Pop./Value of Gold Escudo/Doubloon Coins?

Anyone have info. on this? I'm interested in getting an idea of the value of 1700 and 1800 Spanish Escudo coins.

I haven't had any luck on getting an idea of populations of the coin.

PG

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Interesting. How do they determine value of these coins? I've seen a book which shows some coins have drastically greater values that the others, but don't seem to have a clear reason as to why. Here is a pic.

 

I'd assume the pricing is based on supply and demand, much like any commodity. And a "commodity" is anything that can be bought and sold.

 

That goes back to my original question of population which I believe = supply. If you don't know the supply, how can the pricing be determined?

PG

 

um, yet again, supply AND demand.

If the commodity appears to be in short supply, price will rise. Regardless of weather we know the amount available or not.

If item A is 10x times harder to find then item B, item A will generate higher offers (thus prices) due to smaller supply.

Determining the price involves looking at market rate and past transactions.


I think I learned this back in 10th grade in high school economics class.

 

You're correct, it's supply and demand. My issue is with the supply part of the equation. You're assuming if an item "appears" to be in short supply that knowledge is sufficient to determine the value of said object. I disagree, that method for determining a price at best a guess.

Mike

 

No, you are not getting the whole picture. It's REALLY simple, the price is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. There's just no way i can explain that concept any simpler!

If someone wants the coin, and there aren't many known examples of that year/variety, they will pay what they wish for it. If there's no known mintage #'s, REALLY no known numbers whatsoever that can ever be found, aka they just don't exist, it's not "a guess", it's a free market price.

This is how economics works, you can disagree with me all you want, but that's just the way this works. You can argue 'till you are blue in the face that it's not precise, but that's the way the academic explanation of supply/demand pricing works.

I'm not being catty BTW, just having a hard time explaining this to you.

 

O.K., I'll respond on the basis that you're not being catty.
Yes, I agree with you in principal and theory. Yes, you are correct the market sets the price. Yes, I know there are cases in which this is considered to be reasonable. Such as the guy that sells a $500.00 power generator for $5000.00 to a poor soul who's lost his home during a hurricane. It's true that this is supply and demand in action, but it's not always a "fair" market price.

To be a little more fair, lets say you're shopping for a pair of black jeans, you go to a store and find they only have one pair and it's priced 2x the common blue jeans that are readily available in that store. Is that 2x price on that pair of jeans the market price? I'd say no, it happens to be the price that retailer/store believes they can get for their jeans. If the customer doesn't care/question availability of the jeans they may find that price to be acceptable. However, customer B, may ask the question, "How many of these jeans are available on the market?" go down the street to another store and find they carry plenty of black jeans at the same price as blue jeans.

In that case, what's the fair market price of black jeans?

O.K., back to the coin. Back in the day they may have not tracked the count of coins minted. O.K., that's fair. However, today it is possible to either guess or have a running count of known examples of a particular coin. If a current tally of the coins is known, that would give a better idea of the value of the coin. If it turns out that tomorrow they find a huge stash of the same coins, well I guess at that point your SOL.

I'm willing to accept that as an issue, but I'd like buy a coin based on the current accepted or established fair market value for a coin.

PG

 

It seems that the problem here is you're trying to place a definite value on supply, when only a rough estimate is available.

 

I agree with you on all of these points, I've tried to do the legwork on the coin, but have found very little on past auction prices for this coin. This is why I was looking for help from an expert that could give me an approx. value on the coin in todays market. Could you take a shot at an estimate? When you say readily available, does that also apply to the AU53 condition?

Also, do you happen to have favorites in this coin? Denomination, country, years? I've been looking at the 1/2, 1, 2, 4, and 8's. Seems the 8's are the best value, but haven't seen any in a slab in my price range

Mike

 

Thanks for the input, I'm not looking to spend that amount of coin . I'm looking more for something in the 300 to 700 range. Just wanted to have one nice historical piece. I should be focusing on bullion coins, but these caught my eye. Trying to preserve money more than being a collector, but I have a natural penchant for collecting.

Mike

 

I would search something like icollector.com for an approximate current market value or even search eBay by "ended listings". I have a 1774/3 1/2 Escudo in my collection, paid $175 for it about a year and a half ago. Now they seem to be trading for about $100 more than that.

I saw a raw 1788M 2 Escudo in AU sell for about $350 but there were some other common date ones, a NGC AU-55 & a PCGS AU-58 that brought $500. All of these were sold on icollector.com last week.

 

Thanks for the insight. Didn't know some had sold on icollector.com. I was a bit surprised at their premiums, thought the prices even with premiums look better than Ebay.

PG

 

Glad I could help. The Escudos are definitely a great value for investing and are obviously very neat coins. People always spark up a conversation when they see them. It just stinks that there are no up-to-date values on them, unlike modern gold coins. Good luck!