Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;World Colonial, post: 2508199, member: 78153&quot;]I am aware of what you are telling me.&nbsp; What you are describing is mostly a function of the financial profile of the current collector.</p><p><br /></p><p>The difference between US collectors and others is not that the US is generically so much wealthier because per capita income and wealth levels in the US are not much higher or even slightly lower than in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Japan and Britain.&nbsp; This does not remotely explain why US coins cost so much more or why local collectors elsewhere won&#039;t pay more for their coinage while US collectors will.&nbsp; The same principle (though the economic gap is much wider) applies to two other countries, such as Germany versus Hungary since I presume German collectors have an above average affinity at least for Hungarian talers, since these coins are similar to the German counterparts.</p><p><br /></p><p>The primary difference between US collectors and elsewhere is that the US has an outsized practice (culture) of buying coins for &quot;investment&quot; while hardly any other country does so at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let me give you an example.&nbsp; Income and asset bases in South Africa are much lower than in the US and the Anglo countries (Britain, Canada and Australia) who are presumably where the primary collectors for this coinage are located are competing with South Africans.</p><p><br /></p><p>Beginning around 2002, TPG became prevalent for Union and ZAR, just as it is in the US with exactly the same effect.&nbsp; The price level is much lower but the price structure is similar (more absurd in some respects) and these coins are among the most expensive in the world, on average in higher grades.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reason this has happened is because TPG has also resulted in disproportionate &quot;investment&quot; buying for Union and ZAR coins which means that the local collectors (mostly &quot;investors&quot; in my opinion) have to be wealthier than they used to be or else the result would be exactly as you described.</p><p><br /></p><p>Most of the better coins appear to have returned to South Africa.&nbsp; I say it because when I was most active, the prices in South Africa were noticeably higher than elsewhere.&nbsp; The reason for it is that, as expected, South African collectors have a much higher affinity for their coinage while collectors elsewhere have a very weak one or none at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I was attempting to describe was a general premise, not one which applies in every instance to every country, series or coin. </p><p><br /></p><p>Another difference between Hungary and most other countries is that the supply of coins that collectors presumably actually want to buy is disproportionately large versus the current and any realistic increase in the prospective collector base.&nbsp; I assume this since Hungary has issued coins for over 1000 years and the supply must be quite large because collecting has been a European tradition for about 500 years and its common for collectors in one continental country to collect from others.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in