Future coin appreciation

My friend's grandfather recently sold his Morgan collection which he accumulated in the early 30's while they were still plentiful. He pretty much got them for face value and now they're worth a minimum of $8 each.

So I'm curious, what coins could we accumulate now that would be worth drastically more in the future? I doubt that the Sac will accumulate anything just like the SBA. What is the next Morgan Dollar?

What can we stock up on now that is gauranteed to increase in value?

Just curious.

 

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Boy if I knew the answer to that question, I would be all set. As with anything in life, there are NO guarantees of anything.

Just collect what interests you now, and when those interests change, sell what you have and buy what you want.

 

Don't forget, that's less than a 100% premium to their melt value - not a great return over 70 years.

If I could predict that I'd spend my time day trading or at the race track.

Not a thing!

 

you'd be hard pressed to find anything that would promise future value - especially without the gold standard.

To speak in general terms, price is relative to scarcity... those things that are more rare tend to demand a better price - even then... a sharp stick in the eye may be scarce, but I doubt you can sell it for a premium.

 

I agree that it's hard to predict what will provide outstanding value in the long-term. Looking at modern coinage, I doubt seriously that any one item will show the kind of increase that we've seen on older series like the Morgans.

If I had to guess, I'd bet my money on Modern Commemoratives, especially the gold issues and our only gold/platinum issue to-date. Just my 100 year opinion.

On non-modern, I'd say that everything in great condition will appreciate significantly. Great condition is series oriented. For example Large Cents and Half Cents in XF look great and are certainly hard to find.

 

There are numerous moderns which have already shown returns far over 8X. Unc 1983-P quarters were widely available in pocket change until 1985 and today they wholesale at $25 per coin or 100X face value. In fact if you'd held out until you found a nice gem specimen it would sell now for over a couple hundred dollars or 800X face value. Most coins made in the last thirty five years for circulation have significant premiums in high grade. This is because of a multitude of factors but largely it is a simple reflection of the fact that people didn't save them. Those which were saved in quantities like the cents were generally of pretty poor quality. Others simply weren't saved at all.

Even today it is doubtful that all the coins are being saved in real quantity. Oh sure, people are saving quarters now and the new nickels are popular. The half and dollars are sold by the mint in sets and rolls. Cents are very inexpensive to save because of their insignificant face value. Dimes may or may not be getting set aside. Look at the prices of some of the recent dime rolls, they're already going up which is pretty remarkable when you consider how few people still collect modern coins.

There are large numbers of nicer and scarcer coins in circulation. Will these coins ever become worth lots of money? Your guess is as good as mine but it should be remembered that people do collect coins and they have always sought rarity, value, quality and those coins which are simply interesting because of the tales they can tell. There are plenty of coins in circulation which have all these attributes.

 

Heck face it were giving people pieces of grean paper for old coins with silver and gold in them... to me thats world trade

Mach

 

Save your Confederate money, boys.
The South's gonna rise again!
(you heard it here first)

 

allright i have a 100 dollar 1864 alabama confederate treasury note so i can by some grocerys when that happens

Mach

 

I don't think there's anything in circulation today that will dramatically increase in value in years to come. Possible some of the proof/mint set issues will be valuable. As always, my stance is that key date coins, genuinely scarce pieces, will always be in demand, while common coins will always be common.
Nick

 

we should have never abandoned the gold standard... it's not too late to go back!

 

How many 1977 (type "d" reverse) quarters do you have? Not one coin collector in a thousand has this coin but you can't just go down to the corner coin shop and buy it either. In fact if you want a nice choice gem of this coin you may as well forget about it since it doesn't exist in unc in all probability. Almost the only place you can get it is out of circulation. While the mintage was very small, many of these have already been lost and fewer than 1% of these will even exceed a nice Fine condition. Essentially if you say that circulating coins will never have a premium ir is the same as saying they'll never be collected. While this argument can be made it still fails to explain the '83-P quarter. It fails to explain many of the very rare and valuable coins that have come out of circulation in the past thirty years And it presupposes that all such coins have been found and no more will ever be made.

It's not only varieties, errors, and non-standard issues which circulate which may be rare. How about a choice AU '82-P dime. This is a regular issue that is very tough in unc. If you find an unc example it will almost invariably be very poorly struck from less than perfect dies. Yet it's possible to find a choice AU with far more detail and far more attractive than most of the uncs. While this coin may be a tough sell today at more than a quarter, it seems likely that the 5,000th nicest '82 dime just might have some premium in the future.

These coins have been widely ignored for two generations. It might be short sighted to merely assume that this will continue indefinitely.

There are actually large numbers of people who are having fun collecting circulating coinage. As this gets more common it's probable that you will see markets develope for circulated moderns. Since some of these are pretty scarce there is a potential for some of these values to be pretty significant.

 

King, you are absolutely right, but remember, this thread started with the question:

Nothing you have said answers that unanswerable question. The bottom line is still that there are no guarantees in numismatics, investing, or any other aspect of life.

 

Yes. It is an unanswerable question and only time will tell.

