Shipwreck coins of the SS Republic

Well ShopAtHome TV paid a ton of money to get the first rights to sell. Great marketing idea. As you others know, I am not a fan of the program, but what they do is amazing. They sell many more coins than 90% of the dealers in the world. Yes, they rip people off, and yes it is bad for the hobby. Until more dealers target the buyers from this program, the TV shopping channels are here to stay.

Now will dealers pay $999.99 for a shipwreck coin? We have to pay whatever gets the coin. In the case of this shipwreck, the pedigree holds the price. Most of these dates recovered can be bought by dealers for $300. With the ship name on the NGC holder, it now becomes a thousand dollar coin. If I have a client that wants one, I pay whatever they instruct me to pay. I make my recommendations, but in the end, I have to provide my clients with the coins that they want.
Are they worth the price? For most of the recovered coins, my answer is no. Owning a shipwreck coin is nice, but a MS Seated Liberty Half is an easy coin to obtain in most dates. Some of the coins recovered are condition rarities, and some tougher dates. These are going to command serious prices, and whomever buys it understands that they are buying more than just the coin.

As far as NCS, they are absolutely amazing. I have seen coins before and after. Whatever mixture they use does not damage the coin. I can spot a regular cleaning with relative ease. I have only seen two NCS conserved coins that have shown the possibility of a cleaning. The bad part is, I knew they were conserved/cleaned and still could not tell.

 

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I agree, some of the "before" and "after" pictures of NCS-conserved coins are amazing. ND has probably seen some of this in person.

But with the shipwrecked coins, 150 years under the sea must have damaged the coins such that there is no avoiding a "cleaned" apperance, hence the NGC does not even assign a Sheldon grade, instead calling it "shipwreck effect". So, in effect, these are "no grade" coins with a very high novelty value. Not for me. As a coin collector, I would much rather spend the money on a seated half in true mint state condition with original mint luster. As an investor, It's hard enough to track trends in numismatic value, much less novelty value.

 

rbm86,
You are right about novelty value. I own some artifacts that were recovered from the Titanic. I paid a small fortune for these items because of the nolvetly of it all.
With recovered coins, if they are tough dates, or tough condition, that makes a real difference. The Central America contained bars of gold. A handful were unknown. Others proved what the numismatic community thought was real wasn't. I believe that the Central America coins hold more of a numismatic value.
While the opportunity to own a shipwreck coin has some draw, if someone really wants something like that Spanish Reales can be bought very cheap.

 

I discovered the Coin Vault while channel surfing late one evening or early morning. These guys are really funny with their passionate sales pitches and creative marketing schemes! I try to watch it for the comedic entertainment value.

They offer some nice, quality coins but the prices they ask for them are outrageous. Whenever they sell a coin at those inflated prices, the deal should also include a date with one of those attractive coin babes, just to make it fair.

The good service they provide is that they have the ways and means to generate new interest or to resurrect interest in coins and the hobby of coin collecting. It's not good though if they ultimately take advantage of uninformed buyers.

 

The SS Republic coins have some novelty value to me, especially since, the shipwreck site was found only about a hundred or so miles off of the Georgia coast. There was a lot of media attention here about this particular shipwreck and I am somewhat of a history buff.

I had hoped they would offer some of these pieces to the average collector for no more than $200 or so dollars.