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Here's what could be driving the GEM vs. "normal" coin market.
topstuf
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<< <i>When you have 15 houses, yachts in three oceans, planes, cellars, mistresses, surgery, a library, and a personal charity, new purchases become just a matter of upgrading. And this is where the Perfection Anxiety kicks in. What you need is to have not just the most but the very, very best. The super-rich watch each other like envious owls, to see who’s got a slightly better loafer, a pullover made from some even more absurdly endangered fur. >>
<< <i>Only the fathomlessly rich suffer from Perfection Anxiety. There is no relativity to wealth. It’s all absolutes. It’s either impeccable, the best, the rarest, or it might as well be Walmart. >>
<< <i>The thing with Perfection Anxiety is that it seems to accept mostly new money, and it particularly afflicts those who make their money early. Old, inherited wealth is generally already bound up in property and trusts and obligations and lawsuits. So it would seem that the best we can hope for is to be wealthy but to be without cash.
Being able to afford everything you desire is not, by any means, the worst thing that can happen to you. But, depressingly, and more profoundly, neither is it the best. >>
<< <i>When you have 15 houses, yachts in three oceans, planes, cellars, mistresses, surgery, a library, and a personal charity, new purchases become just a matter of upgrading. And this is where the Perfection Anxiety kicks in. What you need is to have not just the most but the very, very best. The super-rich watch each other like envious owls, to see who’s got a slightly better loafer, a pullover made from some even more absurdly endangered fur. >>
<< <i>Only the fathomlessly rich suffer from Perfection Anxiety. There is no relativity to wealth. It’s all absolutes. It’s either impeccable, the best, the rarest, or it might as well be Walmart. >>
<< <i>The thing with Perfection Anxiety is that it seems to accept mostly new money, and it particularly afflicts those who make their money early. Old, inherited wealth is generally already bound up in property and trusts and obligations and lawsuits. So it would seem that the best we can hope for is to be wealthy but to be without cash.
Being able to afford everything you desire is not, by any means, the worst thing that can happen to you. But, depressingly, and more profoundly, neither is it the best. >>
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Comments
If the song were rewritten today, they would probably change the brand names.
Oh Lord won't you buy me a Maybach Zeppelin. My friends all drive Ferraris I must make amends.
Edited to correct the spelling of Porsche ... it is pretty obvious I don't own one.
Latin American Collection
Eric
<< <i>Only the fathomlessly rich suffer from Perfection Anxiety. >>
I guess that makes me "fathomlessly rich". I wish someone had told me this before now.
<< <i>
<< <i>Only the fathomlessly rich suffer from Perfection Anxiety. >>
I guess that makes me "fathomlessly rich". I wish someone had told me this before now. >>
Look on the bright side, now that you know you can go ahead and purchase all those coins you thought were too expensive before.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
<< <i>That article is stupid >>
It probably didn't pertain to many on here.
Although it IS correct.
1. Slabs have made it possible for many more people to recognize quality and compete for it.
2. The internet has made it dramatically easier to find coins, which means that, unlike the old days, it usually makes sense to wait for exactly what you want, and not settle for something that falls even a little bit short.
Obviously, this is old news. And just as obviously, the markets for all types of coins will continue to do what markets have always done, i.e., fluctuate.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
<< <i>If the song were rewritten today, they would probably change the brand names.
Oh Lord won't you buy me a Maybach Zeppelin. My friends all drive Ferraris I must make amends. >>
In my case, it would be something like 'my friends all have iPhones, I must make amends'.....
I think a lot of people assume to much about rich people, I have been around a lot of them and only simpson collect coins out the rich people I know. Most of them I have been around will not touch coins because they do not think the are a good place to park money.
NGC registry V-Nickel proof #6!!!!
working on proof shield nickels # 8 with a bullet!!!!
RIP "BEAR"
<< <i>Its a pain in the rear to be semi rich, you either need to be stupid rich or poor. I live in the country a short jump to Fort Worth, my neighbor the next pasture over has a helicopter, 2 Lamos and 3 different ranches, the neighbor or the other side has a couple of ranches and a plane. I get to mooch off both of them cause something is always broken or they forgot to pick up ammo or what ever. These guys are super nice but they can not change out a light bulb and as a result the monthly bill to keep their world afloat would blow your socks off. The best part is when they tire of a toy I get to buy it for pennies on the dollar cause they do not want to deal with having people enter into their world.
I think a lot of people assume to much about rich people, I have been around a lot of them and only simpson collect coins out the rich people I know. Most of them I have been around will not touch coins because they do not think the are a good place to park money. >>
Most of the truly wealthy people I know are pretty careful with their money. They don't tend to blow it on expensive baubles like $300k cars, etc.
<< <i>
<< <i>Its a pain in the rear to be semi rich, you either need to be stupid rich or poor. I live in the country a short jump to Fort Worth, my neighbor the next pasture over has a helicopter, 2 Lamos and 3 different ranches, the neighbor or the other side has a couple of ranches and a plane. I get to mooch off both of them cause something is always broken or they forgot to pick up ammo or what ever. These guys are super nice but they can not change out a light bulb and as a result the monthly bill to keep their world afloat would blow your socks off. The best part is when they tire of a toy I get to buy it for pennies on the dollar cause they do not want to deal with having people enter into their world.
