Is This Guy Nuts?!?! 2010-D Nickel, PCGS MS-68 Full Steps for $4,000?!?!

I think it is all relative to the collector.
Relative to ones bank account and relative to ones interest in
any given series.
If a collector "A" has a couple million in his bank account, spending $4000.00
on a coin would be like spending $400.00 on a coin would be to the Collector "B"
with $50,000 in a bank account.

Just a thought.:cheers:

Then again my family questions my sanity constantly
about my liking playing with shiny metal discs all the time LOL


Terry

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

what happens when you dont have a bank account?

 

Well I remember talking to people that bought ms65 Morgans at inflated prices and the first huge decline in their value was the grade change. Then, having been burnt, everyone ran from the market, causing further declines through the rest of the decade. No doubt dealers and Wall St. where behind the inflated prices. I don't think you can say the change in grades had nothing to do with the decline.

 

I should make it clear. I don't agree that it is wise to pay $4K for the coin in the OP. There are certainly a few other MS68 FS 2010-D Jefferson Nickels out there and the set price is clearly an attempt to exploit registry fever. Posted by Lehigh .



Wow, I thought earlier on you were advocating for the Sellers Price Tag , partly due to the fact that it is the Highest Graded example , combined with the fact that it is a Registry set piece somehow was a justification for that Price Tag. So we can agree that it is horribly over priced. I agree with you , the piece should retail for say $1,000.00 or just slightly higher. That makes more sense to me Paul.

 

I would think this sentence should buyers of MS70's a pause, huh?

On the issue of 65's, they fell further than $150. I bought some at $85 a piece, and I bet they would grade higher today if they were broken out and resubmitted now. I agree that late 80's and 90's had stricter grading than now, but early 80's was loose.

 

I know man, just throwing it out there for public consumption. I have been chiming in as well, but am ignored more easily than you should be.

 

I was advocating that conditional rarities often times deserve what appears at first glance to be ridiculous price tags. This includes modern coins. The problem with this particular coin is that there is no established price history because the coin was just minted. As for the price, I stated that it should be worth at least $1K. That does not mean it would surprise me if the coin sold at auction for $2K or $3K. My reason for believing the $4K tag to be too high is based on a comparison of this conditional rarity to others within the Jefferson Nickel series. I would be more comforatable stating I have no idea what this coin is worth than to say it is horribly overpriced.

 

I agree. That was my initial objection as well . I would feel more comfortable seeing perhaps a 13-$1500.00 price tag . I seriously doubt any offer at this point in time would come close to $3,000.00
Time will tell, it's way to early to tell how this piece will standup . Well I'm off to my A.N.A meeting. Ciao

 

I see what the chart says and it doesn't disprove what I'm saying. The lowering of the Morgan grades did not immediately cause a mass exodus from the market. The changes in the standards were "slipped in" and the promotions continued. Initially an ms65 was still worth the market price, which was the dealers' argument, they weren't over priced. The problem was, one was no longer holding an ms65, now they had ms64's or ms63's, worth a fraction of what they paid and it took awhile for "investors" to realize they had been taken, especially the ignorant ones, then the mass exodus started. This scandal was so big and so wide spread, wiping out elderly retirees pensions that, correct me if I'm wrong, weren't there hearings and consumer protection legislation passed as a result?

You mentioned in a prior post that the grading standards were tightened because the whole community agreed it had to be done. Well that community was mostly dealers. And, that's what I remember too, the dealers were behind the changes because there was no way they were going to buy back all those Morgans sold at ms65 prices.

Now, my point to all this is, it's extremely risky to pay huge premiums for minute differences in grade, when the grading standards keep changing, especially when it's pretty much agreed they're loose right now. Regardless of how long a change takes to affect the overall market, if ever, the ones who bought a high grade, only to have it lowered will lose big time.

 

The chart does disprove what you are saying. You don't seem to understand what happened in the 80's. Prior to 1986, the grading of coins was done by primarily by dealers and telemarketing corporations, many of which were blatantly over-grading raw coins. BU (or worse) coins were being passed off as MS65's with incredible frequency. And yes, there was a governmental investigation that took place. The people who were duped during this time were not knowledgeable collectors nor were they big time investors. They were small investors with little numismatic knowledge. I liken them to the people today who buy their coins from the TV coin shows and think they are getting a good deal. These people lost their money but it was not because the market crash of 1989. They were destined to lose money because they were sold MS63 coins at MS65 prices and they didn't know any better.

In 1986, PCGS was formed and revolutionized coin grading. What these unscrupulous dealers had been calling MS65 were now being graded as MS62-64 by PCGS. The arrival of the TPG's leveled the playing field for coin grading and created the opportunity for Wall Street investors. With the problem of subjectivity in coin grading seemingly solved, coins as an investment became a reality. Soon, the brokerage houses were offering their clients the opportunity to invest in professionally graded coins. Since the coins were graded, every coin would have already gone through the grade lowering process. The Wall Street investors were not buying raw MS65's that were actually MS63's. They were buying professionally graded MS65's that were still MS65's after the market crashed in 1989. The difference is that they now owned an MS65 that was worth a fraction of what they paid for it. The coin was the same coin with the same grade, just worth a whole lot less.

