Do you ever question relative values within your collection?

This started for me way back in my US collecting days. I would start to wonder if the overinflated values of certain US coins in relation to other US coins and some of my world coins was a good reason to not buy US coins. Well, having sold my US collection many years ago, I have never enjoyed collecting more. But, my old habits are still here. I’m still comparing different types of world/ancient coins and it affects my buying decisions. I’ll give 2 examples on both the high end and low end. A coin such as a late 1890s Ethiopian Birr in MS will probably be $1000. One could buy the Birr, but could also get a Julius Caesar denarius. Which has more value at $1000? Is it only dependent on the buyer’s personal opinion or should some degree of “universal value sustainability” be considered? Example 2 is more specific to me. I buy modern silver bullion coins (1-2 Ounces) from several mints each year for $25-$50. I enjoy the designs and they are “worth” a certain value to me. To me, they are a better value than, say, a VF 1800s French 5 francs that would cost a similar figure. So, my question is, do any of you think similarly when it comes to comparing coins with the same market value, but different “perceived value?“

 

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I think you are in reality describing economics. Every coin is collectible, but at what price? What do you give up in order to buy X?

I was on a similar path. Once I opened myself up to the rest of the world, I saw, looking over my shoulder, just how overcollected US coins were. That was about the last time I bought US coins except for stuff for my kids and APEs. I honestly do not know what an Ethiopian Birr is off the top of my head, having gone doen the path of ancients so hard. My "Sophie's choice" would be between a Irene gold coin or a really high grade Hunnic issue, (facing this right now). So, we all, every day, make economic choices like this. Depends on what we are into, and since its a hobby, hopefully not "investment" thoughts.

 

No. I collect stuff because I like it and don't intend to ever recover what I might think the value should be. Look at the people that collect US Mint products. It is very rare for anything you buy from the mint to ever exceed the cost from the mint. I collect lots of stuff that I know will never produce a profit. I think most "collectors" feel the same way.

 

I would add this example for further clarification. If you collect Roman coins, do you ever stop and think about relativity of value when you are buying a Hannibalianus piece for $250-$300 when you could have an Augustus denarius for the same price?

The key point is that your budget and the market price are fixed. The question is, “Do you value a certain coin over another based on “relative” value? Augustus is a well known figure and has historical context. Hannibalianus is unknown to 99.9% of the world. At the same price, do you debate the value of the 2 coins?

 

Personally, my main concern is not to overspend on a coin. Especially considering that I don't like auctions and all of my coins were bought retail. Luckily, because of the ridiculous prices that auctioned coins fetch for the last couple of months, I haven't felt that I overspent on any of my coins. Problem is that old affordable dealer stock is starting to run out and I am finding it harder to find good deals.

Now, if you see it from the point of view of what coin you can get for a fixed budget, this is where it gets interesting. For example, I really like the idea of owning a Syracuse dolphin/arethusa/chariot tetradrachm. But many others feel the same. You would need to spend over £1000 to get one that is in a good enough condition to be recognizable as a Syracuse tet. But with the same amount of money, I could buy some other important and historical coin in a much better condition. Or even two! So, the conclusion is that even though I like them, I am not going to buy one any time soon. They are not good value for money, as I would need to spend a lot more to find one in a condition that is acceptable to me.

 

I have two kinds of coins: those that I intend to have on the day I die and those that I wish I had not bought. Some of the last group cost 10 to 100 times some in the first group. My experience in selling coins is that people don't want the ones I don't want so to 'profit' I have to sell 'family'. If I could change one thing about my hobby it would be my attitude. Mistakes hurt. I have been known to give away coins that I considered mistakes because that 'hurts' less than selling it and getting a fraction of what I paid. I wish I could consider purchases of coins like restaurant meals. When consumed, there is no cash refund.

 

This is my mentality. If I cannot justify the pleasure a coin will give me being equal to the purchase price, I do not buy it. All coins I own are judged on that criteria. Now, some coins I bought I might not have liked as much as I thought so maybe I didn't get that amount of pleasure, but others I really "score". I have two to write up for CT right now I bough for about $100 each and would GLADLY pay $500 if I had to to buy them. They are that enjoyable for me to own.

But, yeah, I never thought about it like a meal, but that is exactly what I do. All my coins owe me nothing, which makes not selling them, or giving them away, pretty painless.

 

An interesting situation. Collecting is very personal, and personally, I take the opposite approach to mrbreeze's....which is not to say he is wrong, or I am wrong. Whatever brings you pleasure, I say.

