How far have coin values fallen?

Probably increased demand was caused by new collectors coming onto scene/ people worried about currency debasement/ greed...like what happened in 1979 with gold/silver price bubble/ same happens with real estate in certain markets.
Auction records in past 25 years, now show that prices for Worldwide quality coins are rising at a very high rate also, time will tell if that trend will continue....
John

 

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Agreed. With the World coin trends, there are differences. Take for example 1857-S Double Eagle/ population 1247/ take one grade MS-64 (64ex) This coin sells for around $8000. With World coins, we have a Transylvania/ AV Dukat/ Georg Rakozki 1646 A-I/ I would doubt if more then 15 ex survive! I have only seen one in FDC/mintstate/ I got that coin for same price as MS-64 1857-S Double Eagle. With many Ancients a unique Roman Aureus in FDC sold for under a million dollars/ while the 1933 $20 sold for 7.3 million/ there are 15 known....or more? The World market in my eyes is still a bargain, when compared with US, so the bull maybe around for a long time.
John

 

Isn't this a reflection of the world economy? The United States is not as big of a player as it used to be while numerous other countries economies have grown much faster. The US economy has been in a slow slide for some time relative to countries like China and some European nations. Who are the biggest buyers of world coins?

 

The US market for world coins used to dwarf all the other markets put together but they are catching up. Indeed, I suspect that for modern world coins the home markets now are larger. Of course moderns have never been popular in this country.

 

With all of your wisdom you don't seem to understand supply and demand.

If only 15 people in the world are willing to pay $8000 for that puny Rakozki ducat, and there are 15 available, then it's worth $8000. If 1247 people are willing to pay $8000 for that 1857-s $20, and there are 1247 available, then IT is worth $8000 as well.

There is no innate value in ANY coin besides bullion value. Everything above that is due to supply and demand. It doesn't matter that a coin is 2000 years old or was used to ransom a princess, if the BUYERS don't care about such things. Rarity or historical significance in itself is meaningless without demand.

 

And that is a lesson in supply and demand. If you want the price to rise, decrease the supply or increase the demand. That's where telling a good story along with the sales pitch can increase the demand and thus price.

There have bee some who try to corner a market in order to decrease supply, but that eventually fails, even if you own the diamond mine. Hence; Man made jewelry grade diamonds. The Hunts tried to corner Silver a few decades back. It drove silver up 10 fold, but collapsed.

Telling a good story and drawing new interest in the hobby is a far more lasting benefit.

 

I think a point needs to be made about the values change over my lifetime being very heavily weighed toward the highest end coins. When Sheldon came out with his "Early American Cents" in 1948, he attempted to formulate a scientific approach to pricing and came up with a scale for grade and price where MS covered 60 to 70 times the basal value and the top six collectable of each variety having an additional premium of 1 1/2 to 4 times the calculated price. This would make an minimum MS 60 coin with at least 7 MS of the variety worth 60/280ths of a perfect, best known (x4), MS70. It would also make a 67 only slightly more than a 66, not a drastic difference.

My how things have changed since 1948.