Ah, US coin collectors....

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by medoraman, Jul 1, 2020.

  1. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    I didn't want to be disrespectful on the US thread so am posting here. I was just laughing. They had a question about value of a "rare" 1878 CC silver dollar. Here is the link posted showing auction history.

    https://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/details/1878-cc-ms/7080?dtc=false

    The reason I was laughing is it is only one date/mm combination for a Morgan. They have dozens upon dozens. It is the "rare" CC mintmark, (probably tens of millions survive). Just for that one "rare" date/mm combination, the link shows sales of almost 10,000 examples over 12 years.

    Boy, definitions of "rare" are sure arbitrary huh? A common coin in our world has maybe a few thousand in existence, save for things like certain LRB, Judaic copper, and Athenian owls. We have "scarce" coins that maybe 15 are sold over a 12 year period. A rare coin may not come on the market for your lifetime.

    Sorry, I think I have just been around ancients too long. US collectors are now hilarious to me. :)
     
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  3. furryfrog02

    furryfrog02 Well-Known Member

    I enjoy US coinage. It's where I caught the collecting bug. That being said, The definition of "rare" and the prices they bring (especially for ugly Morgan dollars) is beyond me.
    I like searching boxes of cents for wheats, varieties, and errors, but I'm so glad that I found ancients.
     
  4. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    It gets better:

    «Product Details
    In April 2020, 240,000 Silver Eagles were minted in Philadelphia while operations were temporarily disrupted at the West Point Mint due to the coronavirus pandemic, making this the second rarest bullion issue Silver Eagle in the series' 34 year history.

    With a mintage of only 240,000, the 2020 Philadelphia Silver Eagle is among the rarest bullion issue Silver Eagles, second only to the 2015 Philadelphia issue.»

    Think we’re about to blow the Sheldon scale for rarity here.

    One of the advantages of living in Scandinavia, is that very few people collect US coins or ancient coins, so when no one else was looking, I spent 70$ buying;

    C38227F1-3D85-4449-99E7-6F405A822677.jpeg

    Like @furryfrog02 , I like US coins very much. But I don’t like the collecting racket.
     
  5. Restitutor

    Restitutor Well-Known Member

    Lol! I agree with you on the hilarious part. No disrespect meant but collecting newer coins like that reminds me of Beanie Babies - when everyone is treating them as collector items from the beginning are they actually rare/really worth anything? My Princess Diana beanie baby hasn't yet reached a valuation high enough to pay off my student loans so maybe I'm just jaded :drowning:

    Ancient coins are where it's at :cigar: But to each his/her own!
     
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  6. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    Oh, I found a coin with an error! It must be rare and worth $$$. That's kind of the U.S. coin mentality. Who cares? (respectfully submitted).
     
  7. furryfrog02

    furryfrog02 Well-Known Member

    Oh jeez, don't get me started on the stupid 2020 Silver Eagle "Philadelphia Emergency Mintage"....Such a scam. There is absolutely NOTHING different between a West Point and a Philly minted coin except the box it was shipped from the mint in.
     
  8. furryfrog02

    furryfrog02 Well-Known Member

    Hey now, there are some interesting error coins when it comes to US coins:
    No Date CUD 2.5g.jpg 1979P Obv Lam All.jpg 19__ Off Center.jpg 1982 Planchet Indent.jpg 2006 Struck Through Die Cap.jpg
     
  9. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I laughed at this, too. Actually it was not the US collectors I found funny but the fact that the post came from the only Coin Talk ancients regular poster that I know is building a collection of Roll sets. Be honest, how many Varhran II family coins are enough? Admittedly there are as many variations of these as there are dates of some US varieties so you might need twenty or thirty rolls to make a set. oa0590bb2599.jpg

    I have to wonder how many of the turbo-rare 2020 silver Eagles currently belong to one person/group? If I wanted to know I might need to listen to Home Shopping Network but the fact is that I shall endure in ignorance. I might ask how many on one coin currently resides in the medoraman hoard but that would be unkind.:shame: I do fear that a thousand years from now archaeologists will describe this hoard as certain proof that the ancients 'discovered' America.
     
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  10. DonnaML

    DonnaML Well-Known Member

    I'm surprised to hear that, and wonder why that's the case. After all, isn't the Royal Collection in the Danish National Museum, as memorialized in the 43 volumes of the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Copenhagen, one of the greatest collections of ancient coins in the world?
     
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  11. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    Oh I found a crusty heavily worn poorly made round covered in junk and verdigris and everything else under the sun I have to clean. Who cares? (respectfully submitted)

    Clearly some of you have no respect for that area of collecting and saying it's respectful doesn't actually make it. You can make large criticisms out of any area of collecting and none is superior to the others.

    If anything you should be thankful we all engage in different aspects of the hobby, if everyone wanted the exact same thing unless you're a multimillionaire you'd never be able to buy anything.

    Collect what you like but lets not be jerks to people for having different tastes in what they enjoy
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2020
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  12. svessien

    svessien Senior Member

    There are more ancient coin collectors in Denmark, that is true. There is a much greater variety in the Danish numismatic community in general, than in Norway. Jetons and tokens seem quite popular, and that is an area that demands dedication.
    The Danes are often a bit thrifty, though. Many Danish ancient coin collections will have a majority of coins in F-VF. I also get the impression that they have some awareness not to inflate the values of rare Danish coins too, as opposed to Norwegians (and Americans).
    Norwegian collectors tend to be quite close-minded, I’m sorry to say. But we have a small but quite knowledgable community of ancient coin collectors. Not sure how it is in Sweden, but probably closer to Denmark than Norway.
     
