Why are old state commems so cheap despite rarity?

You can find lots of good info in the Redbook (A Guide Book of United States Coins by RS Yeoman)

 

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On that note, we are quite in agreement. I've loved 'commems' (classic) ever since I picked up a Red Book as a young lad. In those days the prices were out of reach for me and I always dreamed of owning a few. They (and moderns) are my major focus in collecting (today) and while they can be had at a reasonable (sometimes) price, it seems that prices soar after you pass the '65 designation.

 

You called out the '93s Morgan as an example which is the key to the series, the Hawaiian is the key to the classic commemoratives, find you a couple of them in 67.

 

I believe the Hawaiian is less than 10K mintage. Definitely a low mintage one.

If it was me collecting them I would get something similar to this.

 

Rarity is more than just mintage. Commenemoratives have high survival rates. Keep in mind, these were meant to be souvenirs not circulating coins. However, some of the earlier date commemorative coins (1853-1927) did circulate due to the Great Depression, resulting in some examples existing in the XF-AU grades. In contrast the later date commemoratives (1933-1954) almost never circulated, with most surviving in MS64+. Although the later (1933-1954) date commems tend to have much lower mintages than the earlier (1853-1927) commems, they also have higher survival rates

 

Well the ones you picked pictures of wouldnt be cheap and would be very sought after. For the series as a whole, there's just to many of them. It's a big series that very few people do, most just pick a couple they like and call it a day if they ever get any of them which is no different than the modern commems are treated by most people.

The early commems as a series is kind of a reptitive disaster with 18 BT Washington, 12 Washington Carver, 12 Texas (one of the best designs in the series so I dont think people minded that to much), 6 Oregon, 9 Boone, 15 Arkansas and several others have more than 1. All that just equals to many for not enough interest and being that repetitive means most people wont have any interest in a full series. The Hawaii is a show stopper for a lot of people for a series as well.

 

There is also no unifying theme. It's whatever random location or event that backers were able to convince Congress to honor. Some 3rd rate events and some 3rd rate designs.

 

The vast majority of these classic commemoratives were saved. Assume half of a 30k mintage survived - 15000 surviving examples is considered to be common.

This question gets asked a lot and understandably so. The answer is demand is a much stronger factor in influencing prices than rarity or mintage. My most valuable US coin is my 1909-S VDB cent, with probably about 25-50k known examples. On the other hand I have a Civil War Token that is rarer than an 1804 dollar, and a US Mint medal with a mintage of 167. Both are in very nice grade, no less - but both sell for far less than my 1909-S VDB. The latter pieces just don't experience anywhere near the demand as the legendary coin required to complete one of the most popular coin sets there is.

 

Actually more states don't than do. For example, my home state of Oklahoma doesn't have one. Alaska and Hawaii (although Hawaii does have one) were not even states at the time.

 

There is nothing rare about a coin with a mintage of 30,000 and a very high survival rate. I have many coins in my collection with survival rates in the hundreds or less. What counts today is not how many coins were minted, but how many of them survived. Large numbers of the "old commemoratives" were saved, especially in Mint State. That is especially true for the issues from the 1930s because collecting them became a fad for a while at the time.

Then the promoters who sold them got greedy and started to abuse the collectors. That is happening with the modern commemorative coins that the mint issues each today.

The more important fact is demand. It does not matter how rare something is. If few people want it, the prices will be moderate to low.

Demand is effected by the fact that many of the old commemorative coins should never have been issued. Why was the Hudson, New York commemorative half dollar issued? It should have been a town medal.

The reason is New York State had a large congressional delegation at the time with a lot of clout. Add to that the fact that a few dealers got control of the mintage, which was a low 10,008 pieces. Those dealers gouged collectors with high prices, which eventually became a turn-off. Here is an example of the Hudson commemorative half dollar. This one is graded MS-64.



Why was the Cincinnati commemorative half dollar issued? It commemorated nothing except the greed of a promoter named Thomas Melish. It had Steven Foster on the obverse, who composed some popular songs, but he wasn’t writing music during the short time he lived in Cincinnati. There was no music celebration when the coin was sold, or any reason to issue it, except make money for the promoter. This one is also graded MS-64.



In the late 1980s some dealers touted the old commemorative coins as "great investments." Some collectors listened to the hype and paid some very high prices. Then the market collapsed and those buyers got burned. If you were one of those buyers, you are not likely to come back to that market.

To summarize, these coins are not that rare, and the demand has not been there for quite a number of years.

 

See I just assumed that each state took turns year by year to release a commemorative 90% silver half dollar representing their state.

I thought that was pretty cool and I thought that each state government picked the design.

I didn’t know about the greedy promoters and weird system of leaving states out.

So now I understand that I was wrong about what I assumed I also understand the low prices.

 

The interesting thing is you will find these in MS and circulated low grades too.

Promoters returned the unsold inventory to the Mint, thinking they would be melted. Mint says, hey, these are perfectly ordinary half dollars and tossed them out to circulate.

I'm sure nothing POed people as spending a dollar for a special coin and then getting one in circulation six months later....

 

It's been said already, but they are just "commerative halves" not state halves.. though many are specific to a state.. My favorites and the 1st of the commem are the Columbian exhibit... quarter, half and SCD.. Because of the numbers produced the half and SCDs can be had fairly inexpensively even in higher grade.. the quarter is another story.. a lot fewer made so rare in number as opposed to rare in "condition/grade".
So when it comes to the commem's I only buy those I like the design of as few will ever be of major value unless of very high grade... of the 3 only the quarter was a bit pricey but I got a good deal on her lol

 

I don't think anyone is saying not to collect them. A 50 piece type set in mid-MS is gorgeous to look at. And as you say, reasonably affordable.

 

And the ones released into circulation usually ended up circulating and wearing down. It was pretty tough for an average person during the Great Depression to save a "special" half dollar, considering the purchasing power back then.

 

When people do collect the classic commemoratives, they only get one of each type to complete the 50 piece set.

Some types such as the Texas Centennial were minted within a span of several years (1934-1938)

I own a 1936-D, which is one of the lower mintage years. Only 9,000 were produced by the Denver mint in 1936.

As I said earlier, people generally only collect the commems by type. A 1934-P has a much larger mintage of 60,000+, yet sells for around the same price as my 1936-D. Most collectors aren’t interested in collecting the entire 1934-1938 date run of Texas halves, when it takes only a single Texas half dollar to serve as a representative example in a 50 piece set of commemoratives

 

Oh I never planned on collecting them like a full set I just got one from my Uncle and I saw what appeared to be a coin for every state and then I saw many sell for a few hundred bucks so I was just curious why they weren’t more popular.

But at the time I was thinking these coins were released by each state and that they just took turns each year. Like I imagined each state government sending their chosen design to the mint on their allocated year and having these minted until every state had at least one coin chosen by the people of that state.

But now that I know it was mostly promoters and the people had nothing to do with it I understand why.

 

I love the Texas one!

Mine is the California one but I really like it too.

Not gonna lie I don’t know where the wear on mine is. I’ve seen MS67s of this coin that look no better than this but I’m not sure where to look. I’ve tried looking at the bear’s shoulder under a loupe but it looked just as good to me.

 

Good question, Blake. They call this market speculation. You have the option to go for it, or not to try.

Hint - I think you're right.