2017 Blue Book (R.S. Yeoman) prices

IDK if this is true but:
"The Blue Book is a coin price guide that informs you on the approximate amount of money you can expect to get if you sell your coins to a coin dealer."

 

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If you haven't yet perused the previous and the current "Mega-Red" Whitman guides, I strongly suggest you do. We are presently in "Year #2" of its existence. Both seem to still be available. It covers both the sublime and the profane, in one big honkin' volume. Each year has and will have a section of GREATLY expanded coverage - Large Cents last year, Small Cents this year, maybe 2c's and 3c's next year. I'm tempted to stop getting regular garden variety Red Books.

 

I am immune to logic? You actually think I fail to grasp your claims? I understand them completely. I reject them because there is no basis for your macro claim, at all.

First, I never said claimed these coins should not be collected and for you to state it is a distortion of my comments. I disagree most will ever be worth what you imply but that is a different consideration entirely.

Second, let me take one of your claims. There is no "natural" state. It is a fiction of your invention and you cannot demonstrate otherwise. There is no requirement for any coin to have a minimum popularity, much less that collectors have to share your arbitrary preferences in the proportion you demand and pay the exorbitant prices your macro theory implies these coins should be worth. No one else has to conform to this ridiculous theory you invented.

In one of our prior debates, I already explained to you what likely accounted for preferences in your baseline scenario which presumably was from about 1933 to 1964 in the US. If you need me to copy and paste this post, I will do so. What I explained, it certainly contradicts your claims but it makes a lot more sense.

The most ridiculous aspect when we discussed this before is that you claimed it was a lack of wealth. Well, this is false because there are potentially hundreds of millions of people worldwide who have the financial capacity to collect at similar levels to US collectors today, yet they do not. Your theory cannot explain why those who can afford to do so now don't but it explains why they will later? The reason why they do not is cultural which you completely ignore.

I have never disputed there cannot be 10 million collectors, or 15 million minimum as you claimed before. What I told you is that this scale of collecting will never occur in our lifetime above nominal prices where it will matter to anyone reading our posts. In this other debate, you claimed your theory would occur in 20 years. This was three years ago which leaves 17 years for you to be proven correct. Am I still supposed to agree with you that you will be right in 17 years? If so, based upon what?

When we had this extended debate, we get to the end and then it turns out that you were making a big deal of "exploding" prices which disproportionately are for coins which are still only worth a few USD and this after 30 to 40 years. It is financially irrelevant. As I told you, I have already made more money from South Africa Union and ZAR than at least 95% if not 99% of all modern collectors will ever make in their entire life.

Lastly, let me address your example of 1963 Indian aluminum coins. Like the Buffalo nickel, it may be widely collected but if it is, it will disproportionately be at nominal prices which are also financially irrelevant because recent US classics are not nearly as preferred as you apparently believe and most of them also sell at nominal prices.

 

Of course there's a natural state for everything. The natural state of a pendulum is at its lowest point because it's the average no matter how far it's swinging or not swinging. The natural state for coin collecting is the vector sum total of all the beliefs and premises of coin collectors. Naturally some will collect moderns and more will collect older coins. All investors don't buy IBM stock and all collectors don't collect antique cars or modern coins. But in 1995 virtually all coin collectors collected old US coins. This is not natural and the pendulum is still in transition. One year peaches are delicious and the next year you should stick to cherries. The better fruit is always cheaper too. If you just do different than everyone else you'll buy low/ sell high and do your cherry picking when prices are most favorable. You'll buy IBM when the blood is in the streets and sell when your cabby tells you buy.

Mebbe you've done so well on ZAR through mere coincidence. Coincidence will run it's course even as the cycles continue forever.

People are people. Of course there are culktural differences but even culture evolves and is subject tothe same cycles as everything else. Some of these cultural cycles can be longer term but just because there might be few collectors in Saudi Arabia (or anywhere) today hardly means there won't be hundreds or thousands in ten years. The culture doesn't have to change for simple human propensities to manifest in behavior. It is exactly this sort of thing that can drive cultural change because culture is more about habit than belief.

Where do you get ideas or numbers like this? When I was a child all my friends were collectors. Why is it so imposibble there can't be far larger numbers of collectors? I'm merely suggesting that if the numbers stay static that modern demand will soar.

Tomatoe/ tomato.

It's still early for moderns.

This ois your modern bashing showing. You're assuming that because the coins were made in huge numbers that they are common. You think they will come out of the woodwork with higher prices. I keep telling you we live in a disposable world and everything has been thrown away that wasn't saved. These coins have been disposed.

