...and some of the prices are about 1/10 of what they are now. For example, a 1916-D Merc was listed in Good for $95.00, Uncirculated at $675. But some prices are a lot more than 10X now. A 1930-S St. Gaudens listed at $800 in Very Fine...and you could get the rare 1927-D Saint for a mere $32,000. An 1895 Morgan was $4750, an MS 1889CC Morgan was $950...the famous 1894-S Barber dime was listed at $12,250. Have collector coins outpaced inflation? I think so...but it's amazing how much has changed in 50 years.
Always interesting looking back. It would be interesting to compare the prices of the Liberty Double Eagles that were scarce back then and now are easy to find since the shipwrecks and Europe finds.
For example, the 1877-CC listed at $325 in Unc. back then. A lot of the more common double eagles could be had for $85 to about $200 in uncirculated. WOW.
Looking back is always fun. Around 2002/2003 Double Eagles were going for $400-500 at Heritage Auctions but $85 would be crazy.
Well, the official price of gold was still $35/oz until August 1971. So $85 was a bit over 2x the official U.S. gold price (the real price may have been a bit higher). In 2000-2003 (I think it was earlier than you cited) gold was $300 an ounce so buying MS63's or MS65's for $500 was about 1.6x the official gold price.
I have a 1970 Red Book...it is fascinating to see the prices in the days of $35 gold. The Red Books from 1980, 1985, 1989, 1990, and 1994 -- covering the bubbles in gold and coins -- would also prove very illuminating.
Its difficult to understand the price comparison when people are used to what they're being paid in 2020. As an example, I just watched an old army vet on antiques roadshow that was over in Germany in 1970. He was headed back to the US and his Sergeant told him to buy a Rolex before he left because they were such a good watch. So he went to a store and bought two of them. One was a gift to his father. He saved all the paperwork and had the original receipt. One of the Rolexes was $104 and the other was $120. Laughable now. But back then, in 1970 he said one months pay was about $100!! So how many of them guys would have even been able to buy one watch let alone two? This was before credit cards became popular. Anyways, the watch he brought in was his alone. Turned out it was from 1960 and was the first model of Rolex they made and extremely rare. He thought it would be worth maybe $1500. The appraiser says the watch by itself would be worth $35k at auction but since he saved the paperwork, box and original tag, he expected it would bring 65 to $75k at auction! So "cheap" gold in the past really wasn't that cheap compared to what average people were making with perhaps brief overlaps of time when you should have been buying it at a relatively discounted price. It seems like somebody has to make what you'd call " a significant financial sacrifice" at some point in their lives and hold for decades for someone else down the road to have a chance to benefit from it. Something that's cheap today will always be cheap. Something expensive today may depreciate or increase in value. Depends on the future market.
Good point Ves, but gold at $35 had been suppressed for years. It may have been expensive in the 1930's or 1940's....but by 1970 the average worker was getting 40-50 ounces of gold a month in salary. To buy a bullion gold coin was maybe 1 day's pay at most. Saints could be had for 1-3 days of pay.
I love opening my 1977 Redbook from time to time and doing exactly what you are doing. I marvel at the values of the error coins that the Redbook recognized. The 55/55 cent or 42/41 dime. Who could have ever imagined back then that error collecting would be such a huge part of our hobby today?
To put on some numbers: Median annual US salary in 1970: just under $10K, or a bit over $800 a month. Fixed price of gold: $35/oz I think that works out to a bit under 25 ounces a month, but more than one ounce per workday (assuming you're paid to work M-F). In related news, I'm not looking for a new job, but I'd be interested in positions that pay 40-50 ounces of gold per month, even at late-2015 prices. Heck, I'll settle for a single ounce per workday...
The real question is, if you had known what would happen to certain coins in the last 50 years, would thst have changed your collecting interest?
The big thing would have been to buy bullion-related coins that go up with gold or silver. Saints, Morgans.
Sure, just the same as knowing what would happen to a certain stock, or a certain set of lottery numbers, or a certain horse in a certain race. (Well, as a 7-year old I wouldn't have been able to do much about any of these at the time -- but I hope I would've recorded the info for when I did have disposable money. Never waste an oracle, I say.)
