Cleaning out my coin closet I ran across an Oct 1999 Greysheet which is a nice 10 year time capsule for comparing prices. For grins I thought I'd do a comparision of Washington Quarters, since that is one of the series that I collect. I have all but the coins in this series, but lack 32-D, 32-S, 34-D, 35-D, 36-D and 40-D in PCGS MS-65. I have those dates in some lesser grade or non-PCGS... Some numbers from this very unscientific study reveals a few interesting stats: Over the past 10 years the "common" quarters (1941 and up) are basically flat (down 1%)... If you include the "common" pre-1941 dates they were up 18.3% due to increases in the prices for those in the 30's (obviously). The semi-keys for MS-65 (this is my personal definition for semi-keys): 32, 34-D, 35-D, 35-S, 36-D, 36-S, 37-S, 39-S and 40-d... I know a lot of purist will jump all over this "semi-key" list, but for MS-65 I use this list... Anyway, this list increased by $1,388 --- more than 50%... The two key dates (32-D and 32-S) have increased from $7,500 to $16,100 for both coins in MS-65, representing a 115% gain... The change in price, both $ and %) is typical to what many of the graybeards on Cointalk advise... Go for the scarcer dates in the best condition you can afford - the common dates are always available at "reasonable" prices..... In the lower table: Green represents price increases > 100% and yellow represents > 45%....
Ok, checked out the 1932-D and S in most grades using the same Oct 1999 Greysheet versus the latest. The increase in prices in the lower grades were even more dramatic for these two key dates -- see below... Curious as to what others think about different series and their keys, semi-keys and commons...
Thanks for the study. One thing that has not been mentioned is that in 1999 it was a LOT harder to buy washingtons at g/s bid.
I only used Ask prices for this study.. I distinctly recall holding a blast white 40-D in a PCGS MS65 slab, the seller wanted $100 for it and I set it down to think about it...... Came back later and it was one. I bought the 32-D and 32-S in Fine instead for the same $100... Probably did just as well in hindsight...
The data shown also helps to demonstrate that coins are NOT a great investment. Over a ten year period a 50% increase in value is only about a 3% annualized return on investment. Basically just keeping up with inflation. And that was the SEMI-KEYS. The commons were a loser at only an 18% increase. The keys did better but still not great. But the really interesting thing is that the CIRCULATED keys seem to do better than the MS keys.
Very interesting, now where is my time machine?? Even if the coins were relatively poor as an invetment, it is a whole lot more fun looking at coins than a mutual fund portfolio. :thumb:
