Some basic questions on high-end coins

The interesting thing I've noticed about modern sports cards is they have a high "initial" value. The most valuable cards are found in very expensive boxes that have only a few cards. Recently my son sold a box that was $500 and had one card. The buyer was hoping to get a $300k card (the best for the box), but actually got a $400 card. That's the norm. My belief is the reason that $300k card is worth $300k, is that one would need to purchase more than 600 of these boxes to get one.

When a quarter is first released, it's worth a quarter - same as the other ones. Rarity and condition increase its value over time, and the ultimate value of that quarter today is a function of how rare it is, the history behind the quarter, how desirable the artistry is, and its condition.

Modern sports cards of course do go up in down in value depending on the performance of the player. In that respect modern card collecting is more akin to the stock market than a collectibles market.

Personally, I collect for history and not for value. Last Fathers' Day, my son gave me some basketball cards and there was a Zion Williamson one inside. I thanked him profusely, and did appreciate the card since I went to Duke and am a Zion Williamson fan, but I also politely mentioned that next door to his card store is a coin store that carries a few ancients, and if he ever happened to get me one of those it would be among my most cherished possessions.

 

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It seems being a collector is part of the human condition, at least for some humans. Maybe a mild type of disfunction akin to OCD - being irrated by something (a set of things) being incomplete, or excessively compelled to complete it?

Curtis Clay (numismatist) once noted that one of the (main?) motivators of coin collectors is to make other collectors jealous, which has some ring of truth to it! Maybe not the prime motivator, but certainly a component. After all, who else can really understand how special your latest shiny thing is, other than another collector?! Maybe this is a reason some people are drawn to collecting modern stuff - because it may be easier to find like-minded people to share it with and try to impress!

Of course nostalgia is part of it too when it comes to collecting things you may have owned in your youth, such as baseball cards or comics.

What I personally like about collecting roman coins (specifically Constantine), is the element of discovery in that the history is only partially known, as are the things you are collecting. It's fun to be able to put together the jigsaw pieces.

 

Another reason I believe collecting coins is better long term than modern sports cards. If a player gets injured, his card value decreases. Coin values are more consistent than modern card values.

 

Gosh...and I thought a few of my coins valued in the hundreds were "high-end!"

 

I kept mine loose in my pocket. I had a Mantle but I don't know if it was a rookie. We played a game with the cards where we hit a ball with the card held in out cupped hand and measured the success by how far it landed from a fielder card laid out in the grass. If a kid had his cards in a sleeve, the other kids would have called him names.

There will be no tears shed here when everyone who is only into ancient coins as a 'side gig' moves on to beer cans or whatever. If all ancients dropped in price 90%, I could buy 10x as many.

I always disagreed with Curtis on that one but he probably might be right about most collectors. However I know collectors that have more than I do and who do not tell people they collect.

I guess my cards would all be worthless. Most of those guys have been dead for years.

Of people who read Coin Talk, what percentage could name more Roman Emperors than they could professional athletes who appear on sports cards? There are only a couple hundred Romans. My Grandson can name that many Pokemon. He does not follow sports.

 

Well, to be fair, none of us will own either one a few hundred years from now.

 

This can happen in other ways for coins. My Athens tet was sold at CNG in 2005 for $2500. I purchased it last year in a CNG auction for a fraction of that.

This was no huge piece of luck on my part. I got it so cheap because someone happened to find a hoard of tens of thousands of tets in the meantime and the market price plunged.

Similarly, there's been a regular fluctuation of rarity vs condition in terms of the major factor determining a coin's price.

 

I would rather have coins BUT has anyone heard of a couple of baseball players named "shoeless Joe" or "Honus Wagner" I might change my mind if I owned either of those that command MEGA MEGA BUCKS.
JMO
Semper Fi

 

I've written this before, but here's how I see all collectors. Everyone's somewhere in the middle of the triangle.
Investment - buys solely with the hope it will increase in value
Exclusivity - buys to be able to show it off
Intrinsic - buys because the collectible connects or interests him/her in some way

 

I'm Like in the poorman '55 group. Therefore, no opinion.

 

Fascinating. Not the part about shipping, but the business model of "breaking" sports card boxes. I had never heard of that before.

 

https://shipandinsure.com/ is how I insure coins/collectibles I sell in the mail. Cheap and effective.

discounted if you have an ngc membership

 

at great collections, my initial limit was 8,000.00, i wrote them and they upped it to 12,500..then a week later i asked again (was bidding on over 800 lots, won 2, and a batch of 5) the final is now 28,000 i believe..

 

ok, then please explain this: if he pulls the million dollar card, he only got whatever he sold the slot for be it 5.00 or 100.00, so it is not a million dollar sale, it may be worth it, and the customer is always responsible for insurance in this industry...so, why would it be a problem??

 

or found gambling or using drugs, or has an affair, or beats his wife, or shoots his fighting pitbulls, or or or..lol yup, i will stick to coins, i did dabble in cards maybe 40 years ago, but got out of it quick...

 

they have auctions that are akin to this..you pay 5.00 for 10 "bids" each bid is worth 1 cent, you have to pay for the right to bid, bidding starts at a penny (for some items, even bars of gold i have seen, or tv's or vacations) and each person then bids at 1 cent increments till your "bids" are used up, then you need o buy another block of 10..the person has a one ounce bar of gold up..it might sell for 300.00 (i have seen this in real life) but think about it, first the dealer gets the 300.00 bid for the item....also he sold 30,000 slots at 50 cents per shot, so that is another 15,.000.00 he made for the ounce of gold ...bids last 5 minits i believe, and if someone outbids you (by one cent) the clock restarts to 5 minits, and on and on..whoever thought of this is a genius...it is legalized lottery...

 

Yes. My son only earns what the slot sells for, but he still has to get the card to the buyer. You're correct that the buyer pays for the shipping, but my son's still responsible for recommending a secure way to ship the card - hence my question.

 

As yet another tangent, my son recently mentioned this "deal" with the possibility of ancient coins from a company that normally deals in sports memorabilia.

He asked me if the coins were valuable, and I responded that I have coins from most of these emperors/cities, and paid around $50 each for them. I guess you do get a nice NGC certificate and case...

 

I am able to name all of them including a few usurpers, of course. And in order, along with their wives and kids up to about Claudius II. I cannot say the same about the US presidents, I'm sorry to say.