U.S. Coins are Currently Overpriced

I mean this in general...

As I browse online for coins, I notice that U.S. coins seem to be overpriced overall. And if you take mintages and population reports into account forget about it, way overblown markups. I am finding better opportunities in World coins.

Anyway, just shooting the breeze here. Adios amigos!

 

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Just like everything else some are,some aren't.

 

I agree with the for a lot of dates. I am currently putting together a Toned wheat registry set album and I look through so many svdbs and 14-d on the regular,they are MOST DEF not rare,but the prices for them indicate otherwise. There are a a lot of rarer harder to find dates IMO in just the Wheat series. Take the 1924s for example,Ive been on my Toner hunt for over two years and have yet to see a nice 24s to my liking. Very hard to come by with nice details and nice color. I guess its all how the market dictates what is what.

 

As per an article on Marketwatch from Sept. 6, 2012: “About 7 million to 10 million people in the U.S. are serious coin collectors, experts estimate”

1924 S Lincoln Wheat Cent Small Cents Bronze Composite Penny Mintage: 11,696,000

As many collectors start with Lincoln cents, or at least have concentrated on them at one point in their active years in the hobby, if seems if you were to take a census of the population for that year / mint mark and grade, they're pretty scarce, as also indicated by your difficulty in finding one to your liking, let alone the price.

 

Lincoln cents are a prime example, although Memorials are not as overpriced as Wheats. Due to the popularity of the series the prices are well above what you find for other series, when taking rarity into account. Pretty astounding when you also consider that copper isn't a precious metal. Although copper does change color easier which opens up a whole other dimension to collecting them.

Anyway, for now I'm staying away from most American coinage - with some exceptions. I will wait to see if prices come down or become more equalized with non-USA coins.

 

This is purely anecdotal, but over the last few years of looking at various issues in support of questions asked here and at other fora, I'm seeing a downtrend in prices for many types.

 

A dealer at a coin show asked me what I wanted to pay for two silver dollars.
"I want to pay about 40 cents", I replied.

I crack myself up. (1)



NOTES
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1: I ended the conversation by doing about $70 in business with him.

 

My neighbor lady spent a lifetime collecting antique glassware.
I'm guessing that market peaked in the '70s and early 80's.

She recently passed away (at age 100) - I spoke with her son and he said that most of it had dropped off the edge of a cliff in value - they were auctioning it off by the boxful.

It makes sense - we now live in a very mobile society. There aren't as many families living in one place for a lifetime and the desire to have stuff like grandma's glassware has been replaced by Ikea plastics in vibrant colors.

This makes me wonder about the long term viability of US Coins.

When you consider:
EDITED:

In order to abide by forum rules I will not be commenting further on political topics - I only mention those three items above as having an impact on the US coin market. Please reread the rules It makes sense that the composition of our country may have a very large impact on the value of US coins.

 

tell that to king farouk

 

I would say closer to 2 million collectors at all levels and well less than 1 million serious collectors.

 

I'm wide open to any number(s) that can be backed up by non-anecdotal evidence.

Where would I start? Well, if we had a good number on how many people % wise regularly buy coins on eBay, then take a total of eBay individual sales by frequent buyers, we could take an educated guess. Another gauge might be suggested by the number of CoinTalk forum members, then what % of those might be ANACS members, then weigh that against total ANACS membership. A good cross check might be do just the opposite, poll all ANACS members and get a % who visit CoinTalk... For that matter, you could jump start it by polling CoinTalk members to get the % who buy on eBay... Likewise, we could look at NGC and PCGS total memberships, total paid memberships and poll them as well. Do this for not only CoinTalk but also the other top several online coin forums and you've got some solid numbers.
Of course, you make a good distinction, and first we must define how to measure and classify / count active and also serious collectors.
I'm up for it, wanna collab on the effort?

 

"Downtrend" in prices, I wish that was the case. I'm seeing the exact opposite in the pre-1860's Sicilian & Italian coins that I collect. I'm specifically talking about Ebay auction sales over the last 5 years.
Current BIN prices have gone to ridiculously high prices, I guess these sellers are trying to hook some newbie collectors

 

One thing I like about this board is that 10 minutes ago it didn't even occur to me that someone would collect pre-1860's Sicilian and Italian coins. I hope you'll post a couple of pictures of some of your treasures.

 

That's what I've been saying in my Sweden cashless society thread.

 

The keys are continuing to appreciate.

 

Coins have been minted in Italy & Sicily since the Roman era and even before that. And people have been collecting those coins for a very long time.

 

Toss me a link, I'd like to read your thoughts.

 

I spoke to a dealer at a coin show.
He said he was taking a real beating on his Peace Dollar key dates.