The Slabbed Coin Market for Ancient Coins is HOT

Sure! I have several:

Yes, but it wasn’t until late 2019 that it really exploded. I look back at 2019 price results, and I am thinking to myself “those used to be so cheap. I wish I was bidding then.”

They are putting coin vending machines in malls (all slabbed of course). Imagine going to a mall in Italy and seeing a vending machine full of slabbed Roman coins for sale.

Maybe. The nationality of the bidders was confirmed by a heavyweight insider of the ancient coin market.

The Asian branch of PCGS reports that 60% of the stuff they get in is fake.

In some areas, the prices are stabilizing because most of the competition has been priced out. Some areas are just getting started as those collectors move to new areas and drive up the prices.

First, it was big/rare Qing coins and rare Ancient Chinese coins. Then it was big/Rare Ming coins. Then it was scarce/rare Tang/5 Dynasties/Tartar/Yuan coins. Now it is rare Song coins. Next is scarce Song coins.

 

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The underlying assumption behind much of this discussion is that it's erroneous to overpay for coins. But the truth be told, if big bucks were pocket change to me, I'd drop it on coins I wanted, just to make sure I won them. And I'd be happy if the coins had NGC's approval. I trust @Barry Murphy and David Vagi and their crew, and I'd value their opinion as to authenticity, although I'd disregard the grade if it were a coin that strongly appealed to me. (I would remove it from the slab, though.)

We have some very well-heeled collectors on this forum, and they've told us that they sometimes overpay for coins. Take @AncientJoe for example. When he says he overpaid, it probably doesn't mean by the value of a lunch, but by the value of a house. Yet we don't shake our heads and wag our fingers at him. Why is that? Likely because everything he posts reveals his sincere love of numismatics - his appreciation for the high art and history of coinage. In that sense (at the risk of sounding maudlin) the collectors who spend six figures on a coin and the collectors that spend two are united in the common bond which is the spirituality of numismatics, that renders the amount of money spent non sequiter.

As @TypeCoin971793 points out, there's probably a fair share of bidding for social status. It happens in every milieu, and I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Competition fuels much human achievement after all. But the real issue here is whether the collector that paid $10,000 for a $1000 coin got his metaphysical money's worth. Did he feel the same excitement we do when we acquire a new specimen for our collection and wish to share it with like-minded individuals? Did he feel the tangible connection to his ancestors that we do when we hold an ancient coin? Does he appreciate the beauty of the designs and the skill that went into engraving them? If so, then it was money well spent. If not, then the profound value of the coin is lost on him, regardless what he merely paid.

 

@John Anthony - Very, Very well stated. This is the true meaning of Numismaticism!

 

@John Anthony, you expressed some profund views I would be unable to put into words in english, thanks for that

Q

 

I never said it was a bad thing. It’s just different from how all of us in this sub-forum collect.

 

Because he doesn't bid on one third of the lots of every auction and he doesn't flip the coins he wins in the next few months.

 

The information is anecdotal, mainly from my local coin dealer. It's probably not just wealthy Chinese collectors, but also those who are part of the growing middle class as well.

For modern Chinese coins, the price explosion has been quite dramatic, for common crowns, such as the Fat Man dollar, the Sun Yat Sen Memento Dollar, the "Birds over Junk" dollar, and even many dragon dollars which could be purchased in nice condition for $150 to $200, or even less, depending on the type, back in the 1980s-1990s. It seems that the prices really began to inflate in the 2010s to the present, as more collectors and investors entered the market.

 

If you talk to the auctioneers, a lot of coins are going to China and Japan these days. It's not just anecdotal. Not much different than the 2005-2013 period (give or take) when a lot of gold was going to Russian collectors.

Barry Murphy

 

The following story may illustrate a point.

I don't invest in ancient coins, but I do invest in real estate. My wife is a RE agent, and some years ago she listed a home for $500k. It was worth roughly that much. Numerous parties were interested in it, and finally a Chinese buyer offered $900k cash, and won it. FWIW, that home is now worth over $2M.

She later travelled to China (twice) to work with buyers there, and learned a bit about their habits. They tended to invest only in certain markets, and only specific neighborhoods and home types within those markets. Her house was in one of those neighborhoods, and since they also tend to not have a strong understanding of prices, they bid more in terms of their means than the market.

Until about two years ago, Chinese buyers dominated in our area. Recently, though, they've been getting outbid by Californians, who see our area as well-priced compared to CA.

Now, my wife and I invest in real estate. Do we just outbid the Californians? No. We buy very different things, and have done very well with that. While we have been seeing more competition from NYC investment groups, we don't worry today about Chinese or Californians.

What does this have to do with coins? Recently, I won a nice bronze at auction. It doesn't look great, but only 7 copies were listed on ACSearch and it's a critical component of my story goal. I got it for roughly the estimate.

So, if you do decide today to compete on the nicest-quality well-known coins out there, you're likely to compete against some well-heeled foreign buyers. However, if you focus on what you're buying and you grow your collection through research and painful searching, you'll find there are still many decently priced coins available.

In that case, you don't really need to worry about a few coins receiving ridiculous prices or people paying too much for slabs.

 

Very interesting.... I wonder if the vending machines with slabbed coins give change in raw coins.

 

I found a Roman denarius with Pegasus up for auction! ^_^

Current bid is at $180..idk what it’s worth though.

 

The listing should have a catalog reference. From there it's trivial to determine the value...

 

It's a nice example, probably nicer than mine, although as always I find it impossible to "see" slabbed coins properly. You could join acsearch and see what similar examples have sold for -- the annual fee isn't that high in my opinion for anyone who spends four figures annually on coins. Also, don't some of the sites like Numisbids offer free searches of previous auction results? Or you could look on Vcoins or MA-Shops to see the retail prices currently being asked for the type.

 

For the bargain shoppers when it coms to prices that don't cost, I prefer searching past CNG sales realizing that they tend to get better prices for better coins. We might also mention that this moneyer also issued the reverse with an obverse head of Liber (Bacchus). I suppose most people prefer the Mutinus Titinus head even though NGC did not make the distinction. Do all NGC slabs of this type read Bacchus or Liber? I agree that it is hard to judge the coin in the slab from that photo. The 3/5 for surface indicates faults not easily seen under these circumstances. My coin has some tone but is terribly flatly struck obscuring the distinctive head decor that identifies the god..

 

Yes, I forgot to mention CNG as a good, free resource for past sales -- limited to their own auctions, of course -- going back almost 20 years.

My example of the type is not wonderful -- it's no Corinth stater! -- but it's certainly nice enough for me, and I paid $165 for it a couple of years ago as a retail purchase from Aeternitas in Spain (with no buyer's fee, of course). Probably about a quarter of what I paid for the stater, which is ex Roma from a 2015 auction. Here are the two:



(By the way, I didn't look that carefully and didn't even notice that the NGC slab inexplicably identifies the head as Bacchus or Liber rather than Mutinus Titius or Priapus. The two types look nothing alike, and all the catalogs like Crawford, RSC, etc. distinguish between them and specifically identify the former as "young" Bacchus or Liber.)

 

My guess is $500-$700.

 

My unslabbed owl for a fraction of the cost.