CNG's Mike Gasvoda on the Ancient Coin Market

This is a great market report. It's good to hear the story from the dealer's side too, confirming that they observe an unusually sharp uptick in the market.

I'm not confident this is a bubble that will burst anytime soon. The US money supply has increased by $4 trillion in the last 11 months. It took six years prior for the supply to increase by that much. That money ends up eventually in the savings accounts of the wealthy, as those of average means need to spend their stimulus money to survive. It makes sense that the high-end coins are rising in price rapidly while the so-called "collector" coins are modestly affected.

 

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In my eyes, Mike Gasvoda's analysis of the current coin market is well-taken and informative.

As a hobby collector with limited financial means, I'm probably a very small fish among CNG's customers. I have won a few cheaper coins from them in the past and hope do do so again in the future, but since I don't think of my coins as "investments," I simply walk away if auction prices rise above my hobby budget. The 2020 price explosions thus had a large impact on my collecting behaviour. For example, I didn't purchase any larger Greek coins last year and stayed away from the Roman periods and rulers that rich people apparently are so intrigued with.

This is an important point. First of all, I have to applaud Mike Gasvoda's taste: bracteates are great!

Secondly, medieval coinage indeed is a good example of an attractive, historically fascinating, and complex numismatic field that is not yet prohibitively expensive. My guess is that in the current market situation, many new and old collectors on a budget will steer towards such more or less neglected areas. Maybe we'll see much more threads on, for example, Kushan bronze coins or French feudal deniers on this board in 2021? In my eyes, that wouldn't be a bad development.

Here is a bracteate I bought from CNG in 2020. It's a terrific coin and cost much (!) less than any of the Imperatorial denarii they sold:

Abbey of Fulda, under Heinrich IV. von Erthal, AR bracteate, ca. 1249–1261 AD. Obv: Abbot seated facing holding palm branch and book; in Gothic polylobe and double pearl border; around outer rim; H-V-H-V. 29mm, 0.52g. Ref: Berger 2293. Ex “HC Collection;” ex CNG, e-auction 459, lot 579.