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  13. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    My sentiments exactly. It is a marketing brainwash, and they all drink the Kool-Aid.

    I have been in Manufacturing for 40 years. Machine made ANYTHING will have numerous "cool" mistakes. Most of which get scrapped, so that we have no complaints from our consumers. Modern coin errors, etc. are kinda a joke to me. Those errors are a non-event in my eyes, and we just scrapped them. Today, there are all kinds of sorting and reading technologies that are able to detect manufacturing errors on the fly. Awesome technologies. I feel the mints strategically release errors just to keep excitement in collecting. Due to the costs of manufacturing vs. the value of the coin (save for Cents and Nickels), there is a hefty margin reaped by the mints (yeah, seigniorage). It was that realization to me, and the Millions, if not BILLIONS of coins manufactured YEARLY that made me realize... WHAT A CROCK. :D

    I dumped 90% of my Moderns Collection before the Plastic-Tomb Boom. I have kept a few cool coins, but the interest is Sooooo limited to me when you change a coin by changing its date and mint mark. Big deal.

    NEXT!
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2020
  14. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    Lol. Thanks for the laugh. :)

    How many Vahrans are enough? Well, there are 4 princes, then the King and prince types, the king and queen only, etc. Anyone with SNS knows there are a TON.

    However, your point would be the "roll set". Fair enough. I like what I like. I also have been around long enough to know to buy into hoards, so things like the current Vahran V hoard I am buying, (have bought maybe 100 Vahran V/Yadzgird I in the last few months). If I saw a group lot of Vahran II like my avatar you can GUARANTEE I would bid. :) Heck, dirty little secret, I was a bidder on a Cleo VII/Antony tet CNG had a couple of auctions back, the same type I own. I like the coin type.

    I don't know why I keep buying the scarce Anonymous bronzes like Class E, F, H and J whenever I see them although I have (at least) triple sets by now of them. I like the coins, I like their rarity, I don't know. I simply have NEVER had the "one of each" compulsion like so many collectors. I like what I like, I like recognizing long term good deals like hoards and group lots, and I simply buy what I like.

    Its a hobby, a way to relax. I guess we each do it are own way. I like to Scrooge McDuck it sometimes.
     
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  15. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    To be fair @baseball21 I posted this in the Ancients section out of respect for others. Of course everyone can choose how to collect, of course every coin is collectible, I was simply trying to have some fun amongst ancient collectors of what some call "rare". You have to admit a 1916D dime is not even by a factor of 1000 a "rare" coin. Relative rarity, series rarity, but not a "rare" coin.

    Just good natured fun and I wished it only appeared in the ancients section, not the "new thread" section.
     
  16. Alegandron

    Alegandron "ΤΩΙ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΙ..." ΜΕΓΑΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ, June 323 BCE

    NAILED IT!
     
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  17. baseball21

    baseball21 Well-Known Member

    Yes very few things are actually rare no arguments there. I was simply pointing out an aspect that I think some of the posters had missed in that there are plenty of criticisms that can come back at them for what they like and no aspect of collecting is superior to another.

    I actually don't have a problem with your post and do think there's a lot of good matured ribbing that could happen back and forth, it always just kinda gets me when what should be fun looks more like a superiority type comment.
     
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  18. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    No intention to be a jerk. I once found one of those 1943 steel pennies in my change. That was pretty exciting. All in jest, compadre.
     
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  19. Suarez

    Suarez Well-Known Member

    The part that you're missing is that rarity is subjective. You can talk about absolute rarity (a mintage of one is undeniably rare) but what most people mean when they discuss rarity is really availability. To take this to the extreme a mintage-of-one coin that comes to market on average every year isn't rare in the sense that you can expect it to be on the market again soon enough. Similarly, that they may have made enough of those Morgans to fill a Walmart back in the day makes little difference if you can't find one to buy today.

    Rasiel
     
  20. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    I understand. Let's take a normal coin show. Let's make it a big one to have the best chance to have ancients there. Maybe FUN or ANA.

    Ok, let's choose some coins to search for. Don't choose common ones like Athenian tets or 1881 S Morgans. Let's choose something labelled scarce/rare. For US, maybe a 1889 cc silver dollar, 1877 cent, and a reeded edge Capped Bust half. For ancients, pick a random Syracusan silver, (your choice of type in advance), a Irene solidus, and a Tet of Antiochos I. Want to lay odds on who can find their coins?

    I actually LIKE real rarity. I like that I can not simply open up my wallet and buy any coin I want, (within price range). In ancients, I have waited a decade to buy a coin labelled "scarce". When I collected US coins, nearly every coin I wanted was available at every large show. Yes, and they were all labelled "rare".

    So, I am completely with you about availability. In ancients, I cannot be picky about a coin, if I want one many times that means accepting a coin as it is, because I may not see another for sale for years. In US collecting, they have so many to choose from, when they do not own it, it is simply due to not finding the right grade, or color, or price. AN EXAMPLE of almost any of them is available at every large show.

    I just bought a Vahran I obol. Think many shows have that? How about an early contemporary copy of an Antiochus Ai Khanoum horse? I have looked for one for 15 years, and finally found ONE for sale. That is exactly what is fun for me, the search because many of our pieces truly are rare and unavailable.

    Yes, US coins have some of these, 1894s dime, 1822 half eagle, etc. They are all well known, million dollar coins. Our equivalent rarities can be $200.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2020
  21. Roman Collector

    Roman Collector Well-Known Member

    Of course, in ancient numismatics, there is nothing more common than a rare coin. Each of us has several.
     
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