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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 1425083, member: 68&quot;]Coins from Hong Kong have been doing quite well in recent years too.&nbsp; Very few of these are very tough even in superb gem but none are extremely common.&nbsp; They&#039;ve sat in dealer inventories and rolls for years because there was no demand.&nbsp; Now with demand increasing the pre-&#039;71 moderns have been enjoying some pretty healthy annual gains. Even a few of the post-&#039;71 issues are doing reasonably well.&nbsp; I like later issue&nbsp; cu/ ni in nice gem condition when it can be found at anything similar to market price.&nbsp; It&#039;s hard to believe that this stuff is really worth only peanuts if it&#039;s actually going to be collected.&nbsp; Mintages were in the 5 to 50 million range but circulation was very extensive.&nbsp; Generally there&#039;s little premium for lower mintages suggesting they are not actively collected and/ or they were saved in equal numbers.&nbsp; In this case I lean toward thinking they were saved in equal numbers since there are some &quot;collector prices&quot; in later issues which suggests there weren&#039;t very many saved. Even if I&#039;m wrong and there are a million of everything, a million isn&#039;t very many for a market of this potential size.&nbsp; While the coins do come very nice, choice and superb Gems are still the exception and picking them up for a few dollars or less seems like a bargain.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I like the older moderns but can never suggest someone buy something that has already had significant price gains. They&#039;re great to collect even though they are all short series.&nbsp; There are some varieties among these and I&#039;m always tempted by extremely high grade when there&#039;s little or no premium.&nbsp; Now days most of these will cost 20 or $30 even with no premium at all.&nbsp; These older coins come nice as well though there tend to be more worn die strikes.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s a good chance the Chinese collectors will branch out into other coins as they become more sophisticated.&nbsp; They&#039;ll probably prefer Far-East and the like at least initially.&nbsp; This leads me to think in terms of Vietnan, Tibet, Nepalese, Soviet, North Korean and even Singapore coinage.&nbsp; This last one is a real darkhorse that will charge someday.&nbsp; This is the wealthiest country on earth and their coins are among the most attractive, tend to be well made, and were not saved extremely heavily.&nbsp; There are scarcer issues that seem to have eluded collectors (don&#039;t bet on this).&nbsp; Attrition is high.&nbsp; There probably won&#039;t be any or many truly rare Singaporean coins but numerous issues with fewer than 50,000 survivors in any grade with relatively few Uncs. Don&#039;t overpay for these.&nbsp; They are common now and there&#039;s little demand.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the type of area I&#039;d suggest newbies collect.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s a big world and the middle class is exploding in many places.&nbsp; While modern circulating rarities in the Chinese sphere are unusual there are some places that modern rarities will be the rule rather than the exception.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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