 

I believe the Blue Book prices are out of date before they go to print. I think the prices contained in the Blue Book are set about a year before they go to print. I haven't used one in almost 50 years.

 

You cannot demonstrate your "natural" theory. Where is your evidence (not your personal opinion) for it and how does it apply to moderns? And when I say evidence, I am talking about relevant evidence, not from some other area which has nothing to do with the subject as you attempted to use before.

Do you remember when I used the examples of the ASE versus the Washington quarter and then the 2C and 3CN? You didn't have an explanation for it, did you? What is your explanation now?

If your theory is correct, how is it that collectors - including YOUNGER collectors - prefer the ASE over the clad quarter by what, at least 100-1 measured by the number of collectors spending the same money? Do they "hate" moderns like you claim I do?

With the 2C and 3CN, as I told you, both of these series have been at or near the bottom of the preference scale since inception. Do I need to repost my comments to show the contradiction in your theory?

As for your comments on Saudi Arabia, I was specifically referring to your prior prediction with your prior timeframe of 20 years, not 1000 years form now when we will both be long dead. You actually believe that people will just wake up one day and decide to become collectors, even in a culture such as this one which has effectively a zero tradition?

I don't need to disprove your statement that any number of people "might" decide to become collectors in a country such as this one because you have provided no basis to believe your claim.

 

Your claim is no different than the purported recent estimate that up to 50 million collected State Quarters. If you told me one billion would ultimately collect in the same manner, I would concede it to you because it is financially irrelevant.

In my subsequent comments, I specifically stated at "meaningful prices". And by "meaningful", I am specifically excluding the irrelevant appreciation in our prior exchanges.

The number of modern collectors will not soar if the base remains static because your demographic claim is unsubstantiated. I have already agreed with you that collectors in 1965 were biased but this does not mean that younger collectors will have anymore near the same preference for moderns you claim. It certainly does not show up in the prices because there are plenty of younger collectors who can pay much higher prices for moderns who do not.

As I explained to you before, the only data evident in US modern prices is from the same collecting practices for US coins generally: TPG, registry sets and specialization such as die varieties.

 

Totally and completely wrong. In our prior exchange here, I specifically addressed this subject. Let me repeat myself now.

In a financial context, I divide moderns into three groups: your gems as a proxy for “grade rarities”, the coins I described (predominantly PCGS MS-66) and all others.

Your gems will never be owned or bought by more than a tiny fraction of the collector base within any modern series and are irrelevant to at least 99.9% of all (future) collectors of US moderns, never mind anyone else. The same applies to most coins within a specialization (such as those obscure die varieties you think are so significant). Additionally, many if not most of these gems are either already expensive or relatively overpriced and there isn’t necessarily any reason to believe the prospects are financially favorable either.

For coins below MS-66, except if collected within a specialization, the probability that any of them will be worth more than nominal amounts later is essentially zero. It can happen in isolation but still no reason to believe it will be anything other than financially irrelevant.

This leaves the coins which were the focus of my comments; the “undergrade”, usually a PCGS MS-66. This is the “best” quality most likely to be owned by any noticeable number of collectors which simultaneously has any potentially meaningful financial prospects. This is why my comments focused on this segment, not your gems.

Like I told you in my last reply, I can support my claim now just as I have in the past, that this third group’s financial prospects are nowhere near your (prior or implied) claims and also disproportionately financially irrelevant.

If you claim otherwise as I suspect, this is why I brought up the Buffalo nickel. Like moderns, most Buffalo nickels sell for nominal prices and so do most coins in the most widely collected classic series. None of these coins are "rare" and neither are moderns except for your "gems". Like these classics, there is zero reason to believe that appreciation on all other moderns will be meaningful either.

Lastly, like I told you before, the internet has made your claims obsolete, even assuming they had any merits which they do not. There is no reason to believe that collectors will find the coins you like so compelling when they can choose from at least 250,000 coins and maybe 10,000 series.

 

And here I thought you ages older.........you're wise beyond your years my young friend.

 

Are you for real? That is some of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard of...

 

People can collect what they choose. If they prefer 2c pieces or silver eagles to clad quarters it doesn't mean thgey hat clads. But it's not natural for everybody or nobody to collect any given US coin. When such things occur it's an anomaly that is unlikely to persist indefinitely.

You seem awful sure there are no coin collectoirs in Saudi Arabia. I just picked a country that it seemed collecting wouldn't be popular to use as an example. Do youhave friends or contacts there? I used to correspond with collectors all over the world in order to understand current markets and get information topredict changes but I never had a corerespondant in Saudi Arabia. Maybe there weren't any, I don't know.

