blame the TPGs, if between them and the internet it is much easier for a collector to spread their interests around. World coins, type collecting etc. You no longer have to be a series specialist and in many ways that bores a lot of people focusing on only one thing always including myself. The collector money is just getting spread out more especially with world coins and modern and more availability to them in 5 minutes online than at a local store.

I wouldn't by any means say the hobby is dying or in trouble, but it has been changing and those that just stick to the old ways no matter what have gotten in trouble. Coins clubs will probably die for the most part, local shows and some local only stores certainly as well and magazines, but that doesn't mean the interest is gone.

 

Thanks for the correct answer Doug

 

Just one big Sine Curve. The bicycle keeps rolling.

 

I think a true indicator of how healthy the coin hobby is is the volume of coin sales on Ebay. The Bay is by far the biggest market place for coins and there's millions of bids every year on coins.

 

It definitely is that it isn't a good indicator just like the DOW isn't a good indicator of stocks. Anything that is a catch all never really shows what's actually happening. Bull and Bear markets always have sections performing in the opposite manner.

The DOW was reaching records highs yet GE was crashing, during the crash with the PM run up there were still stocks doing very well etc. It applies to whole sections too where the energy sector can be doing the opposite of the market charts.

As far as coins I do call it a hot mess because it is everything and some of which are randomly selected grades or appear to be. 1793 Chain Cents shouldn't be in the same charts as 1937-D MS 62 Buffalo Nickels as one of countless examples. Classic commems have been falling for decades, common date common grade morgans falling for quite some time as they should be and it goes on and on. It's a wonder that it ever actually is able to go up at all which is only a reflection of the true strength of many areas but catch all charts will never tell you that.

The point is that the broader a chart tries to be the less useful it actually is and once it's about everything it's really telling you nothing.

 

Charts themselves aren't the issue. Charts that have a narrow focus can be useful. Charts that try and encompass everything are the ones that lose their relevancy.

 

Hence the name "Index"...

 

Wow. Over the last 3 years all but one of the subindices are down, most substantially. The only subindex that has gained a little is the proof gold coin index. The mint state rare gold coin index is also down only modestly.

 

Its composed of exactly this list https://www.pcgs.com/prices/pcgs3000.aspx

That chart tells me that I should be able to get a 1793 Chain Cent in MS 64 cheaper now that 10 years or 20 years ago ago, couldn't be further from the truth. Just like now in the chart going back up common date common grade Morgans are still falling.

The broader a chart tries to be the less useful it always becomes.

 

There are a plethora of those who follow the stock market and sell their reports for a pretty penny. The don’t worry about whether they’re right or wrong. They make more than enough money selling those reports.

 

Baseball21 nailed it. What you see now is a true market. The TPGs weren't founded until the mid 80s. I got my first crappy cell phone in 1999. We may have had internet at home in the late 90s but it wasn't very good. Nothing compared to now. Now I have excellent internet, and all the info in the world available on my computer and on my cell phone. Have for some time.

If we're being honest about valuating ANY hobby, lets say there was a pre-2000 market that may make for good entertainment today (read: wax nostalgia) but shouldn't be used as valuable information for valuating anything anymore! Now we're in a post modern era where homeless people could buy a coin off ebay on their smart phone if they want. Or look up any information they want.

The market is greatly affected by overall interest and the economy. In addition, collectors themselves drive whats hot and whats not. But the big things that have changed is availability of data and the connecting of everyone worldwide through the internet.
There's no more speculating. There's no more relying on local dealers connections to find a single example of something. (If they even can.) Now everyone has population reports at their disposal. We know what is actually rare and what's common. Rarities once thought impossible are now available. This has caused the value of some things to sky rocket and some things to plummet. But it's based on reality now versus speculation from only a couple decades ago. To me that's a good thing. I embrace the reality of it.

I want a MS-64 1921 high relief Peace dollar. I know what the mintage was. I know what the population reports are. The coin market may be soft but.... nobody's giving these away today. I can see they've been relatively flat with some ups and downs but are currently priced at about $100 more today than they were in 2005. What did they go for in 1990? I don't know and that info really doesn't even matter any more. There was no way to even know what exactly was being bought and sold back then compared to now anyway. People may not like the TPGs but to me they brought clarity, at least for the better quality stuff within the hobby. Now we have something to quantify. Before you did not. This inevitably had to happen for better or worse.