Are coins in a BUBBLE?

Hey Clad good to here from you again.

 

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Been busy fighting war(s).

Clad's day is coming though it may be a few more generations yet.

The biggest thing it has going for it is that it's so far out of favor it probably couldn't get further out. Well, there's also the fact that millions are collecting states coins and other moderns so these seem to be next in line?

 

Praise the Lord I'm a collector and not an investor. I'll loose my shorts but who the heck gives a dang?

 

Agree with the 1989 and 2008 top analysis.

 

I don't know, I agree with some of the other posts, most young people don't have the cash to buy anything even if they wanted to. I've suspected that the real driving force supporting coin prices long-term, is the arrival of new collectors in middle-age who have the money to throw around on coins. Think Marjorie Hendershot, the one time president of the Central States Numismatic Society. She didn't buy her first coin until she was 50 years old.

 

The price of precious metals has been at an all-time high in the last several years. If silver goes down, the lower-end older varieties are more easily obtained. Kids ask mommy and daddy for things and they take up a huge slice of the marketing demographic.

I asked a dealer recently about the ages of collectors he sees and he said it was mostly kids or older folks, less people around my age (20-30's).

If wealthy people ever take investing in coins seriously, that is a lot more money than an influx of new collectors. It is a collector's market right now. I'm not sure what happened in the 80's but it was obviously speculation. People were trying it out. I think the internet could change the mentality in that respect. You aren't buying coins and selling them at half-price anymore, as long as you know how to use eBay.

People have been collecting coins for thousands of years. I doubt demand will just suddenly vanish. It's one of the more popular collectables, right there next to art. If you look at the numbers and account for inflation I don't think the market on average has much room to go *anywhere* but UP. Then again, I could be wrong.

I doubt it. They are way too common and will always be that way. It's a fad, but it might be a driving factor for interest in the hobby.

It's kind of like music. New genres appear all the time but they will never topple over the classics, like Mozart, Mendelssohn, Rossini, etc.

 

Kids who started collecting states coins willfilter back into the hobby for years yet. A six year old in 1999 is still only 21 and doesn't have the disposable income or the time to be collecting coins.

Be patient.

The problem with moderns, if anything, has always been that they are too scarce for a mass market. Rare moderns cost a tiny fraction of what rare old coins cost.

 

Scarce? Maybe I'm missing something here.

To which coins are you referring?

US moderns and state coins are anything *but* scarce, yet you have people slabbing them left and right, going for the MS/PF-70's (if you believe in such a thing). I've seen so many modern coins slabbed it makes me wonder what the heck people are thinking? If you look at the census numbers it should be obvious they won't ever be a rarity. Not when you have 483 coins in that same grade, slabbed by the same TPG...

 

True. Rare old coins are actually rare. Looking at mintages of modern coins and comparing them to mintages of old coins makes one serious mistake. Survival. The percentage of washington half's is going to be orders of magnitude above a coin with the same mintage but 150 years older. So supply and demand kicks in. You want an old coin in nice condition then you have to bid it out with other buyers. You want a modern? They grow on trees.

False. The price moves with supply. If they were as scarce as you think the prices would be much higher. Were there this mass market you are referring to available then the old rare coins would go even higher then these scarce modern coins. I can already buy a gold kennedy half for less then issue price. Something to think about.

 

But cladking is mainly interested (from his posting history) in condition rarities such as high grade gem early clad business strike coinage (60s and 70s quarters in particular) when he refers to 'moderns' not the 'minted to be collectibles' the Mint churns out (commemoratives, proofs, etc).

I'm beginning to agree with him. One of my interested now is acquiring high grade raw quarters, dimes and nickels right now, because they are starting to veer into the 'scarce' category.

 

I agree with Clad that young people are going to go into moderns. I think especially they will flock to world coins. A 30 year old world coin is: "like really old, dawg" when your 15.

Those who see moderns and labels, concensus grading etc as just a big game (as many do) are not only wasting their time expressing it, they're giving Y'ers even more reason to go into moderns. Y'ers are gamesters. They were breed and born on games-bring it on. And don't worry, the TPGs will be happy to.

 

Rare moderns are no less rare than rare classics. Have you looked at the numbers of coins like '75-no S dimes or 1964 clad quarters? There are lots of moderns that are very scarce or rare and lots that are quite uncommon. Try finding a nice attractive 1969 quarter in BU. There are thousands and thousands in mint sets but most of the mint sets are gone now and the ones that are left still contain the junky coins they did in 1969. There aren't enough nice attractive coins of many dates to supply a mass market and this could be a problem someday if collectors don't want junky coins.

There were fewer 1982 dimes made without a mintmark than there are '16-D dimes but even the ugliest '16-D in pitiful condition will bring more than a choice '82. The ironic thing is that the regular issue '82-P dime is so scarce in nice condition that it can bring more in Gem than the version without a mint mark.

Just because a coin had a high mintage doesn't make it common and just because a modern is scarcer than a classic doesn't make it valuable.

 

A lot of moderns made for circulation are scarce even in chBU.

This sounds incredible but it's true. If you define chBU as a well made coin from good dies that is still relatively mark free (MS-63+ and better) some coins like a '76-P type I or a '69 quarter are highly elusive. Sure, you can find one but only because someone tried to make a high grade and missed. You'll find one only because nobody is collecting these coins. If they were collecting them then there would be none on the market because there are so few in existence.

Don't get me wrong. I'm hardly saying a nice chBU '73 nickel is a scarcity that should sell for hundreds of dollars. I'm merely saying that coins like this are scarcer than the '50-D nickel and it got up to over $200 in today's money at one time. There are lots of '73 nickels in pocket change and no '50-D nickels but there are no '73's over VF either and none in collections. You can find rolls of the '73 and a few are chBU but you can find them only because there is no demand.

 

Right as always Clad. It's the old "they made billions, they are worthless" argument we see time and time again. So, I'll say it again for the millionth time:

Most of the modern coins are garbage, just poor quality, marred, LDS, MS63 and below. The vast majority of the good coins in mint sets have already been cherrypicked and the rest of them are normally junk (MS63 and lower). I've found better coins in circulation than what I have generally found in mint sets.

 

Just call me Don Quiote.

It doesn't matter to me in the same way it once did.

 

Dang.

That's not much of an endorsement for mint sets.

One certainly doesnt want picked over sets but there are still a few nice original groupings to be found.

 

Isn't the whole point of a coin forum to debate and discuss coin opinions?

 

I like high grade BU moderns.

But I think if any moderns have real potential now for the little guy it's just the run of the mill Gems. It's the nice choice coins that appear in about two mint sets out of three.