RIP Life Savings of Franklin Collectors

I forget what the thread was about...

 

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It’s probably best forgotten.

 

note the 2nd "more"

 

What seems to be lost in the argument is the acknowledgement that coins which are pushing 4 and 5 figures are going to be HIGHLY volatile! A coin that's valued at say, $50 can be desired, AND acquired by a huge number of people. "A huge number" being extremely relative because the group of people who collect/desire coins is a very small slice of society. Now you move on to analyze the people who not only desire those $20k Franklin half dollars but who are ALSO capable of comfortably buying one.... lol!! Now that's a tiny slice of the original tiny slice.

On top of that, how many examples of them are there and how often do they come up for sale, let alone sell? Maybe the last one sold for $20k and now one has finally came on the market again and there was limited interest so it sold at $15k. That sale alone probably just moved the market enough to have serious impact on the price guide. This segment seems like a whole other animal compared to the average range you typically see people buying at.
Now undoubtedly somebody's going to come on and say, "OMG, $20K Franklins sell all the time!!" Well, I can show you stuff in $800 to $1k range thats been sitting on ebay for months. Popular series' and gold. I've seen some stuff sit for years.

All you have to do is look at statistics. I know people who have household incomes of $150k and they talk about the rich needing to pay their fair share. I ask them how many rich people do you think are available to pay this fair share? I said to the people taking home $40k a year, YOU are the rich. If you have a household income of $150k a year, you're in the top 10% of earners in the US if not higher. That tends to blow people's minds.

So now we know that 90% of the US isn't capable of buying these high end US coin, conditional rarities and most people in the top 10% are not either. Your pool of available buyers gets very slim, real fast. Even if you want to say there are thousands of people in the top 0.001% of earners, you still have to fulfill that 2nd part of the equation. A coin collector or investor in that group who desires to purchase those conditional rarities and not some other conditional rarity? Maybe they're only into ancients?
To me, the price guide swinging drastically at this end makes perfect sense. On top of the fact that a TPG who derives income off of collector enthusiasm has zero incentive to drive coin prices down for the hell of it.

 

Which would require some sort of interaction, wouldn't it? Catching on to the obvious yet, Mike?

That said, can you not keep your position straight? First it's simply about "referring to someone as they would like you to" but oh so quickly changes to what someone "clearly" is or is not. See the problem when one refuses to apply logic to purely emotional positions? Of course, why would one bother when absolute capitulation is the only acceptable option lest one be labeled an "idiot" or one of the ever-fine "ist" terms those like you so love to dole out.

The most simple and obvious point behind this was that no one can automatically know what another prefers, yet even this seems to escape you. Funny how not referring to someone as they prefer is unforgivable, yet referring to those who disagree in whatever often vile way they surely don't prefer is perfectly kosher. "Idiot" indeed...

 

You learn what someone prefers by directly interacting with them. Their behavior dictates mine.

I don’t expect some people to understand, it’s a subtle thing. The people who I don’t interact with are treated politely until they show a reason to be treated otherwise.

Calling people names, stereotyping, or refusing to acknowledge what doesn’t make sense in your own head simply shows a lack of understanding or acceptance and a lack of consideration or tolerance for what is foreign or difficult to understand.

Trust me, this was not a position that I was raised to understand, but rather one that I have come to understand as I have grown and met a more diverse group of people in my own life.

 

For the record, Books, I agree that I have made it seem like I am preaching at you, and truthfully, no one has a right to do so, but I was raised to stand up to injustice and bigotry wherever I see it.

I am putting my soapbox away as if you don’t get it, no amount of my explaining is going to change your mind.

I won’t speak on this any more. This thread is supposed to be about the dropping values of Franklin Halves.

Although I think that subject has also been talked to the point of exhaustion, I’m going to let people beat that dead horse. I apologize for (even partially) hijacking this thread

 

Perhaps, in your rush to virtue signal, you missed the FACT this was about, and ONLY ABOUT instances where NO INTERACTION has taken place? Surely it was very easy to miss even though that's exactly what started this and has been clarified again and again.

I have repeatedly stated my unwavering belief that respect begets respect, which applies to everyone and anyone, in every situation, at least until or unless they've shown themselves unworthy. This is a very simple concept, yet even though you claim to also embrace it, is one you've conveniently ignored in the desire to see that all-important boogyman that, in this case, simply doesn't exist other than as part of your own ignorance.

It takes the lowest form of filth to not so slyly accuse others of bigotry when they themselves have ignored repeated clarifications as to exactly what is being addressed, instead turning it into whatever promotes their preferred narrative. Unfortunately, admitting this would require just the most minimal level of intestinal fortitude, so please carry on. After all, intellectual honesty is so yesterday.

 

This goes to a message board post I believe I copied here some while ago (maybe a year or so ago; not sure exactly when).

But the article dealt with inflated grading and focused on Franklins and the FBL designation. A veteran coin collector noted that the very coins he had sold and had submitted for re-grade (with no success) had suddenly changed hands and been re-graded with moves up to 2 full grades. Franklins he had that were worth maybe $500 or so were now worth $15,000 as the coin grade went from very common to super-rare. Partial Bell lines or whatever he had were now getting FBL designation. This was a serious collector of the Franklin series not some amateur who just put some serious $$$ into a particular coin series and found himself having overpaid or sold too cheap some undergraded coins.

His point was that something fishy was going on, and he wasn't so much upset about missing out on $$$ (though that was part of it) but that there was no way that a fairly commonly collected recent coin could be off by 2 grades and AFTER he had submitted and not gotten even 1/2 grade improvement.

I'll try and find the post, and I am not an expert on either Franklins or grading, but I understood the ramifications of going up 2 grades with FBL designation and having a coin increase in value by 30-fold or more.

This is no doubt what we are now seeing with your PCGS price collapse. The market for super-rare coins exploded....some or most of those coins were NOT worthy of the grades....before they collapsed in price, they dragged up the semi-rare and common coins with them....and when the expanded super-rare coins got knocked down in price, they dragged everything else down with them.

We saw this with Saints and Morgans in the 1989-90 Coin Bubble, too.

 

What has happened to Franklins the last few years in general ?

 

The post/article was from early-2015. Here's the link, but the pictures are no longer showing. Maybe some of you know these collectors; they seem well known and are on multiple message boards:

https://forums.collectors.com/discu...nklins-is-why-i-stopped-collecting-the-series

 

Great post, GD.

Did you take a look at the link I posted above ? What do you make of the writer's angst about FBL and 2-grade improvements coming out of thin air ?

That would seem to jibe with the whole Franklin price colllapse of the last few years (assuming prices have fallen, the OP author seems all over the place).