I lost my father in a car-tractor/trailer accident in 1997. His will was written so that if my mother lived beyond him, she would get everything. I lost my mother in 2009. Her will was that all was divided equally between we four children. Due to the accident my father had, my mother was very well off. Again, everything was divided between their 4 children. My older sister died 2 years ago and my younger sister died due to a surgical problem when she had a knee replacement surgery. My younger brother is now 71 and I am 72. Luckily, we are both well taken care of, but we are not about to throw away anything we have. After my mother died, my brother and I inherited our father's "coin collection" as it is. My brother was in the Navy during Vietnam and his ship got hit by something. He was in one of the turrets (or whatever the name calls them, I was in the Army). It bust his eardrims and messed up his legs. He and now his wife are in terrible shape now. I apologize for my lengthy message, but, I have had 5 major back surgeries and am in constant pain. Coin collecting gives me some respite. Coin Talk is a great way to get your mind on something other than my stupid back. I have a limited coin collection. I get more enjoyment from reading coin magazines and books. I don't want to atrophy, so I keep my mind alert and focused on my hobbies. My brother started collecting comic books when he was 10 in 1971. I gave a lecture to him about the value of his comics and how to take care of them. Each one of his comics and books are in library quality protection covers. He still has them. Later when he was 12, in 1973, he started collecting baseball cards. Each year, he would by the annual release of his cards. They, too, are encased with library quality protection covers. He will turn 50, October 21st. He financed everything he bought from every job he could get to support his hobbies. He paid for his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works in computer design and development and sales. He lives in the Atlanta area. His house is paid for and he owns to homes on the coast of Florida, one on the east side, the other on the west side. He has 3 daughters in a major university with full scholarships. He could have paid for it, but they were built the same way he was. He has earned his way. However, coins are not his forte, which I am glad. Yes, times are hard and inflation is beating down the American people how are spoiled, thinking the country owes them everything. I am sure coin collecting has their ups and downs. We need to study and learn before we buy anything. There are no guarantees that coin collecting will be easy, but will it be worth it? Due to my poor health, of which I don't let it get me down, I am able to study and learn about coins. I doubt I will ever own a coin worth #$10,000 or more, but the coins I have are nice for me as I study them. Sorry for my length message. All my best to you in your hobby.
There will be winners and losers from the current market, but your assertion that the winners will be "....the folks with fat bank accounts" is false. They aren't "supporting" the market, they are part of the demand. Whether they buy or sell will not dictate the ultimate path. In the 1970's, these people SOLD PM's and gold and were big losers. Having worked in 2 private banks with very wealthy individuals, I can tell you that maybe 5% of them get really useful market advice on commodities, probably even less.
Oh wow, I've been out of the hobby for years and had no idea. Does this mean I can get deals on Barber Halves or is it already too late? I'm clueless about where to look even--what's GD? Dealers on eBay don't seem to be giving these away FWIW.
The U.S. Dollar as a petro dollar has lost 90% of it's buying power since 1970 and coins are a good hedge for inflation. People are not rushing into this hobby they are transferring what value the dollar has left into a cross border tangible asset. I personally don't see this surge as the result of stable markets ups and downs while it is parallel to expected growth the underlined reasons are Fear and Uncertainty in uncertain times.
There is nothing tangable about the coin market where conditional raities are commanding 100X their earlier values, and if you drop that 5 step 1985 MS68 nickel on the floor, you wiped out your entire value. There is no inherent value to any of these coins. They are all valued way above their metal value, and the market is strictly built on sentimentality.
One can speculate about the reasons for why the coin market moves up, or down, from now until the proverbial cows come home - and it's never going to do you any good. Why not ? Because any and or all of whatever you come up with could be, or not be, one of the reasons. And nobody is ever going to know for sure one way or the other. So why can't anybody ever know what the reasons actually are ? The answer is simple really - it's because the coin market isn't like most other markets, there are no fundamentals, no technical reasons, for the coin market to move one way or the other. The coin market moves based on the emotions of collectors, their likes and dislikes, and their desires to own the coins. And - whether they think the coins are worth what they'd have to pay to buy them ! As I mentioned above the prices for coins at any given time are established by the electronic dealer market, the Bid and Ask. So what makes the Bid and Ask go up or down ? Sales ! If other dealers are buying, things go up. If other dealers are not buying, things go down. It's just that simple.
That depends on what you consider to be a deal - and what you don't consider to be a deal. As it is right now things are priced about the same they were in 2004. That's about 25-30% less than what they priced when the market reached it's peak in 2008. It's up to you to decide if that's a deal or not.
Ah - so where do they go to trade? The direct to consumer market has to have taken a bite of the market between ebay, heritage, stacks, and dozen of other on line auction houses.
As I have mentioned a couple of times in this thread, with the most recent being in post #47 - the electronic dealer market. But, they also do a ton of business at coin shows, and they buy and sell in all the auction house auctions. And, a lot of them also conduct private trades between each other.
False. Dealers source material on eBay all the time, including ones major well known ones and then mark it up