Do you own coins which were rare when you bought them, but no longer due to NEW HOARDS ?

There's been millions of ships that have sunk since man started taking to the sea. Many of those are lost forever as the sea floor has covered them up or they're in parts of the ocean that are just too deep to get too. We've only explored such a tiny fraction of the ocean as a whole that we will never truly know what is down there. Most people really overestimate our knowledge of the sea and what wrecks are there. Governments even admit that there are missing nukes on the ocean floor that they have no idea where they are and thats the thing they do everything humanly possible to find and recover.

Even now most of the shipwrecks we know of come from the emergency beacons getting triggered when they get wet, without those many of the wrecks would have never been known. There's easily over a trillion dollars of PMs that have been lost in the long history of ship wrecks, just think of all the old Greek and Roman ships that sunk with bountiful treasure on them, then move up to the Spanish and British etc and it adds up very quickly.

 

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The problem is that we have NO idea where they are so unless someone wants to scour the entire oceans and seas -- or at least the heavily trafficked routes -- we'll never find them.
Maybe in the future when its possible to scan the ocean much faster and in greater depth than today.

But these finds won't have any coins/hoards that can affect U.S. coins made in the last 200 years or so for the most part, I would think. I doubt that a boat sank with dozens of 1804 Silver Dollars or various Bust Capes. Possible, but extremely unlikely.

 

1804 dollars no, but its entirely possible that many other issues were lost during the civil war as one example, WW2 as another

 

I know very little about it, but some of you Navy guys probably do. Aren't there people out there "right now" searching the sea floor for the sake of science, history and bounty? I see documentaries sometimes about the amazing under sea exploration tools that have been developed. Obviously they cost a large fortune to operate but I would think that among those millions of ships that have gone down over the ions that most are in more concentrated, i.e., more commonly trafficked parts of the sea (as opposed to out in the middle of the Pacific for example)? Is that so? Can anyone comment on that?

 

There are parts of the ocean getting sonar mapped, it takes forever as they have to just go back and forth in grids to do it. It's certainly revealed a lot where it has been done, but as far as I know it hasnt been done much in the deep sea. It's one of the ways how they do the drain the sea shows that do show a bunch of sunken ships though usually they have idea what ship it is and you can't always get to what it can see. The big downfall is anything the sea floor has covered you won't know there's anything in the ground

It's usually done in water that isn't too deep when theyre looking for a specific wreck and there's been quite a bit looking for flight 19 from WW2 where no one can figure out where those planes went down

 

Yeah, wood would have totally fallen apart after hundreds of years....underground vents......covered up....if the ships aren't there, gonna be impossible to find a bag or safe-ful of coins.

 

Hard to know exactly. I'm guessing that before, perhaps a population of half a dozen. After, perhaps 2 dozen. With only, perhaps 10 people in the world that really cared enough to notice; likely only 3 or 4 of us in the market. It went from being a $1000+ "unobtainable", most specimens in museums, down into the $300 range if I'm recalling correctly. None of the new specimens were particularly high quality, all had that fresh dug and cleaned look - definitely no cabinet toning. I only found out the back story about the hoard after I saw 3 or 4 more of the coins appear in various auctions. As the auction market went from none, to 5 or 6 over the course of a couple years, it seemed hard not to notice. Thought I'd gotten a real rarity for a while! Savvy marketing though, to let them out slowly.

 

FYI: The 1983 Manfra Tordella & Brookes Central American hoard was approximately 47,000 coins. 90% uncirculated, included both Liberty and Saint-Gaudens.

The 1996 Wells Fargo No Motto Hoard was about 19,900 coins.

 

I keep reading articles which refer to supplies of Saints and Liberty Double Eagles coming from Europe.

They're usually 1-liners in articles talking about pricing or other coin-related topics. No details...no numbers....no sources (individuals or banks). But I did hear this in a podcast with Scott Travers:

"There’s the question of how many coins are still out there. Some leading experts who are very familiar with overseas quantities have told me that in France, there’s well over 10 million $20 gold pieces, lower Mint State grades, some about uncirculated, but many Mint State coins, nonetheless. If you have 10 million coins, somebody even mentioned to me, there might be 15 million coins. If you have 10 million coins or eight million coins, with this type of an overhang on the market, you have mostly Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle and Liberty Head $20s, you’re going to see for the foreseeable future, very low premiums on these coins."

https://coinweek.com/coinweek-podca...market-point-counterpoint-with-scott-travers/

I know there's no specific sources and no hard numbers given, but I've seen other dealers/writers talking about European supply.

Thoughts ?

 

I knew that decades ago the major firms had buyers scouring the European banks for Liberty's and especially Saint-Gaudens DE's. But that was a long time ago.

