How actively do y'all sell and/or trade coins?

I don't think so, I have adopted some of Medoraman's babies and am taking good care of them.

 

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How much for a g Democrat?

 

well...... we'll let him decide who he wants a coin affair with me shall we....? When he comes home late at night with renaissance wax on his collar and smells of bronze, maybe you should ask him who he has been with all evening..

 

Recent price history of ancient coins -- Roman and Greek coins sold at published auctions -- doesn't support this statement. In fact, just the opposite has been true over the past 10 - 15 years, as can be proven by researching prices of the same coins that have been sold and resold at auction.

It's possible that prices for ancients that are widely available in Good-to-Fine condition may stabilize and not rise as much as better quality or scarcer coins. It's also possible that discovery of new hoards will impact ancient coin prices negatively, but most recently discovered hoards (of Romans, at least) appear to be from the fourth and fifth centuries AD which doesn't affect the prices of coins of earlier periods.

Consider the following coin:




This same coin appeared as #48 in Berk's 100 Greatest Ancient Coins and here's part of what Berk wrote about it:

"In 1960 an example brought SFr 1,450; in 1975 the price was SFr 8,500; and by 1996 a coin at Sotheby's went for (British Pounds) 15,400 (about $25,000, although they had been selling for $20,000. More recently the price jumped to $40,000, and now it is at $65,000, but a great specimen, which goes against type, would break $100,000. These aurei are usually poorly struck and somewhat ugly."

This was written in 2008. At the February 3, 2013 Goldberg auction, the above coin hammered for $370,000, which, when you add the 15% buyer's fee, puts it over $425,000.

The "logical" arguments about why ancient prices will decline don't seem to be supported by the facts. Recall that 500 years ago people logically argued that the sun revolved around the earth, and 500 years before that, people logically argued that the earth was flat since you'd fall off if it was round.

This is not to say that some overpriced coins won't decline in the short term, and coins of lesser quality purchased at retail may take a long time to be resold at their purchase price. But the evidence is overwhelming that in the medium-to-long term, ancient coin prices will rise.

 

This trend is over the last 10-15 years, which makes sense. Take a census of the age of collectors and also the number of new collectors. In 20-30 years time, when the older collectors have gone to the great album in the sky..........I bet that will be a very large percentage of the collectors today and I do not believe there are the young collectors out there. It has nothing to do with the price of coins and their increase, but the number of people to buy them.

 

Yes, IoM, but remember we are ancient collectors. We know the ancients knew the earth revolved around the sun and the earth was a globe. It was just that dark age from about 500 to about, say 1800, that humankind went backward in its collective knowledge.

 

I went to coins shows in the 70's sir. The age range back then was the same as today. Your argument might have more merit regarding US coins, which are exceedingly overpriced versus their rarity. There are literally hundreds of five figure US coins that are common relative to world or ancient coin rarity scales. I very well could see US coin prices come down to earth.

Btw, are you just measuring US collectors or worldwide? Remember US ancient collectors are the oddballs, ancient coin collecting is dominated by Europeans.

 

I'm 50, and my kids like to remind me that that's HALF A CENTURY.

 

Well I went to two large UK coin shows last year and noone was under 25..! Unless like my daughter they had been dragged along to London with the bribe of an Italian meal, visit to the BM and a ride on the London eye (my wlfe fell for it!).
As I have said, I hope i'll be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

I find it interesting that IOM and I quote the same line. It seems that YOC believes that people buying from him will not be able to recoup their money in 20 years. My question is whether there will be enough billionaires interested in ancient coins to absorb the IOM collection and the rest of the coins from Triton sales (and better) when he is finished with them. Many of my coins from my younger days might sell for 5 to 10 times their original price but others went the other direction. The same can be said for stocks and other investments. Anybody know what Athena Fund II was? For those of you who are only interested in cash appreciation, I maintain that coins are a risky place to stash your millions. For those who actually like the coins, there is no problem.

I admit curiosity as to what makes a coin one of the 'perhaps 2'. I also have curiosity as to how a dealer can give proper service to his buyers if he believes it is possible to see it all in only 20 years. Perhaps if one were to get a job working for a major dealer, it could be done in well under that. Independently will be more difficult.

 

medoraman => speakin' of oddballs, please don't forget to include us Canadians, eh Whizb4ng?!!



Also, I am fairly confident that "I don't care" ... for I'm keepin' my sweet coins until death do us part (I'm sure that my wonderful wife will be delightfully surprised when she finds out that my cute lil' hobby is actually gonna be worth anything in the long-run!!)

