Yo, So I'm sure you all have noticed what the State Quarter program has done to our little hobby. Every Jim, Jane, Joe and Schmoe is a coin collector now. Luckily, with a couple exceptions, these newborn numitists are circling around the State Quarters like a school of Great Whites. But what blows my mind is this... The State Quarters are being snatched up at such a vigorous rate. The early coins are demanding a relatively significant premium as I'm sure the newer coins will appreciate similarly in the next couple of years to the close of the program. What gets me is with such MASSIVE amounts of coins being hoarded in BU+ condition don't the people that are spending the "big bucks" on these realize that when the program is over and for many many years to come these coins will be so retally available in excellent condition that their premium will plumit and the coins, for the most part, will be nearly numismatically worthless and they will have squandered their hard earned cash. Of course I'm not talking about MS and PF 70's but I'd be willing to bet that even the 69's will be effected in this way, although to a lesser degree. I know some say that because of the low mintages that this won't happen but come on...Yes, the mintages are lower than pre-State Washington Quarters but one must realize that the percentage of the state quarters being stashed in great condition HUGELY outnumbers the amount of regular quarters and coins that survive in similar conditions, thus making the amount of nice coins available, post program, enormous......which will cause the price drop. Imagine if everyone who originally got a 1916D Mercury in 1916 stashed the coin away for years....what would it be worth today? -- Squat compared to it's actual today's value. I think it is sad that this ongoing phenomena is going to devalue the State Quarters. Although I have yet to purchase any state quarters I must say I most likely will obtain the entire set...I'm thinking I'll pick them up in the year 2015 or so for not much more than face value. Whew...just wanted to vent that. Please reply cause I'm really interested to hear what you all have to say about this. Thanks for reading
In regard to the Proof examples - I would agree with you. Quantities of the coins in PF69 DCAM abound. And the current selling prices for these coins reflects this. And not only with SQ's - but nearly all moderns. Prices have dropped substantially from what they were 2 or even 1 yr ago. However - with the MS examples this is not the case. Large numbers of high grade examples for any of the circulation type coins simply do not exist. Sure you can find MS66 examples all day long - and their selling price reflects this. But MS67 examples are not so easy to find. And if you move to MS68 or higher - while you may find a few you certainly won't find very many. They just aren't there. And that is why the prices for these coins is so high. Now you can choose not to believe this if you wish. And you'll be little different than most other collectors have always been. For it is always thought by collectors that the coins of the present time will never be valuable - there are just scads of them out there to be had for face value. And for lower grade examples this is plainly true. But for high grade examples - it is not. It never has been - it never will be. And yet the majority of collectors will go on passing by high grade examples of current coinage. All but a few that is.
for example, i just bought a roll of 62D roosie's from a guy who "got them at the bank when they came out, a $5 roll." for $20. pretty good return for him i'd say..... so, i too wonder how a roll of state quarters will fare in the future...??? i have been collecting up the unc. Q here and there, paying more than they are worth, imo , but none the less, people are paying a lot more than i am for them. and it peeves me that the mint makes 4 coins for me to have to buy now, as if 3 for a type set a year wasn't enough.... and now all these quarters????? i think i forgot to say in my introduction, i am a sarcastic type person. Question, what would YOU pay for a set of the 2003 state Q's, unc, and proof? no i don't have any for sale. just wondering.... and i think the values on them will fall some in the future, how much, i dare not guess. cl
Well I buy some of my coins from the Mint - and their prices are well advertised. But then again I also purchase ultra-high grade examples already slabbed as well. But that is my personal collecting choice. It's not for everyone. As for what the values will be in the future - who knows. Values for many of them have fallen substantially already. Values for some of them are still going up. But the thing to remember is that buying coins because you expect to make a profit on them is rarely a good idea. Buying coins because you like to collect them and/or want to preserve them for future generations is an excellent idea
When you find out what is going to be hot in the future let me know. In the mean time, I still have some 1999 Proof SBA's around here that are still available on the Mint Site after about 4 years.
The future of the State Quarters and Prices? Our well versed moderator is correct again. The Mint is cranking out MS-66 and MS-67 quarters with regular ease. The higher slabbed coins are coming straight out of mint and proof sets. So when looking for value, consider how many of these sets are made and sold. Then consider that there are a number of large dealers spending countless hours cherry picking through hundreds of sets looking for that 68 or 69. So how many possibly exist? The future? Who really knows. Whatever people collect will remain hot. The State Quarter program has brought millions into the hobby. Many have graduated into more traditional series, but most still remain with the quarters. This series is only half way through. There most certainly will be many winners and losers in this new market. The ones that collect for collecting sake will always win.
