I'm starting to come to the conclusion that US coin values are inflated..

Yes yes....everyone come to the dark side.

Then when that happens, and therefore the demand is up....Yesssssssss.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Great! There's a forum just for you right her: http://www.cointalk.com/forums/world-coins/

 

Detecto is wrong about a LOT of things simply because he's young and looks at the world through a young mans eyes. He just does not understand that you can have a unique piece of which there is only 1 of its kind and yet, if nobody else wants it, it simply has no value. (Wanna buy a beanie baby or Cabbage Patch Kid or (yech) a Tulip Bulb?)

When something has a mintage of 484,000 yet the price is in the thousands, that simply means that EVERYBODY wants one for whatever reason. The sooner he understands that without trying to "reason" it out, the better off he'll be with US Coin Collecting.

 

Or the fact that of those 20,000 - one hundred of them have 5 or more examples.

 

The cool part about the tulip bulb mania that happened in Netherlands during the 17th century is that tulips started appearing on other merchandise like glazed tiles - several years ago I managed to buy one in Amsterdam that had been fired from approximately 1626-8 and it made a nice little goody for my wife. And they are not really ridiculously priced despite being nearly 400 years old.

 

Or he could be confused by demand. After all, walk into any coin shop in the US or any coin show any time and you'll find 09S VDB cents everywhere, at every table in every grade and color. If demand was so great they wouldn't be everywhere every time. Sometimes "demand" is very misleading, if not downright falsified.

 

But you also have to factor for example the '09-S VDB - sure there are enough of them around that you can see them - but quite a few I see I rather wisht I hadn't. Lots of lower graded stuff, modificated to oversex the coin etc. Same pretty much goes for the '14-D.

The 09-S VDB did get saved contemporarily, because of it being a brand new design - the IHC had been struck for 51 years and most people around only could have remembered the IHC and not FE or Large Cents. The VDB initials controversy only added to the interests.

 

Mintages don't mean squat.
Apx. 50,000 of these have survived in all grades.
MS60+ only 6,000.

You can get the '09-S VDB 24/7

 

I'll take yours then.

 

My guess is you're about 300,000 low on your survival estimate and probably thousands low on the MS estimate as well. I bet there are still a lot of old collections out there with non-slabbed high grade coins in them.

 

I wonder if there still exists an OBW of 1909-S VDB? That would be cool as heck.

 

I seem to recall a story from somewhere of a man who brought in an OBW roll of 1909-S VDB cents, and I think one or two original rolls have popped up over the years.

 

In Q. David Bower's book 'Abe Kosoff : Dean of Numismatics' he quotes Mr Kosoff as saying

" In the 1950s, a man came in with a roll of uncirculated 1909-SVDB cents and we bought it for $250 or $5 a coin. Shortly afterwards he came in again with another 2 or 3 rolls and we purchased those also. [ paraphrased by me. The seller was very secretive, only would take cash, didn't want to be called or written to. he would keep coming back and selling and eventually the price went up to 5.50 and then $6 each and Kosoff was accumulating too many to sell wholesale or retail, so when he came in and wanted $6.50 a coin, Kosoff said no, and the man left. They kept expecting him to return but he never did. They eventually tried to contact him, but the address and phone were fictitious.] Abe then said "That's Life". pg. 150-151

Abe also implied he felt it was part of the 800 roll hoard that was rumored to exist. at that time.

Just because they were rumored in rolls, as Doug mentioned, bags were commonly used for banks and merchants. The rolls of the '50s could have been hand rolled from a bag(s) of 5000.

 

you can still get them for free in a bag if you have nice friends

 

I have a 1923 cent that was part of an OBW that was found in an SDB a few years ago.