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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;V. Kurt Bellman, post: 1982755, member: 71723&quot;]The value of anything in an auction market, which at its core all actual numismatic transactions are, is determined by the combined opinion of all market participants, assuming widely shared information. That is so for the value of a PCGS label with JFK&#039;s picture and the letters ANA on it, and ABSOLUTELY EVERY BIT AS MUCH for the intentionally mangled crystalline mass made up primarily (999/1000 of them) of atoms with 79 protons in their nuclei. At an existential and metaphysical level, neither&#039;s value can be said to be more or less real than the other&#039;s. Both are matters of group opinion at any given point in time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Were we to insist that the value of the gold is any more fundamentally &quot;real&quot; than the value of the label, we are engaging in hubris. I can buy back the gold coins I sold at ANA 2011, or pieces just like them, today and have many hundreds of remaining dollars in my pocket next to the original gold coins. Why? Group opinion, nothing more or less.</p><p><br /></p><p>When we insist that only classic American coins are truly worth having, all we are doing is being unfairly restrictive as to from whom we are soliciting&nbsp; opinion votes, aren&#039;t we? (&quot;I don&#039;t see how Nixon won, all my friends voted for McGovern.&quot;) Worse yet, that demographic we like to hear from is dying off daily at horrendous rates, and the ones whose opinions we prefer to discount are being freshly created on a daily basis. What&#039;s wrong with this picture, folks?</p><p><br /></p><p>Demographically, classic coin collecting has only one long range hope - indoctrinate the new guys to our way of thinking. All I&#039;m saying is that it&#039;s not going to be that easy, guys. They are a resistant bunch of monkeys, these kids.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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