I also understood that you could have individuals who never sold their coins and those could be sold later or given to heirs or an estate which would sell them and then they'd eventually make their way back to the U.S.

But what I keep reading/seeing is references to "overseas supply" but without any details about the numbers (is it 100 coins a year or 10,000 -- or more ?)...where they are coming from....how long it is likely to last...and what specific year/mintmarks. All I've seen is that it is apparently BOTH Saints and Liberty DEs.

Just think it is strange -- even with the guarding of trade secrets -- that there hasn't been more articles or publicity about this "supply" and the detailes surrounding it (i.e., source, quantity, etc.).

 

But since then GDJMSP I have talked to people from your generation (older than me ) and they say that there ARE still direct owners or the children/family of the original owner who tell me that you DO find these mini-hoards especially in SDBs, out of the way rural homes, etc.

These mini-hoards they are talking about are in the U.S. but I'm sure they are in Europe, too. Might be MORE overseas because the 2 world wars created a fear and panic that you don't have here in the U.S. where we escaped the carnage.

Someone wrote this to me, names changed to protect the innocent but essentially his/her words:

It's not large quantities but if you have a few thousand people or SDBs each with 5-50 coins.....that's a meaningful increase in supply, maybe in some low-pop Saints, too.

 

Sure, I follow you. However, I also believe there are some still pretty good stashes of gold in banks around the world, just like there are some fairly good stashes of other coins people are unaware of. Lots of privacy in the world, lots of family fortunes maintained under the radar.

Coins and gold coins are an extremely thinly traded market. I know people hear of some famous coins trading a few times in a decade, but the truth is 1/10 of 1 percent at most of coins are ever on the market.

If I would have any way of knowing for sure, I would bet anyone there is a hoard of at least 100,000 ounces of gold US coins out there somewhere very few people in the world is aware of. In the 1970s just one bank had Saint Gaudens double eagles by the hundreds of thousands. Sure, most might have been dissipated, but were all?

 

Let's compromise....they might exist in number of hoards but THE SIZE of the hoards is very small. There are no Wells Fargos or the like in the bunch.

I am talking drips-and-drabs.....3 or 4 gold coins here.....5-10 here....also smaller denomination coins, too.

Today, you are correct...we see it with "Holocaust Hoard" for coins that allegedly were sewn into a 75-year old coat or whatever. And I'm sure you can lie about any find in Europe or in the U.S.

But I do believe the mini-hoards coming out here-and-there IS TRUE because dealers with contacts (like Doug Winter) have noted the impact on pricing for select coins for years. And you probably remember dealer contacts like Paul Wittlin literally found THOUSANDS, even tens of thousands, of valuable coins in the 1950s, 1960's, and 1970's. I am sure those finds are long ago plucked from bank vaults and SDBs. But bank secrecy is still big in Europe so who knows if Swiss or French banks have another 500 SDBs with U.S. gold coins or 50,000.

I understand SDBs are still very big in Europe compared to the U.S. where they have faded in popularity -- can anybody confirm this ?

Again, I do agree the quanties are small. It's tough to figure out how many are coming out per year. In fact, I've reached out to a few people to get firmer estimates in the aggregate (I know they won't give me year or mint specifics) but to date haven't heard back from anybody.

 

Do you think these stashes are in the bank's vaults as part of the bank's reserves....or in SDBs belonging to individuals ?

I think it's the latter. I think the bigger bank hoards were found in the 1950's thru 1970's.

Er....I dunno. Just to use a common gold coin -- the 1924 Saint -- I think there are about 1.3 million of them so 0.1% of that would be only 1,300 for sale.

I think there are TENS of thousands of that coin for sale at any given time.

I think your estimate is more accurate when the population is lower.

Which bank are you referring to ?

I'm not aware of it unless you are referencing the 1983 El Salvador MTB Hoard which we presume came from some Central American banks but are only guessing. The records were lost, the people involved have passed on.

 

The bane of those chasing certification "Top-Pop" . . . . .

Z

 

I cannot remember the dealer name, but he did a series of articles for I believe Coin World detailing large deals from the 50s to 70s. He described a deal in Switzerland when they went to acquire US gold coins after it became legal. He inquired with the director, and the director gave him a price for St Gaudens from his vault. However, he then clarified his price "was only good for the first 300,000 coins".

I am sure others remember his name. He also described a purchase of thousands of bags of Morgans from a Caribbean Island in the 70s.

 

Paul Wittlin was a famous surveyor of European bank vaults and brought back lots of coins. I believe he worked for Paramount which I understand was a dealer but I'm not sure where they were located (NY ? LA ?).

In regards to that 300,000....that's alot of coins of any type. If it was of various denominations, then only a small percentage might have been Double Eagles which was Wittlin/Paramount's stock-in-trade as I understand it.