Gold prices have really jumped over the past week following a stealth increase that began in January. Here's my question for some of you old gold veterans. How long does a gold price increase have to stick before there is an upward trend in, say the asking prices for old gold eagles and double eagles? Thanks in advance!
As someone who buy and sell old gold all the time, I can tell you as gold starts creeping up, coins start going up pretty fast on ebay. I have not been able to buy as many lately for my normal bid price. When there is a small drop in gold, people stop buying. The actual gold value of the coins barely changes, but people exaggerate it it seems.
So I was just in my Local shop during lunch today and he had just received some $10 eagles in one was a NGC graded MS 63 1883 coin . Looked good but at a price of $2000 is it really worth the cost over spot or would one be better buying the NGC MS 63 1901 S coin at almost half the cost at $1100? He also had a nice 1874 CC but it was ungraded but looked VF'ish. I have always been curious about how these older gold coins correlate in price with spot.
What's your purpose? Numismatic value? At which point the rarity of the coin trumps melt. Bullion? At which point, yeah, buy bullion.
The numismatic coins stay pretty constant premium wise and don't really shift that much with spot price. It's only the common stuff that essentially trades as bullion anyway that changes with small spot moves.
I believe if you follow objective sales trends you'll find that sales prices reflect the trends in bullion prices on an "up-swing".in PM pricing. Look at current "Ask" pricing of these items. It appears this "Up-ward" PM market price trend is slowly being seen currently in availability and pricing. A newly subjective C.D.N. publication appears to be reporting a significant decline in wholesale bid price values. One probably should only rely on "News" reports that can be substantiated for "real value", and thus should follow documented sales reports for actual "values". JMHO
In the recent past I found numerous offerings of what I consider to be "good buys" at a fair market value, with a larger cross-section of selections. I believe you'll find that is changing. JMHO
I think the simple way to put this is that the higher the numismatic rarity, the less the bullion value has an impact. The 1922-P Peace Dollar is very common, in fact, there were almost twice as many 1922 Peace Dollars minted then there were 2015 Silver Eagles (84m vs 44m). They are both in abundance, and prices track pretty closely to silver bullion with a premium on uncirculated coins. A 1928-P Peace Dollar on the other hand has little to do with the price of silver. It may rise and fall a bit as people start to buy up the available mined silver, but the numismatic value of the coin trumps anything the silver market directly generates either way. I've been picking up AU/BU quarter eagles all summer for a bit above bullion value. I've spent a lot less recently for common dates. The rare coins are still demanding premiums, and that's why I still haven't finished off my set of quarter eagles. I'm trying to convince myself to spend the money for a 1911-D quarter eagle. They haven't changed much in the last year - they're still semi-moon money for a nice example.
