Why is Morgan Dollar numismatic value dropping?

There's been alot of good conversation here. One thing that was mentioned that I read about are the hoards. There was one a year and a half ago with 16,000 that were all going to be graded. So even though 16,000 might not be that many coins, that's a significant boost in populations of the higher grades, considering these were all uncirculated. Population increases for slabbed coins definitely tends to drop the value. It's like a ship wreck that find a large amount of previously scarce gold coins.

 

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But I thought they were mostly common Morgans, with a few high-grades in some more scarce dates ?

Do we know if a fairly rare Morgan that maybe costs $100 - $1,000 got crushed in price in the last few years because of hoards, as opposed to general market conditions ?

 

If you have a certain date and mint in mind I will look. Numismedia is where I get my numbers from, it’s typically pretty close to what people are willing to pay at any given time. If you click on the value, it also pops up a chart that shows the price trend over the years for the grade you chose as well as one up and one down from it. I took a look at a couple that match the general guidelines you mentioned and the ms65+ grades seemed to take a much bigger beating than ms64 or 63. I only looked at the 1880 CC and 1892 O. The 1892 O dropped from $55k to $40k in ms66 from $4.3k to $3.3k in ms65 and $960 to $830 in ms64. In ms63 the price has been pretty steady and in ms62 it has been solid, and even increased a little over the years.

 

It may be the case that the higher-graded, most-expensive Morgan's suffered the biggest decline. But they may have had a bigger run to the upside, too.

As a general rule -- and I could be wrong but I don't think I am -- I would be more likely to pay more for a higher-graded coin (assuming I'm not paying bubble prices) for future appreciation potential or holding its value. At least that's how I view premium coins, notably Saints.

 

I'm still waiting for a 1903-O to become available in a respectable grade and good price

 

Cliff notes version, some of the hoard bags have had some more expensive ones which obviously cheapens them

 

At what price are you a buyer compared to the current price ?

 

$175-$200

 

Perhaps this is due to the aging population (& now declining number) of coin collectors. Wouldn't large volume coins like Morgan dollars be the first ones to exhibit price softness?

This has probably come up before, but does anyone know where to find hard numbers about ANA membership indexed by year (or some other indicator of the number of active collectors in the US)? It might be interesting to see those numbers plotted against values of variois Morgan dollars in ms63.

 

Can we find out how many bidders there are on Ebay for the Coins Section ? And how it has trended over the years ?

Same thing with Heritage Auctions, which I think has 900,000 registered bidders.

 

ANA membership, magazines and coin show attendance are only a measurement of people that do those exact things.

The whole hobby is dying thing has been beaten to death and been said ever since the first coin collector. Of course collectors are overwhelmingly elderly, collecting takes money. Teens spend their time playing sports and chasing dates and are poor, college kids spend what little money they get partying or on dates, 20s-30s you're generally paying off student loans and raising a family. It's not until 40/50s for most people that they really get a lot of disposable income.

Morgans are falling because they're overwhelmingly common as dirt. You can get on eBay and buy 10K+ at any given time. They're the Silver Eagles of classic coins, popular but their values always far exceeded their rarity and hoard bags are found on a pretty regular basis

 

If the market is currently stable with, say, 1,000,000 collectors in the US, then we only need 1 in 400 or so kids to pick up coin collecting as a hobby in some degree at some point in their life. Put into perspective, it is easy to conclude that the hobby will be fine. However, it does not diminish the importance of getting young people into the hobby.

 

heritage sells far more than just coins, though

 

I have a feeling that prices are going to take an even bigger hit in the coming months with everything that's going on. It's not just the coronavirus that's causing commodity prices to plummet. Now that so many people aren't working, payroll taxes are being cut, federal interest rate is zero or near zero, money isn't going to be moving. This combined with the fact that people still need to pay mortgages, and utilities, among other living expenses and people are going to care alot less about buying more coins. I am certainly not counting on this or hoping for it, however, this is the current trajectory. I'm glad to see that physical PM prices are still as high as they are because it shows optimism.

 

Actually it is. Nothing was fundamentally wrong, economy was booming, jobs numbers were great.

The only reason why everything is plummeting is from the virus and people having to stay home and lack of large gatherings.

Panic is driving the markets at the moment which is a direct result of the virus. Netflix even dropped almost $100 in the last week when that is a major entertainment source right now is just one of many examples that rationality is not the driving force at the moment.

PM prices have nothing to do with optimism and they've been falling which hopefully will be a learning experience for many that when things actually do go bad PMs aren't going to bail you out like many claim

 

After 9/11, prices dipped a bit but then took off.

MS65 and higher Saints moved nicely, and 1907 High Relief's doubled in about 6 years. Gold moving higher helped, and the premium actually fell, but prices for top coins got dragged up nonetheless.

 

Traders like anything unusual to sell off their stocks at high prices, hold the cash, then buy back at bargain prices. Do nothing and everything will return to what we perceive as normal.

 

Then there are some like myself who have gotten just too old to hold on to our collections and hope someone will be willing to pay fair market and walk away with what some consider to be an Estate buy.

 

Some great stocks are pulled down because of the massive S&P 500 index trading - a low tide lowers all ships. There are some bargains out there!