By opposite, I mean for years I bought junky world crowns whenever I found one cheap (near price of melt). Proof is here (these are just the ones lying around on my file cabinet - the more respectable ones are in flips):


Over the years, a few Ethiopian birrs from Menelik's era got scooped up the same way - worn, close to melt:



The reason for this is sheer personal preference - I like the old stuff. Modern stuff does not, and never has interested me. Not just coins, but everything else - it kills me to have to buy something new - I'd much rather have an old beat-up dresser from the '30s than a new one from IKEA.

Anyway, as for value. Spending a premium on a coin such as the Ethiopian birr is, again, a matter of preference. But I am very suspicious of "value" in these situations. My birr cost probably $20 tops. Paying $980.00 more for the same coin in a slab seems risky to me, in terms of value. Absolutely nothing is added in terms of rarity or historical interest, just an opinion on a slab for a coin that through an accident, never actually got spent, used, traveled or did anything but lurk in a vault or cabinet. Not my cup of tea. For the same price, I'd much much much much rather have the Julius Caesar denarius - which is genuinely scarce, very much in demand, and pretty likely to keep its value.

My switch over to ancients has been a 30 year process - in the old days I found low-grade cheap ancients hard to find in mail catalogs, which discouraged me. Once I started figuring out the Internet and eBay, a whole world of affordable stuff, and how to attribute it, opened up to me. The French 5 francs are historical, for sure, but there wasn't really much to research or discover after a while.

Ancients, because of c. 3000 years of issue from a huge variety of places, seems to be an inexhaustible topic. And the prices...here is a batch of Greeks and Roman tetradrachms I paid around $25 for - I spent hours figuring them out. It was so much fun. A new Ethiopian Birr is just another Ethiopian birr to add to the six or so I already have.


As for "value" - none of those ancients is going to make my retirement days any easier - common, worn stuff. That pile of French 5 francs and my cruddy birr - well, I just checked the price of silver. Wow.

Historical rise in silver prices from Kitco, just now (July 27, 2020) - the dollar figure is the change in price - the price right now is $24.23 per ounce:

30 Days $6.42 36.08%
6 Months $6.14 33.97%
1 Year $7.86 48.10%
5 Years $9.68 66.54%
Since 2000 $18.81 347.60%

https://www.kitco.com/silver-price-today-usa/

So yeah, silver 5 francs bought around melt 20 years ago are looking like a real shrewd investment. 347.60% percent rise since 2000! But I'm neither shrewd nor an investor - I just like old coins. And my junky sestertii are never going to appreciate like that silver does, if they appreciate at all.

So in a value sense, collecting ancients is a mistake, the way I do it. But I'm so much more engaged and happy with my collecting now (and have made so many electronic ancients friends on Coin Talk).

So what's the silver melt value of a Hadrian denarius weighing 3 grams....? Just kidding!

 

Simple: No.

I collect Historically, and do not think about "relative" values between my coins, nor do I think in an investment mentality when approaching my HOBBY.

Yes, I have a lot of Economics in my education. However, for my HOBBY I eschew many of those thoughts, and leave them for my vocation.

 

"Do you ever question relative values within your collection?" No. But my relatives question the value of my collection though...

But on a serious note:

Well, no. I collect, like @Alegandron, historically (early Empire, late Republic).

 

Values comes from experience. After collecting mostly world coins for 20 years you get an experienced understanding for what fair market values goes for. A MS Ethiopian Birr brings big money. I do not know the values for a Julius Caesar denarius ???

 

Depends on the denarius. A lifetime protrait in VF? Maybe $2000 area. A FDC, (maybe MS64 grade approx) lifetime portrait? $50k might be the limit.

Now, to get a decent F postumous portrait maybe $500.

 

This is really in the eye of the beholder. I tend to get coins that "speak" to me and have a certain spark. I am not usually concerned with relative value. That said, I generally do not overpay unless I really want the coin at auction and don't want to lose, sometimes happens on the more expensive coins in my collection. My general rule of thumb is not to spend more than $1000 on a coin. I surmise that over time (certainly by the time I am preparing my estate) I would make sales arrangements for my heirs so they don't have to worry about liquidating the coins, that is if they don't want to keep them.

 

..well said sir!

 

Thank you. I am here for a Hobby. Not an investment.

 

well, i'd be lion if i said i don't have a thought when buying a coin of a senario of me selling it...but so far its only happened 4(four) times, my lil loves got adopted by friends who appreciate them...^^

 

Generally speaking, I don't think much about "relative values" for different reasons. First of all, this is my hobby and not a job or an investment strategy. It's okay that it costs money. Secondly, I don't plan to sell my collection or larger chunks of it, and I hope to never get into a situation where I have to. Finally, the coins I find most appealing don't necessarily cost a lot of money, and those that do don't automatically interest me.