But ask what is the finest of any of the classic coins worth? How much is a rare 19th century coin worth? In fact, ask yourself what is implied about the future if a rare modern has no special value. Does it not imply that the country has given up hope and abandoned all of its values and principles? It would seem that a collection of any US coins is an investment in the future and that moderns are no exception. Indeed, in a sense they are even more an investment in the future since so few have much value in the present.

 

well, I guess you could always attempt to pick one coin by mint and year and accumulate as many of those as you possibly can over the next 50 years. Hide them all in your basement, so that the market gets an artificial read on its scarcity - then sell them off bit by bit....

I think I'm on to something - Binion would be proud.

 

If you want to try this with a regular issue coin than I'd recommend the 1968-D quarter. There are only around 40,000,000 remaining in circulation so the total cost will be a mere $10,000,000. The average grade of these 40,000,000 coin will be a low grade VG. There will be several thousand coins in VF and hundreds more in XF. There are none left in AU or unc but this needn't be a particular concern. Anyone who'd collect moderns may not want nice coins anyway, right? While you're accumulating these be sure to watch for the dozens of double dies that are in circulation and the hundreds of type "b" reverses that can be found on this issue.

You may find that the cost of finding all 40,000,000 of these coins will greatly exceed their face value.

The curious thing about collectors though is that while some people are thinking how common all the moderns are, they're out there trying to find the high grade pieces, DDR's, and type "c's. Best of all if they find one it will cost only a quarter rather than $10,000,000.

 

to say the least if i had a time machine i would get some money that was around in that time period.. go back to 1909 and grab a couple dozen rolls of new pennys... run farther back and buy a couple morgans from each year 1878 to 1904 brand new for face value... then of course jump around and buy all the goodies for face value like a bunch of war time nickles right off the bank shelfs then return to present time and be a bigggggggiiiiillliooonnnare... lmao... of course nothing like this is possible so i day dream some more...

Mach

 

I originally said "I don't think there's anything in circulation today that will dramatically increase in value in years to come." and I stand by that. Of course there's always the chance of a yet undiscovered rare variety but the coins you mentioned...77 type D reverse quarter, 83 bu quarter 82 BU dime...aren't exactly in circulation, any more than 72 double die obverses are. When I said "in circulation" of course I meant modern day coins that we use every day in commerce.
But you are correct in that there could be some coins in circulation that could dramatically appreciate in value in the years to come. I still don't think so...but surely there's no guarantee either way.

I think the better bet for future appreciation is the slow and intelligent purchasing of key date material, focusing on undamaged, original pieces. But that's not exactly what the thread is about, either
Nick

 

Read my post again. These coins are in circulation. Not only are these coins circulating without impedance but there are many hundreds of other coins represented by many tens of thousands of examples in circulation.

Today dies make more coins than ever but each time a new variety is discovered there are frequently only a handfull of examples known. This is caused simply by the fact that people aren't and haven't been looking for the coins. They believe there is nothing worthwhile in circulation so they don't look and they don't think about it. And these coins just keep circulating. The AU's become XF's which soon become VF's. Before anyone notices there are almost no nicer coins left. This doesn't apply only to the scarce clad varieties, it applies to most all the coins in circulation.

Even the cents which have been made by the billions are being discovered in new varieties all the time. There's one pictured on the front of the new Numismatic News right now. Do you believe that only this one example was made and an expert finally got it in pocket change after twenty years? Of course not!! There were hundreds of thousands of these made and no one ever noticed it because no one is looking. With billions of these coins the odds of finding a small production coin are small for any given coin, but the coins are out there. since there are hundreds of desirable coins from condition rarities to rare varieties, it's actually far easier to find rare coins in circulation than ever before. Coins used to be screened by millions of collectors; there was no real chance of finding a valuable coin in circulation after the mid 1950's. But in the modern age the rarities merely accumulate in circulation and are added to each year.

Take a coin like a '72-D DDR quarter. There are two of this coin known. ...and probably still many thousands in circulation. Each year another 3% of these are destroyed by fires and the like and about 15% of what's left is worn down another grade. Yet if you find one of these will be at least the third best example known and every year the odds of someone finding a better one will drop because the coins are getting used up in circulation.

Again this same applies to regular issue coins like an '83-P quarter too. If you find a nice AU then you already have a scarce coin. Is it valuable? Well, it wholesales at up to about $15 but this might not reflect its true scarcity if it's an attractive specimen. Attractive '83-P quarters are very difficult to find in any grade. In VF or F they are common enough to attract little interest but try to find a nice piece, you'll be surprised.

Even if future collectors don't demand the varieties in their sets, one has to think that coins with populations under a few hundred pieces and most of those in VG and lower condition, that VF and XF examples might command significant premiums. Some of these varieties constitute large series of coins with some being quite common. This is exactly the sort of thing that tends to attract collector interest and leads them to be added to collections. The rare pieces of these series could become highly sought after. Even the common pieces will in some cases be extremely tough in AU or unc.

These scarce and rare coins exist across all the denominations and run the gamut from virtually unique to scarce. This applies to many of the coins. Imagine what the coins would have looked like in 1960 if collectors had never removd an interesting coin from circulation. There would have been many old and rare coins in circulation just as there are today.