Quite true on all points. While bringing millions into the hobby is a wonderful thing for the present, more importantly this is seed sown for the future. When the millions of state-quarter collecting school children (who actually have something interesting in their change now) become adults, get jobs, and begin spending their expendible income on coins, then we will see the real impact of the state-quarters program on the hobby. Check it out at coin shows in ten or fifteen years, and ask a twenty-something how he or she got started.
dang. I think I'm one of those collectors you descirbe -I'm actually a young guy but I just dont find anything really interesting about most of the post 62 coinage -even the commemeratives veer more to the artsie "I could of thought of that design" side. I collect Peace Dollars, Franklins, Ikes becuase I find the coins to be stately quite frankly. Ut -that's about all I can handle. Naturally my all time favorite design being the walking liberty half -which is why I also started collecting the SEs. The new stuff =-well there may be some keepers floating out there -but I keep spending 'um. -but your point about overlooking modern coinage for supreme MS examples did make my investment minded gears turn over -but like you've said in other post -collect what you enjoy -invest in what you know.
the dealers drive the prices. If you want to drive prices up pick all the high grades out and watch the prices soar. Want to see them fall again flood the market. That has all ready happened with SBA's and Ike Dollars. A2J
Now I would disagree that dealers drive the prices. We only buy and sell what the market will bear. We have clients that specialize in the registry sets and pay incredible prices for the best. This is not because of our doing. Other collectors pay top dollar and if one wants it, one has to pay for it. As far as pulling out all the high grade examples good luck. As each one leaves the market, the prices go higher. Take a look at auction prices and you will see that it is not the dealers guiding this market. We are paying so much more to get these so called "HOT" coins. Walk the floor at any major coin show and see the coins in slabs that missed the magic mark of 69 or 70 selling for less than the price of the slab it is in. As far as IKES and SBA's when was this market? With the exception of certain silver issues or type 2 coins, most are spenders.
Here's something to consider: The old 90% coins were struck of silver and each run had to be authorized by an act of Congress authorizing the mints to strike the number of coins for which bullion was available. These new junk metal fiat money coins are being struck in numbers and of materials which almost surely preclude their ever having any actual value. The silver proofs are the only coins of this type which have any intrinsic value and which are being struck in numbers which may allow for collectibility in the future. Of course, some people collect black velvet pics of Elvis. To those who do, there is a value to these things that not everyone would recognize. I think the same is true of these state quarters. There is a subjective value for some things that only a collector would appreciate.
Fiat money - just what does that mean ? It means a form of money with no intrinsic value to most people. But the very idea of money itself, since its very inception many thousands of years ago, has always been based on one thing - people's perception of it. In other words - as long as the populace using the object accept it as having value - it does. How else can you explain that the first recognized form of money was seashells. Yeah - seashells, cowrie shells to be exact. Something you can go down to the beach and pick up by the handful - for free. But the populace accepted these seashells as money because of the need to have something that could serve as money. This has been the case in many cultures throughout recorded history. They may have used different items but the principle was the same. It is no different today.
Fiat money is money issued by fiat, unbacked by precious metal. It's not authorized in our Constitution and is a result of an unlawful act of Congress. There's a difference between intrinsic value and subjective value, so your statement that fiat money is a form of money with no intrinsic value to to most people isn't exactly right. A coin has intrinsic value to the extent that the material used to make it is valuable. The only reason that people regard fiat money as money is that they are required to do so by legal tender laws, which in this country are unlawful. Your fantasy of seashells picked up out of the sand and used as money is just that, a fantasy. Items of relative rarity have historically been used as money, not common items which anyone can amass by bending over and scooping them up off of the ground. Our money has been made of precious metal and valuable industrial metals(like copper and nickel) assigned a value by a standard which made pennies redeemable for silver or gold for most of our history as a country. Our money today is fiat money: coins made of base metals and paper backed only by snickers and sly grins. It's in the process of collapsing, too in case you haven't noticed. Prices have been rising not because of scarcities but because of declining value of our paper currency. These state quarters will have no value pretty soon, I suspect. In the case of a currency collapse, they won't be worth even the value of the copper in them because of the difficulty in recovering the metals they're made of due to the method of sandwiching the layers of metal for the planchet stock. The circulation strikes aren't going to hold any value other than that assigned to them by collectors in the case of a currency collapse, though the silver strikes of the same designs will be worth face value if we return to a hard dollar system like we had prior to '64. That's what I mean by intrinsic value. A silver coin is valuable by virtue of being made of high grade silver alloy and can be traded for goods without the necessity of a law forcing people to pretend it's worth something unlike those sandwich metal coins.
