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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 8323161, member: 101855&quot;]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 &quot;old commemoratives&quot; 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1474663[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1474664[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1474678[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1474679[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>In the late 1980s some dealers touted the old commemorative coins as &quot;great investments.&quot; 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>To summarize, these coins are not that rare, and the demand has not been there for quite a number of years.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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