With rising unemployment when will coin market crash?

Well finance indexes generally don't miss out on significant numbers of sales, but really if you want to know the answer you're going to have to call them and see. Unless there's some obscure part of their site I have missed they aren't very clear how the index is computed nor do the numbers make much sense from a pure value standpoint as there's more than 60k worth of bullion in it alone

As a side note since it came up, even that awful index with the exception of the never to be repeated again early 80s has basically been increasing the whole time with a recent dip that is again rising.

 

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As you all may know, we have 3 types of indices in finance: equal-weighted, capitalization weighted, and price-weighted.

Most indices are capitalization weighted.

Because pricing is contiguous in financial markets and NOT in coin sales, last-sales for financial indices are OK and consistent with previous sales, that may not be the case (and often isn't) when dealing with coin sales that may happen weekly, monthly, etc. Plus, no 2 coins are exactly the same.

 

Been through this before many times with you. Common date common grade Saints are essentially bullion and there are numerous other coins such as the 44-D FB MS 63 Merc where the only way the price would ever move up is if silver spiked.

Anything whose value is going to essentially track the movements of PMs is bullion as far as charting purposes are concerned even if that bullion has a premium. No I'm not being derogatory to collectors of those items, but this "index" is attempting to turn coins into stocks and if we're going to do that then we have to look at them as such and call a spade a spade for the numerous coins on there which will never go up without PMs spiking

It's way up from the 70s, the anomaly in the 80s is meaningless that won't happen again, and it's up since 1995/96, it's up to even from 03.

Nothing goes up forever in a straight line but yes it is going up with some ebbs and flows as you would expect it too

 

You forgot all the other coins on the list that would be bullion, saints were just one example.

Anyone with half a brain also knew I was saying the index has more than 60k worth of bullion value alone so no your explanation of their index number doesn't work without some scale to it which isn't even provided.

But sure Doug as always you are always right and can never be wrong and know all and this index is great and coins are always going down and grading is always wrong

 

Before the semantics police show up, every coin has a bullion value even the 10 million dollar SP dollar has a bullion value of it's silver. Copper coins its the copper content, silver the silver, gold the gold. Numismatic value often can and does far out weigh the bullion value though.

But when someone is trying to argue it's just the price of the coins for the index value yet the metal content value with no numismatic premiums in the index is a higher number that the index on it's own that obviously doesn't add up without a scale which has never been provided

 

OK, then it is PRICE-WEIGHTED and more expensive coins have a bigger impact on the index.

Got it, thanks Doug !

 

Yes, but if it is price-weighted as it appears to be....then a few high-$$$ coins can "drag" the index up while most coins collected by collectors are flat or down.

Similar to the Tech Bubble of 1998-2000 when most stocks in the S&P 500 went sideways or down a bit but 50 big mega-caps went up 100%.

 

There must be a "divisor" somewhere to keep it comparable to past periods and/or for simplicity purposes.

There are 32 Saint-Gaudens coins which by themselves are way over $54,000.

I'll research when I have some time.

 

It could be that that $60,000 in bullion alone "only" counts for $10,000 in the index...need to see if there's a divisor or some other adjustment going on.

As I said, this index is definitely price-weighted but simply adding up all the prices of all 3,000 coins far eclipses $54,000.

 

And can do the opposite as well. The index is atrocious I've said that for years. Having 6 figure coins on the same thing as actual bullion and $5-10 dollar coins is just dumb.

The big ticket items also have a lot more reasons for why or why not they sold strong or weak that can be as simple as someone making a poor decision of where they went to sell it, many of the 6 and 7 figure coins also sell privately after an auction that never ends up in such a chart.

Simply adding just the melt value of the gold coins in it far eclipses the index value number, heck even the silver value of the coins in it might.

Like I mentioned before calling PCGS to inquire about it would be the best way to really find out

 

No arguments, BB21. That said, the index is better than nothing.

What I would do is probably come up with an index of maybe 50 coins...10 sub-indices of 5 coins each. Saints...Liberty's....Buffalo Nickels....SLQ's.....SWQ's....etc.

Get 1 or 2 high grades and maybe 3 or 4 commons or lower-grades and track the prices regularly. Maybe throw out a "high" or "low" price when using a smoothed average or something.

 

I disagree. If it were the 60s then yes I would agree. However we have so much real time information today and an abundance of resources to see real world sales and prices from actions and such that such a catch all index is essentially worthless.

Why would I care about the price trends of a chain cent if I am looking for a seated dollar or a merc that costs $10-20? They're in no way related nor do their prices follow each other. Who graded the coin and whether or not it is CAC is also completely ignored. We already saw the stupid spike in the 80s from people trying to quantify coins like stocks and dealers more than happy to push that, why are we still making the same mistake with some kitchen sink index decades later?

If someone wants to know how something is doing go look at that actual thing and it's history, if it's a more expensive item read around too as there will be mentions of a lot of private sales on big ticket items that are for more than reported values.

The index lets someone just be lazy and be like look at this market it's going down or up blah blah without having to have any understanding of it. That to me is dangerous especially when people use it to try and prove something

I strongly prefer people actually find the relevant information and join the 21st century using the wealth of information that is available not some outdated awful index that may have been relevant 20+ years ago

 

What would be nice is if the online sites refined their completed sales data to make it more user friendly.

The data IS THERE but it can be cumbersome at times (i.e., Heritage).

 

Anyone that knows coins and has actually been involved in the market in the last decade knows coin have not been STEADILY dropping since 2008.

Believe whatever you guys want not worth my time anymore, I'd rather not mislead people but sure

 

OK, but are they LOWER today if they haven't "steadily dropped ?"

I think we have to separate bullion, quasi-bullion/numismatic, and pure numismatic (Buffalo Nickels, Walkers, SLQ's, Franklins, etc.).

For some of these, and I admit I am not familiar with the coins and/or price trends intimately, but I have read numerous posts here/NGC/CU..... and for some of them (i.e, Franklins) the collectors involved insist that prices have been smashed in certain grades.

Unless somebody is lying or doesn't know what they are talking about....

 

Many yes, many no.

I really am going to bow out of this for the most part so I won't give a long explanation. But I would suggest to ask Doug the last time he collected, bought or sold a coin was. I would also suggest to ask Doug what he think of eBay pricing which is by far the biggest coin market by volume.