I think a lot of people assume to much about rich people, I have been around a lot of them and only simpson collect coins out the rich people I know. Most of them I have been around will not touch coins because they do not think the are a good place to park money. >>
Most of the truly wealthy people I know are pretty careful with their money. They don't tend to blow it on expensive baubles like $300k cars, etc. >>
Semi-rich people with $300k cars often seem to be concerned about depreciation on their cars. Often not a great place to park money but a decent place to have some fun.
Of course, some $300k cars hold their value better than others.
I suppose one can never say they have heard or read it all.
The painting needs to stay in London... Let's move on.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Perfection is something that does not have to be the finest known. Nor a coin that grades MS70 or 69 or 68 or whatever is the so-called top pop or finest graded. Perfection can, should and does exist at several levels. There can be a perfect example of an EF45 coin that exhibits all the fine qualities collectors would value at that level of preservation. And such a coin is still significant considering the purpose behind why coins exist in the first place.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
<< <i>Now lets move on to this perfection misconception...
Perfection is something that does not have to be the finest known. Nor a coin that grades MS70 or 69 or 68 or whatever is the so-called top pop or finest graded. Perfection can, should and does exist at several levels. There can be a perfect example of an EF45 coin that exhibits all the fine qualities collectors would value at that level of preservation. And such a coin is still significant considering the purpose behind why coins exist in the first place. >>
Ah, but your XF ....pales... beside my finest known Gobrecht dollar. However, if you don't insist on eating at a restaurant near me, I will tolerate your circulated coin.
The thing with Perfection Anxiety is that it seems to accept mostly new money, and it particularly afflicts those who make their money early.
Old, inherited wealth is generally already bound up in property and trusts and obligations and lawsuits.
IOW, "old" (read "stable") money stays out of collectibles for the most part.
In all things, there will always be demand for the very best. I think the brilliant and often quotable Oscar Wilde once wrote, "I am a man of simple tastes. I am easily satisfied by the very best."
In the case of coins though, the really high-quality monsters can be so beautiful, and inspire a bit of madness in those of us bitten by the collecting passion. It's hardly surprising that the finest and most alluring examples get bid up to extreme levels. I am guilty of this myself. One suspends reality in bidding crazy money for coins ... but it is also true that they have proven over and over to hold value over time, even despite some notable market crashes, hiccups, and years-long troughs. The worst of these was 1989 (crash) to 1999 (ten-year doldrums). And yet many coins today are trading above 1989 peak levels ... perhaps not common date / grade coins, but for sure the best of the best. The fact that coins, though appearing to non-collectors as nothing more than "shiny little discs of stamped metal," can nonetheless maintain and prove their allure and their value over years or even decades, makes it possible for us to be temporarily insane and hold that bidder card in the air long enough to own one of the finest ...
Best,
Sunnywood
Sunnywood's Rainbow-Toned Morgans (Retired)
Sunnywood's Barber Quarters (Retired)
<< <i>If you note, the article states plainly:
The thing with Perfection Anxiety is that it seems to accept mostly new money, and it particularly afflicts those who make their money early.
Old, inherited wealth is generally already bound up in property and trusts and obligations and lawsuits.
IOW, "old" (read "stable") money stays out of collectibles for the most part. >>
Or hangs on to the stuff they own long enough (generations) long enough for it to become collectible.
<< <i>Factor in the subtle slide from when the term GEM was reserved MS67 only and MS65 was called Choice. Remove Select 63, move the other adjectives down one notch accordingly and bingo - more "gems" for "all", and even Superb Gems in the space created at 67! This happened long ago. But not that long.
Eric >>
When I started collecting gem type coins in the early to mid-1970's the word "gem" was commonly used for MS65 coins. Very few people (if any) used the MS67 terminology at that time. But everyone understood that anything above the MS65 level was generally "superb" or "beyond gem." I know CDN used MS65 as "choice BU" well into the 1980's, but that wasn't the standard vernacular among dealers. The super-grades didn't show up until the later 1980's. I first started seeing MS67 used routinely in 1983-1986 when PNI and other high-end boutique firms started using split grades and ABC levels of quality (ie a MS65/67 ABA) coin....where ABC's denoted eye appeal, luster, and strike.
I popped open Joel Rettew and David Hall's 1976 Catalog of the Great Eastern Collection. They are consistent in their use of MS65 as gem and MS65+ as superb gem. What's most interesting in this catalog is the use of full page photos to show silver dollar BU grading....very much like the grading photos PCGS uses today. Hall and Rettew used the grades of 60, 60+, 65, 65+, 70. That was pretty much along my lines of grading at that time though I know I also used 60++ to denote liner gem coins. The fact that CDN was years behind the time doesn't change what the market was doing.
Speaking of gem coins, I see that the pop 1 for PCGS type (and date), 1859-s MS68 CAC seated half is up for sale in a dealer's inventory ($97K). Why would you not list the fact that the coin is ex-Eliasberg? Do people not care anymore and it is really all about the sticker and the grade? And the most amazing fact is that Eliasberg had essentially twins of this coin. The other one is currently graded NGC MS68 (one of each mm variety). Maybe it's not a "normal" market anymore.
buy vintage jet planes or impoverished countries. It's a big world out there and
"chuck-e-cheese" tokens are for the meek.
I have some doubt they are all that big a force in the coin market anyway. People
have been searching for Gems since even before government created the 1%.