 

As I said several posts back about why it wouldn't be productive for us to try to reach some sort of consensus; we have very different perspectives. I watched one area after another become popular and then fade from the scene in coin collecting. From your perspective things seem static or normal but from mine I'm seeing three decades when the vast majority of US coin collectors like old US coins.

In my time almost everything has been popular and as baby boomers retire and a new generation of coin collectors who are less US, less male, and less old school we'll see coin collecting shaken from its current stasis. Nothing lasts forever even if the current coin market seems like it. As new blood and far more people enter the hobby it must change because the hobby is about people and the demand they generate and not about what you or I deem is a worthy coin to collect.

I don't know what the future holds but just like in ALL times I'm predicting "change". I'm predicting massive change in a very brief period; 10- 15 years.

 

It's going to take an unprecedented increase in demand for clads to really percolate. It may take the dying off of guys who "remember 1965" personally. On the other hand, I too think gem clads have a future. My poison is NGC MS67's, not PCGS MS66's, and the odd PL in any grade. Denver Kennedies have that happening.

 

I like modern commemorative halves. There is a split feeling about them among some dealers and LCS's in my area. Some over price them, making sure in my opinion NOT to sell them. I am speaking in generalities here. Certain modern halves command a premium, take a look at the 1996 Olympic series. Other halves sell for bargain prices. The best I've gotten was a 92 Olympic half for 3.75.

I collect them all raw so I don't know the market very well for the graded ones.

 

I slammed Krause earlier in this thread.

I just spent an hour looking over the first edition I've seen since the mess that was the 2015. They responded in that edition to charges that pricing for moderns was all over the place by lowering some of the prices that were too high and leaving most other things unchanged.

This new edition is far better and I can even endorce it provisionally. One should know the country before accepting any of these prices; some still tend high and many are ridiculously low. They're listing more range in BU which seems to better reflect the real market but be wary of new grades as some countries have very high quality coinage and Gems can be nearly the norm in some cases. The real world doesn't well support some of the very high prices listed in MS-65.

Be this as it may this still shows the prices of moderns exploding higher. Unless you're investing or just buying the common moderns you're doing extremely well. US moderns listed in this issue have the same problems as all of Numis News/ Krause price reporting for moderns. Grading problems and lack of reporting in any widely collected grades vastly distort the market for newbies.

 

Indeed.

I've been wrong about this unprecedented increase in demand for 30 years and it's possible I'll never be right but the fact is that when demand is so tiny it only takes a few new collectors to increase demand dramatically. I expect this to occur because clads are US coins and just as historically important as large cents or Morgan dollars. Clads were around when man flew to the moon and were there to see the internet arise. 200,000,000 Americans have grown up with them and many have never known anything else.

 

And your claims are exactly what?

 

I am not saying there aren't any. What I am telling you is that most countries have no tradition of collecting which is why both moderns and classics are not widely collected, whether locally or anywhere else.

I have used Bolivia as an example many times because it is one I collect and know well. There is no tradition of collecting in that country and it isn't visible, anywhere.

The prospective collector faces numerous obstacles in a country like this one.

First, most of the quality coins (the few that exist) are located elsewhere. So yes, they can collect current coinage out of pocket change but not much else.

Second,. if they decide to collect anyway, not only will they have difficulty buying coins, but equally so selling them because there is no market for them locally.

Third, many countries also have problems with their postal service, like South Africa. Its something collectors in the United States don't give much thought to unless they have bought from elsewhere and experienced it firsthand.

I presume Bolivia and Saudia Arabia have some collectors but even if they do, the lack of a collecting tradition means that the coins are much scarcer than the developed world and there isn't much to buy anyway.

I don't believe most non-US collectors care much about the quality standards used in the US and not just for UNC. But even so, I can tell you that for a country like Bolivia, there aren't enough decent coins available for more than a very low number of collectors to complete any earlier decimal series (the one I collect) and probably the preceding fractional coinage either.

 

In my post exchanges with cladking here, I was focusing on our differences but there are areas of common agreement between us.

In the past, I have agreed that because of the very limited number of buyers it takes to move the highest graded coins, this is a realistic possibility.

 

Understood. One thing I'd love to know is why Denver can strike PL clad coins (and occasionally San Fran too in the $25 bags of ATB quarters), but Philly seemingly can't. Their output looks more "frosty".

After the Winter ANA show in Dallas, I went over to the historic district and "shot" (photographically) a slabbed MS65PL Kennedy half in Dealey Plaza, and again from the "grassy knoll". That's an insight into my sense of humor.