US Coin Market Stagnant

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Yes, but those axioms come from the financial world of investing (somewhere I do have expertise ) where you are in a position to HARDLY NEVER be underwater after a 10-year (rolling) period. Time is your ally in investing.

That has NOT proven to be the case with coins, as the market is much less illiquid...does not pay income/dividends....is not as transparent as financial markets...and has seen a few bubbles distort the market and take years/decades to "burn off."

Very true Doug...but because of my caveats to your axioms (above), it's all the more reason to treat our little world as a HOBBY and not as INVESTING. Or maybe a compromise...SPECULATING.

Really ? I don't recall inputing my age or Bday when I first joined, maybe I did. Thanks for that tidbit. Stands to reason that years ago the average age would be the older folks, more into the hobby and with much more invested in it.

Do you have any figures on total registered users, average daily users, postings, etc. that would indicate how the site has moved over time ? If CT was around even before that (2000-05) that would be even better.

Even anectdotal information from you is very useful, so have at it !

 

Well this is exciting news. Somehow it seems that every US coin type [outside of foreign] that I look at is trending higher. Other than declining demographics, one reason the US market may appear to be going down is that there are a ton of slab flippers out there who look for any coin which may be marginally nice for it's grade. These then buy the coin and resubmit it X times until it gets in a higher slab.

Thus for a collector wanting a nice coin, one has to buy a grade higher than expected just to get a collectable mint state specimen. For example I wanted to improve on my 1923 Std. Lib quarter EXF or AU bought years ago (late 1970s) for $12. About 10 years ago I went to a national show and figured out that I couldn't really get a substantially better one (fully unc without wear on the knee) until I went to nearly a 65 level. I recall a price of around $450 or $500 which was a big jump from $12 for me.

Finally in an on-line auction I snagged a common date in a slabbed 65 which had a nice picture (no spots, nicks, etc). It was a lot more than $12 but a lot less than $500.

 

When people buy high, of course they lose. I've sold some foreign lots with 50-100% profits before (although these were bulk modern lots, non-silver). I'll admit to never having a single slabbed coin, eventually I'd like to get into that though.

 

World coins have done well for me too. These have been nice slabbed pieces with really low pops.

 

A collector was asking me if I would sell my 1937 PR-67 Buffalo Nickel. I was shocked when I looked at the Greysheet and saw that it's worth $1,000 less than I paid for it in the early 2000s.

 

I agree with the demographic headwind....I also think that the SUPPLY of new products and gimmicks is doing to older coins what all the new baseball cards did from 1990-94.

$$$ spent on a 2018 ASE...and a 2018 PF 70 Silver Eagle....and a 2018 Mint Director Signed PF69 Silver Eagle....oh, and "First Releases" for all of them.....that's alot of $$$ that can't go to buying Morgans or Saints or Indian Heads or Mercury Dimes.

 

Yes the bids on many coins have come down. Numismatic big ticket coins may have further to fall unless close to melt. Lower pop of collectors and hardly any investors = lower market.

Classic Commems cheaper than they were 25 years ago.

A market crash / bankruptcy for some them on horizon? Gimmicks won’t save it

 

Do we KNOW for a fact that there are fewer collectors ?

I've talked about quantifiying LCS traffic today vs. 20 or 40 years ago.....coin show attendnace...and of course, how much has simply moved online. Otherwise, we're just speculating.

It could be like saying U.S. retail sales are down because sales at shopping malls are down.

No doubt the proliferation of so many new offerings has sucked up lots of investment $$$.

 

No we don't and there very likely aren't. Collecting is just changing not dying, you either adapt or think it's dying

 

I agree that there are more collectors. At least that is the conventional wisdom: the State Quarter program, etc., got more people interested in collecting. These new collectors, by and large, are not interested in Capped Bust half dollars, Seated Liberties, or varieties; they buy modern commemoratives or issues from various mints because they look cool they look "new."

The ASE 2019 Enhanced Reverse Proof is a good example. A person bought a 2019-S Enhanced Reverse Proof ICG PR70, for ~ $1,700 on eBay. Yes, "ICG." Now I am not as negative on ICG as most but if I had $1,700, I would be scouring through the Capped Bust half dollars and other early American coinage for that nice, original coin with eye appeal. A modern PF70 is just boring to me (I guess I am not adapting) but others like them.

My point is: if money is flowing to these modern issues (even from older collectors), the U.S.classic coin market will fall and soften, as it has done.

 

I believe still a market for the early commemoratives. Not the outragious prices of the early 90s, but normal pricing.

I like a little color on my early commemoratives:

Bob Campbell image.​

 

Of course a collector was offering on it. Who wouldn't want that kind of coin? Only the '36 & '37 Buffalo proofs were made and 67 is the grade [I think] to get. It's a really nice grade without problems like a PF63/64 and without the big price jump of a PF-68.

My pricing guess was based on the early PF sets, I haven't looked at the single Buffalos.

 

Then if the number of collectors has gone up....and the average income/net worth/money to buy has INCREASED over the years/decades....then why are most coin prices DOWN as we talked about with the PCGS 3000 ?

The easy answers would be (1) too much new supply (The Baseball Card Effect) from the Mint and/or (2) surge in foreign coin interest siphoning off demand and $$$.

Thoughts ?

 

Maybe also a bit of disintermediation from online sales? Gonna be harder to get good prices from less-discerning buyers for those key-but-not-really-rare coins when there are half a dozen sellers undercutting you on eBay.

 

Buying a coin 50 years ago took how much time and effort? Now it only takes one click on eBay. Think about it...

 

But that implies an increase in supply of a fixed product. Shouldn't matter where it comes from whether it's an LCS a coin show or Ebay or HA or Stacks.

What's new is that most everybody can now SEE where the market is in real-time for any coin or bill. In the past you had to go with newsletter or magazines and the delay was days or weeks. Now, it's minutes or seconds.

 

Yup, the Web has only been around for 20 years.....HA and other sites even less....took a while to get the non-wealthy, non-Internet savvy folks to gravitate there.

I myself have been buying retail online since 2000 but coins/bill only since 2013 and auctions since 2018.