Remember that this flurry of Wall Street money into the coin market was also spurred by the stock market crash in October of 1987. Investors who had been burned by the stock market were looking for new avenues to invest and the coin market was new and ripe. The incredible rise in the market was due solely to the influx of big time Wall Street money and the hype that went along with the process. Eventually the investment bubble broke and the market crashed. Again, it had nothing to do with grade lowering or conditional rarities.

I understand your point that it is risky to pay huge premiums for conditional rarities, but with respect, that is an opinion. Until you can provide us with factual evidence of higher volatility with respect to conditional rarities, my opinion will differ from yours. Furthermore, we are talking about coins graded by TPG's. The grades are guaranteed by the TPG's. If a 2010-D MS68 FS Jefferson Nickel becomes an MS67 at some point in the future, the TPG must compensate for the loss. Now that doesn't mean they will make up the entire loss, but it does mitigate the apparent risk.

I know that many people believe that the TPG's standards fluctuate significantly, including Doug. In my experience, the fluctuations are negligible and are more a result of gradeflation as a result of the inherent subjectivity of the grading process than a conscious change in standards on the part of the TPG. I have pontificated on this subject at length in the past and would prefer not to revisit it. It is much more fun to agree with Doug! LOL!

 

Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree. Most of the Morgans involved in the scandal that I read about were slabbed. Coin World was filled with articles discussing how the grading standards had changed, which was the reason why slabbed Morgans were now worth less. ANACS was around prior to 1986 and if PCGS was involved, maybe the standards tighten further after 1986. I don’t hear anything about early pcgs slabs being conservatively graded as are the later green labels. So, the problem was not only over graded coins, it was a real change in standards. Although there may be other factors that contributed to the 1989 crash, the chart does not rule out the grading standard changes, as it took time for it to affect the market. As a matter of fact, it would be impossible for a scandal that big not to affect the market. Wait for the next one to break to see what I mean.

Now, there have been and will continue to be real grading standard changes within the TPG'ers. Take for example pcgs's green labels, these coins are definitely graded more conservatively that later issues.

As for any guarantees, they're only as good as long as the company is in business. If another scandal, equivalent to the Morgan scandal breaks, I doubt many, if any TPG'ers will survive.

 

Okay, I will agree to disagree.

PCGS OGH's have that reputation of being graded more conservatively. And even though this coin has a Gold CAC sticker, I don't think it looks at all out of place in an MS65FB holder.



Here is a newer PCGS MS66FB for comparison.



Both NGC and PCGS have paid out millions of dollars under their respective grade guaranty programs. Fantasy scenarios won't change that fact.

 

Hope you're right, but there's always a fantasy scenario that could do a company in - no company is immune. Just fantasizing, but what if a class action were filed (and won) finding one of the big ones consorted with a big TV marketer - that sounds potentially fatal. Of course I'm not saying that's what's happening, but you wouldn't believe (or maybe you would) the motivation to produce when big money is at stake. I would imagine any one of the big TPG'er's potential liability under their guarantees is astronomical. I don't know, are there any reserve requirements to cover potential claims? If not, it's not if, it's when, in a "hobby" like this that operates on P.T. Barnum principals.

 

However, I would just state to Lehigh that investing in high end coins IS riskier than low end coins. If you look at the coins making up the graph Doug likes to post, they are mostly very high end grades, that is why the collapse was greater in 1989 for those coins than what I was collecting at the time. I collected XF 19th century halves and literally did not see prices go down for those. Financially, highly graded coins have a higher beta than traditional collector coins, (VF large cents as an example). A higher beta means they will go up more in a up market, but will go down more in a down market percentage wise. While I will not say buying high beta coins is bad if you believe the market is going up, by definition higher betas correlate to higher risk. It literally IS in the definition of beta.

So in that regard Statequarterguy is completely correct. Again, I never said risk was bad, but it is higher risk technically.

 

Well, it looks as if the seller had not hooked a buyer in . Lots of banter happened with this thread , and it wasn't all for nothing . Some very interesting opinions and perspectives of historical events. In the end, only time will tell how this nickel is perceived by the Collector Community.

 

I really think that applying beta coefficient to this conversation will do more to confuse it than clarify it. However, comparing the beta of circulated coins to uncirculated coins has really no bearing on the conversation.

Statequarterguy is claiming that conditional rarities are much more risky than the grade right below it. The volatility in the coin market in the late 80's was generated by the influx of Wall Street money into investment grade certified coins. In general, these coins were common coins like Morgan Dollars that were graded MS65. To my knowledge, the Wall Street brokerage houses were not selling the conditional rarities to their clients. As a result common date MS65 Morgan Dollars and the like exploded in price during this time. The coniditional rarities increased in price as well as the entire coin market rose. But I would bet that the highest volatility existed in the coins that were being sold through the brokerage houses which were common date MS65's.

Until I see evidence to the contrary that shows that conditional rarities lost a high percentage of their peak value than the common material during the crash of 1989, my opinion will remain unchanged.