 

I can see where YOC is coming from and his line of thinking does make sense. IOM you make an interesting point but I don't think your argument falls into line with what YOC is discussing. The example you gave is a rare coin. The more rare a coin is and the 'hype' around a coin will drive the price upward. Coins like the EID MAR, your Aureus, the Syracusean dekadrachm, or the Titus Colleseum Sestertius won't see drastic decreases in price because they are 'holy grails' in Ancient coin collecting. They will generally rise steadily unless a hoard is found.

What I believe YOC is discussing is that coins in the $100 - $500 range will decrease in price once older collectors pass on and their collections enter the market. It will probably be a very brief decline and once those coins disappear again the prices wills stabilize. You two are arguing two different sides of the spectrum IOM is the incredibly high end where most of us collectors will never get to.

I am considered a 'young' collector at 25. I can see more people getting into collecting at a later age like has been said. We are playing 'what if' with prices. I am not going to lie if prices go down a little bit I won't mind all too much I still have a solid 50+ years of collecting ahead of me.

And Steve don't tell them about us crazy Canadians how are we supposed to take over the world if they all know about us!

 

Doug? was this your comment.....
Please do not take everything literally, I meant to say that having handled many thousands of coins in 30 years or so, i will know what i want to collect when i retire. I do not want to get personal, but 'proper service?' to my customers?? They buy coins from me and they are happy, I have no complaints from them. I am no big time dealer, but I deal in coins...(I have a full time job as well as selling many coins in my spare time) I am no coin expert either and i am sure many experts who have bought from me will have got a bargain or two due to my lack of knowledge.

 

If it weren't for Canadian whiskey and nights too cold to get out of your undies, you Canucks might well be ruling the world.

 

I agree. While I'm personally not in it only for the investment aspects (I thoroughly enjoy the coins themselves), the investment opportunity cost of holding coins has to be taken into account. It doesn't take much effort to analyze many different types and look at the trend of nice coins - the right coins have consistently increased in value. It's true that not every coin will always appreciate significantly, but overall, I'm much more comfortable keeping money in coins than in stocks and I get a heck of a lot more enjoyment out of them.

To doug's point, I don't think we'll have any trouble finding a sufficient number of well-heeled collectors in the future to absorb all of our collections as ancient coins appeal to a global audience (I'm constantly seeing bids against me from Brazil/Japan/Russia) and wealth merely shifts around rather than being created/destroyed. As for the interest in coins waning: I think US coins have some risk in this regard but the global appeal of ancients and significant ties to our world's collective history, on top of the finite supply of "things" (you can only have so many private jets!), will likely keep the collector base well-fueled.

 

Bing if you get a chance Crown Royal just came out with a Maple whiskey in the past couple of years. It is fantastic. I don't know if you will be able to find it down in the States but if you can give it a try.

 

Actually, I'm not. While the example I gave is certainly a rare coin that's likely to become more desirable in the future, I can find no analytical data that supports the premise of "coins in the $100 - $500 range" decreasing in value. It's true that if you pay a retail dealer $100 for a decent ancient Roman or Greek coin, it's unlikely you'll be able to resell it any time soon for the $100 that you paid for it. But there is no statistical data to support the argument that it will decline in price due to a decreasing number of collectors. How does anyone know that the number of collectors of ancients is decreasing? Personal and anecdotal observations are not substitutes for real, hard data.

I do know that in my lifetime the population of the earth has more than doubled to over 6 billion people. I tend to think (logically, but I cannot prove this) that the percentage of collectors of ancients will continue to represent a similar percentage of the population (as a whole) as they did 40 years ago. This argues for increasing numbers of collectors pursuing a static or only slightly increasing number of ancient coins, so I would tend to believe that prices for ancient coins will rise rather than fall in the future.

 

I know

You are speculating, just as i am....no hard facts on either part, but its my opinion.....you disagree, hey ho, thats what forum discussions are about.
You tell me where all the young collectors are though? Cos i dont see many at all. and as far as something 'valuable' decreasing in value if there are less people who want it.......well thats just common sense, supply and demand. If 1000 people want something the price will be higher, if 1 person wants something he or she gets it for the price they dictate generally.

 

How many times can I say it, there NEVER has been many young collectors sir. I have read ANA journals in the 1920's saying this hobby will die if they do not get more youngsters interested. Its the great mistruth in this hobby, that the amount of young people has anything to do with the health of the hobby. It never has been true, and never will be true. Middle aged men predominantly start in this hobby. No offense meant Tif, I love having you or any other women in the hobby, as well as younger collectors, but historically they are an anomoly. If they ever did join the hobby in force demand would explode.

 

I disagree and you can say it until you are blue in the face , sir. No point in getting upset, I just dont agree with your view. Nothing personal.