Continuing Impacts Of Coronavirus On Collecting

Some thoughts I've been pondering;

Just curious what impacts the Coronavirus pandemic is having on the numismatic community with almost all the local coin shops closed down for the foreseeable future and with coin shows not occurring. A few of the bigger auction firms like Stacks seem to be still selling currently but who knows for how long.

I would expect that it would be much harder to sell a collection or hoard of precious metals right now especially for those not in the hobby, not knowledgeable about what they have and who rely heavily on coin shop and cash for gold type buyers. The numismatic logistics chain of buying wholesale and then selling it up the ladder and then finally to retail buyers is broken when local coin shops are shuttered. What happens now to the collections in the "estates" of the deceased? Hopefully they just don't get turned into the nearest CoinStar machine or thrown out by heirs impatient to clear up the real estate.

Are the refineries still open and if they are not what problems is that causing for those that need quick liquidity. Anyone know if the big online precious metals buyers/sellers like APMEX/Provident/etc. are still open in a time where only "essential" businesses may operate in many states.

With the shows on hold, the place where lots of dealer-to-dealer activity occurs I wonder what happens. What percentage of coin shops will be able to weather the Coronavirus pandemic and how many will have to close their doors permanently? As we spiral towards 30% unemployment will collectors have the discretionary funds to continue to collect?

Your thoughts please -- stay safe out there!
Joe

 

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When I've talked to coin shop owners in person locally (before the current events), they mentioned that even if they can sell stuff on the internet, they need a local presence to buy collections to provide the raw materials to keep things going. I would imagine the shutdown magnifies this problem. Without new material coming in, it will be harder to have enough to sell to keep things going indefinitely. Of course, every coin shop I've ever known had months of unsorted inventory, so maybe this is a chance to catch up!

From a consumer perspective, even if one can still afford stuff and don't mind buying online, it may be wiser to cut back on discretionary spending.

 

Bullion side of the business should benefit; however, this may mean a drop off in numismatic premium over bullion content for many pre-1933 gold pieces.

 

I haven't found a good LCS that I like yet, so I pretty much go to shows. The dealers I talk to there say basically the same thing about shows (that it's the fuel for their sales engine). More than once, I've heard of someone "buying their way out of" a show (not really selling well, but acquiring some nice pieces that can either be wholesaled out or put into their own inventory).

 

Impact? Prices for common stuff and junk will go down even quicker... bullion may go up temporarily. Some dealers will go out of business. I’ll keep buying Busties and gold dollars :-D

 

Probably not a good time to sell anything. Most folks are not spending money unless it's needed. The really nice coins are in strong hands that don't need to sell.

 

I agree with 2/3 of these sentences. Where I disagree is the last one. There are plenty of really nice coins out there on the market right now. I have a few in my eBay watch list. Unless you’re talking about 5 figure coins, I don’t think available material is the problem; it’s more “not spending money unless it’s needed” that’s stopping me from adding much to my collection right now.

 

n/a

 

I've read that the San Francisco mint is currently closed due to infection among the employees. We'll see if this will effect the release of "S" mint coins. Perhaps the other mints will be effected as well. In addition, the shutting down of the economy may cause a large amount of bank and Fed stored coinage and we'll see a lower mintage as we did in 2009?

 

Does acetone kill the virus?

 

I wonder the same about vodka.

 

Vodka must be at least 60% pure alcohol (120-proof) to kill viruses.
As much as I have understood, the virus is basically small fat-ball. So, anything that dissolves fat, can destroy it - soap, alcohol, probably acetone too.

 

I'm struggling to find a bank I can get rolled coins from to search, and if I did, I'd struggle again to find a bank open that I could dump them for no fees.

As far as I'm concerned my favorite part of the hobby is shut down completely. I've been sorting and organizing my collection but I'm not a big fan of that part at all.

In other economically stressful situation the banks would be open and functional and people would be turning in their coin jars that have been sitting around for a decade or more, which would be a good thing for coin roll hunting, but with this thing that has everything shut down even the banks......no good.

Never thought Id see the day businesses required mask's to go inside, even banks lol....

 

I’min this category, but I have my eye on some coins in upcoming auctions that I probably won’t get the chance to buy again in the near (or even far) future.

 

Larry, vodka absolutely kills the virus - I know because it is killing my brain cells the longer this goes on. Also, JD, Fireball, and I'm working my way into the 21 year Chieftain's single malt.

I haven't tried vodka on coins in lieu of acetone.

 

I wish there was something telling me how many people were signed in on the Heritage Auction tonight.

Would be interesting to compare compared to a few months ago or a year ago during the Central States Show auction (tonight was auction only, the show was cancelled).

 

Signed in really doesn't matter though.

Would you rather have 50 million people watch a stock and no one buy it or 100 active buyers?

That's obviously an extreme, but if you really wanted to set a gauge the real one would be legitimate active bidders. Ultimately it doesn't really matter as long as there are a few enthusiastic ones, but ones that at least put in reasonable bids would be a better measure over just being signed in as many just sign in to check price history or never bid anything

 

Good point....HA appears to have that in their archives.

Ideally, you would compare the same graded coins with similar multiple-bids, indicating a liquid market.

The problem is that even though 2 coins may both be identical PCGS MS65's one might have appearances or defects that cause bidders to discount it 20% and what you think is a falling price is in fact the market pricing 2 similar but not exactly identical coins. All you can do is look at recent auctions and/or price charts from NGC and guestimate.

Roger Burdette's Saint-Gaudens book has a price table for MS60/63/65 Saints. It apparently came from the Heritage archive. Not sure how exactly they computed it, but they must have relied on the Heritage sales going back 20-25 years and other sources back to 1976. Unfortunately, coin pricing will never be as exact as financial security prices.

 

Anything using MS 60 for pricing is essentially irrelevant today. MS 60s are for the most part terrible coins that are a breath away from being a details coin or even should be. Many would rather 55 or even a 53 than the 60.

Prices before the whole grading scale of today was actually used need to be taken with a grain of salt at best and mostly ignored. There was a lot of rounding happening before the full scale happened. As an example if you have two choices 65 or 70 almost everything becomes a 65 despite the fact 66s are definitely being put in as are 67s and even some 68s because no one wants to put a 70 on that scale nor are there likely any actual 70s.

 

Agreed, it was just a nice inclusion to have a chart for every single coin in this book going back that far. Remember what you had in Aker's or the Red Book as far as coin prices....this was about 10-15x as many prices.

Better than nothing......

What I found unique -- and again, this was just for Saints -- was that the prices for the MS65s (or what was considered that) was only 2-3x the price of gold post-1976 before the big run in 1980. The rare and semi-rare coins never looked back, even though they corrected. They made several other big moves (1988-1990, 2000's).....and that's how a coin that sold for only 2-3x the MS60 or the AU's in the 1970's would sell for 10-15x those same coins in recent years, no where NEAR the spot price of gold.