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Message:: [QUOTE="rick, post: 48638, member: 1235"]There's a few things about this thread that gives me pause.  Overvalue is a difficult term for a couple of reasons.  Say all prices are determined on supply and demand, the degree of that impact has to be less than 100%, but say that is the primary driver.  In terms of collecting coins, the supply is fixed - there are only so many examples of each variety to cover its demand.  The overall field of collectors should, hopefully, be ever expanding as a percentage of total population.  That means prices must always climb above the rate of inflation... but they do not.  Tastes change, popularity of certain areas goes up and down giving rise and fall to market value - because there will always be those collectors who only want to collect what is valuable.  To some extent popularity effects us all, as (from time to time) our taste may change in what we want to collect. So only two things can really determine overvalue of a coin - utility and information.  Information as a function of what coins will sell for a higher or lower value in the future (which none of us can know), and utility in relation to 'is this coin worth more to me, personally, than the x amount of dollars I parted with to get it.' I have bought many coins that are overvalued in one context, and undervalued in another.[/QUOTE]