Well I hate to tell but it's not a fantasy - it's a matter of fact. Cowrie shells were indeed once used as money. So were many other objects that today we would consider worthless. I understand your point about fiat money though - I was merely trying to point out that anything - regardless of what it is made out of - can serve as money as long as those using it as such are willing to accept it as money and it faciltates commerce. That is after all the point of money - to facilitate commerce. For what makes gold & silver precious ? Nothing at all - except for people's perception of it. Now we could discuss back and forth the two sides of the issue as to whether or not it was illegal for our govt. to go off of the gold standard and later the silver standard. But all of the legal authorities on Constitutional law say say it was legal. So I won't debate it with you - this is a coin forum after all - not a political one.
So, basically what you're saying is "I'm the moderator, so you're wrong. Nyah,nyah,nyah." Any discussion of coins is a discussion of money. Money is a political subject whether you like it or not. The Constitution grants Congress the power to coin money with the proviso that no state (and this is a union of states) can recognize anything other than gold and silver coin as money, which sets the requirement that all money be redeemable for those types of coinage. Precious metals are precious because of their scarcity and because of their properties, being referred to by metallurgists as "the noble metals". The idea that they have a mystique of value created solely by chance is incorrect. Congress is not granted the power to hand off any of their powers to any other branch of government, let alone to any cartel of private businesses. For that reason, your vague reference to "constitutional law experts" is meaningless and beside the point. The fact that the modern coinage is intrinsically worthless and that it is produced in massive numbers has a strong bearing on the hobby. There are literally thousands of collectors who have absolutely no interest in modern pot metal coins and paper money, and there is a valid reason for the disinterest in such materials. Those reasons are political and historical. My observation that the new coinage is being produced in vast amounts and that they are made of nearly worthless material as well as my comment on the reason for that production are valid and on point in support of my view that these worthless coins will not be collectible in the same sense that the older, Constitutionally lawful coins of the past are now. If you're so closed-minded as to try to shut down a discussion simply because it offends your political sensibilities then you are willing to deprive participants of a chance to learn and to exchange thoughts. Coin collecting as a hobby is about history, politics and economics. When it becomes a politically correct exercise in dutifully buying examples of every piece of coinage produced by our government, then the hobby will have declined to the level of NASCAR afficianados trading plastic hot wheels cars or Trekkies hoarding their little Red Chinese made plastic dolls. At that point, the hobby will be pretty unattractive to adults.
Well now it is my turn to throw in my TWO cents. Yes that is a pun. If history has taught us anything, it is that hindsight is 20-20. Many objects have been used as currency as our moderator has stated. Brass, copper, silver, and Gold began because someone came along and said it was precious. Now if you would take a look at the 1933 law that outlawed the ownership of gold, a few facts are undisputable. One, gold was valued at more than $20 an ounce. Making it feasible to bankrupt the nation with gold certificates. Bullion is just that. The value fluxuates throughout the 24 hours in a day. Call any dealer and ask for the price of a Silver Eagle. The price can change in seconds. How would that affect the gas you buy at the local station. We would have to see what our coin is worth at that particular moment of the day. Silver followed gold in the 60's and copper in the late 70's. Our government used gold, silver, and copper because that was the method of the day. The simple reason that they created the constitution to be changed is because they were intelligent enough to realize that things do change. At some point we have to realize that we the people need governed. No two will will ever agree to the finest points. Now one last point. This forum is not about arguing or putting another down. There are plenty of others for that. We all, try in our own small part to further the knowledge of each other.
You're tendering several fallacies here. One, is that silver and gold were considered precious simply because someone said so. that isn't true. they are precious metals because of their properties and scarcity. Another of your fallacies is that if our curreny was tied to precious metals, the fluctuation would be too much to keep up with. The truth is that while our money was precious metal, prices remained stable for such long periods of time, advertisers would paint ads on the sides of buildings at great expense and those ads would have prices listed. Prices even of the precious metals stabilize when they are the basis for monetary systems. Another fallacy you're putting for this that the constitution was changed to make the current situation lawful. It was not. Your statement that "we the people need governed" is certainly not the attitude of the people who established the ideal of government by consent of the governed. The ratification of the Constitution was the consent of the people and unless it is changed by amendment, it's still the supreme law of the land. That law established that gold and silver coin is our money and that Congress has no power to deviate from that. I'm trying to pass on a little knowledge about the coinage that is the basis of this hobby and you and the moderator are taking offense at it. Why is that? I don't see how my pointing out obvious facts from our history which have to do with our coinage is bothering the two of you so much.
Intelligent disagreement never changed the minds of the disagreers but does provide ideas for others to nuture.
I'm taking no offense at all - at anything you say. I'm also not trying to shut down any conversation. When I said I wouldn't debate the issue with you it was for one reason. You are obviously conviced that your point of view is the correct one - nothing I can say will change that. And nothing you say will change mine. So I see no point in debating it. Period. You are however more than welcome to post your point of view.
No offense is taken on my part either. This business developes a very thick skin. I welcome your posts.