Yet, there are two small caveats. The first one is space. This came up only in the last two years or so when my collection grew a lot. I don't want to have more coins than I can store, enjoy, and handle on a regular basis. Therefore, I try to buy few coins that I really like instead of many coins that I only somewhat like. That doesn't make me a "grade collector," but I will rather spend my budget on a single nice Republican denarius than on thirty more Constantinian LRBs from Siscia with two soldiers standing watch on the reverse.

Secondly, I collect both ancient and medieval coins. There is a relatively large community of ancient coin collectors and a correspondingly sized market. Therefore, it is usually possible to buy popular ancient coins and at some point hand them on to the next collector at not too great a loss. Yet, this is not normally the case with medieval coins, mostly because the community of collectors is much smaller and the market thus less predictable. Hence, I tend to also buy ancients that won't necessarily stay in my collection forever, knowing it to be possible to find a new owner. With most medievals, though, I search for coins that I hope to still like in twenty years, even if they cost more than average examples.

To illustrate this: the two coins below did cost about the same. The Julius Caesar denarius, on the one hand, is far from perfect, but if I ever wanted to spend a lot of money on a better example, I could easily sell it. Many people want a Caesar denarius. The bracteate, on the other hand, is quite close to a perfect specimen but will still appeal only to few other collectors. If I had bought a lesser coin and afterwards decided to upgrade, I would have encountered trouble when unloading the first one. I tend to take this into consideration when spending more than about $50 on a coin.


Roman Republic, Imperatorial Coinage, Julius Caesar, AR denarius, 49–48 BC, military mint moving with Caesar. Obv: [CA]ESAR; elephant walking r., trampling snake. Rev: priestly implements: culullus, aspergillum, axe, apex. 20mm, 3.70g. Ref: RRC 443/1.


Archbishopric of Magdeburg, under Albrecht von Käfernburg, bracteate penny, ca. 1220–1232. Obv: OICI – IVSDV; St. Maurice, nimbate and wearing armour, standing facing, holding cross and lance flag; below, church building with two towers an an arch; inside, cranium relic. Rev: negative design (bracteate). 23mm, 0.68g. Ref: Berger 1586; Slg. Hauswaldt 167; Slg. Bonhoff 712.

 

Funny, I was thinking on this and even took a photo of this same conundrum.

I have two passions when it comes to ancient coins - Roman Imperial, and Indo Sassanian. I spent a large amount of money earlier this year to further both sides of the hobby. In this photo, the left pile and right pile cost me about the same, dollar wise:



Left is about 70 of the earliest Gadhaiya Paisa family - I call them series 1.1 - bought wholesale from a hoard at $10 each. They are mind-numbingly diverse, mostly scarce to extremely rare, and woefully under-studied and misunderstood. I just recently got them sorted out and placed into my larger collection, but I have many enjoyable hours ahead of me to truly study them.

On the right is a denarius of Pescennius Niger, a man of immense historical and numismatic interest, but in the grand scheme of Rome's ~500 years as the Mediterranean's premier military and economic power, he was little more than a blip. But, in its own way, I find it fascinating to hold a coin of a failed usurper or ephemeral nobody realizing that in the moment that hot denarius was pulled off of the anvil, the man whose face it portrays had aspirations to become the next Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, and it seemed well within his grasp to do so - because he had not yet failed to rally the provinces against Severus, and had no idea that he would lose his final stand at Antioch, only to be betrayed by his formerly loyal subjects.

Both groups are special in their own way, although one coin in particular is a lot harder to explain to the missus!

 

I am jealous. I have a few group lots of those, but need more. I simply run out of time chasing everyting that interests me, but I do truly love this series, all the way from "barbaric" eastern style Sassanian issues, early hunnic imitations, and then the continuing Indianizations of the series until the final, tiny stylized end. I need to dig out the pieces I have some time and spend more time with them. It also seems they took another path of style evolution and became the Sogdian type pieces much further north.

 

Really love the responses so far...tons of great insights into the question. I would add that I am all over the buying spectrum. I buy emotionally, financially, spot filling, etc. In reading all of the responses, I have started to think that there might be a money inflection point where I start to drift to comparisons. When I spend less than $50, lets say, it's usually like this - See cool coin, check wallet, buy coin. But, I will give you a real life example of my brain freeze. I have been saving for some time for a few special Roman coins on the long term buy list. Well, one of them was a Julia Titi denarius. One was just sold recently at auction and as it rose up the dollar scale, all I could think was that I could buy 3 Solidi for the bid price. Then I thought, who would pay the same thing for 1 silver coin vs 3 gold coins? Don't get me wrong, I'll get one eventually, but I don't like the second guessing. I want to buy it because I saved for it, it made since for my collection and I found it attractive. Period.