Classic Silver Commems continue their price cascade...
mrcommem
Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭✭✭
I just checked my collection inventory for price changes and noticed about half of my Classic Silver Commemoratives took a downturn. This is as low as I have ever seen them. How much further down can they go?
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Fine with me. I'm in the market to buy a few. When gem Hawaiians get to $500, let me know.
OTOH, most of the commems aren't actually all that rare, as many were saved and the demand is even lower. Too bad, as many of the designs are really fantastic.
Look at what you would have paid for a 1936 Oregon in 1986. These are all in David Hall Flips.
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Based on PCGS price guide Oregon is down from $800 to $250, and the 39-D walker is down from $750 to $140.
I guess the bright spot is we get a lot more coins for for our dollars and our dollars are worth a lot less than in 1986.
Just looked at the price guide out of curiosity. Lots of red there. I like them, some good designs, some not so good, but maybe if I keep waiting they will get cheap enough to jump in again. Then again I never was that good at picking rock bottom of a coin market.
It's interesting to see how some issues held their value much better than others. Without bashing specific issues, which would be sure to piss some people off, I'll just say that it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I don't see them going much lower as although there's still a lot of red there's also some green upswings. It is a buyers market but there's noting great out there as most longterm collectors of this series refuse to sell at these levels. As if you surf just eBay it's loaded with mostly non original skinned dipped white crap. There are finally quite a few new top players who are taking advantage of this series after some exited or passed away. Let's face it reconsideration and plus grading hurt this series more that anything else. It's not uncommon to glance at coinfacts and see the same exact commem in MS66, MS66+, MS67, and MS67+ and those are the coins I see at shows formally a older $2K MS66 now in a new $16.5K MS67+ holder. I just came back from ANA with want lists I could not find a single coin for and I also sold some high grade older holder commems all at well above PCGS values. So that being said don't let the price guides scare you as it's still much like before. Everything depends on the quality of the commem in the holder and not so much about the opinion on the label.
Why do I feel like I'm setting fire to $100 dollar bills playing this collector coin game? We've been in a precipitous free fall since Jan '15. I watched a Mecum collector car auction recently. Same situation going on there. Narrow range of cars holding or increasing their value. (read high end rarities) All the others are 30% to 50% off of highs a few years ago. No way one could restore an old car for what you can now buy them for. I'm wondering if collectables in general are under pressure in the way that we are seeing collector coins? It's been said time and again that few Millenials collect. Is that what we are up against here? Too few new collectors?
I have started picking some up ... they will probably drop much more so I can cost average
Never owned one, but have often considered putting together the 50 piece set.
I’ve been here 15 years. The OP’s question has been asked for all of those years.
https://www.pcgs.com/prices/graph.aspx?range=1970 to Date&filename=slvgld
Rare pieces will hold up better than common pieces. Rare can be something like that you cannot easily buy something similar within 5 years.
Common pieces that are often available don't have demand to support their prices. The only thing you can do is have high offers (like patterns), but there may be too many commems to do that.
Attractive toned ones seem to well. Unattractive or run of the mill, not too well at all.
I am loving it. Like Warren Buffet says, When no one wants something, I buy it. And when everyone wants something, I sell it.
They are a super Buy right now. Let them go lower will buy more. Fantastic coins!
Reminds me of time period before 911 when Gold so cheap. I was buying BU world gold coins for BV plus a few bucks from nge for around what cost 2 people go out to dinner. Then blew them out in 2011 when Gold high cleaned up.
When nobody wants coins or a series time to buy.
With massive grade and population inflation over the past few years, it's now all about the coin and its color.
Some color coins are still getting eye-popping prices, and some, like classic gold commems, have a long way to drop given their huge populations and comparatively small collector base
Commems and Early Type
I'm hoping for a rebound. Not sure when. Prices will never be at the 80s era again.
Classic Commemorative s have a long history of being promoted. Most of the coins have always and will always be common. I don't think there have ever been enough collectors, except at the very high end, to absorb all the coins. So until there is another promotion, I don't think these coins are going anywhere.
But at these prices I think really nice commems are a bargain.
I felt the same way about gold commems for decades, but I think that now they're finally cheap enough to represent good value. Consider that a complete 11 piece set in 66 bids as follows:
Blue Sheet PCGS: $27,310
CDN: $31,000
CDN CAC: $36,975
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
It's sure an uphill battle.
Historical interest has been overtaken by quest for condition.
"Grades" keep ...changing.
Grading COMPANIES are being challenged for DEGREE of grade.
Families are beset by need to work harder and harder to stay afloat with no REAL "spare time."
The families are dividing and the kids are abandoned to ELECTRONIC babysitters.
Schools are required to teach "PROPER" rather than practical lessons.
Not the best scenario.
Kids do what parents do. If parents use phones, then kids want to use phones.
We've also seen here that if parents look at slabs, kids like to look at slabs
On the other hand, now it's easy for almost anyone almost anywhere on the globe to buy coins from the comfort of their home. And from a foreigner's perspective, US commems should have a lot more appeal than just about any other series of US coins.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Access is no problem whatsoever. It's what happens to the stuff we have access....TO.
Also, unless the "foreigner" is really attuned to US collecting, the chart of the commem performance will influence him more.
I don't see why foreigners would be attracted to an esoteric and underperforming area. Is there any evidence of this?
Also, when US collectors collect darkside, I also don't see many focusing on darkside commems.
I think the point here is that they reflect American history and culture far more than almost any circulation coinage. In fact, I would argue the first truly and completely "American coin" designed for circulation is the Buffalo Nickel. All the coins before it are neo-classical in nature. The iconography on the Buff Nickel is uniquely American.
After then, we've been dominated by pseudo-monarchical memorial coins. A not uniquely American phenomenon. The back of the cent, nickel, dime and half dollar have remained neo-classical. The state quarters and some of the Native American Dollars start to have a more American flair.
The coin market is becoming more and more selective. True rarities seem to be where the serious money is going these days and classic commems aren't rare at all. The days of price appreciation are probably over for the great majority of collector coins.
I agree the Buffalo Nickel is nice and "All American", but commem topics can be kind of esoteric. Do we know what known foreign collectors focus on, say in the Registry Sets or major auctions?
Regarding your last point, here's my take. Young people have never IMO been consistent collectors of serious things. Too busy with school, then family, careers. And, then there is the money factor. I believe that the bulk of serious collectors are people with leisure time and money. We have plenty of those folks as a potential collector pool. Peaks in demand are the result of casual and non-collectors who are motivated by the investment potential of collectibles, followers of fads. IMO there will always be collectors, certainly of historically significant and beautiful things. What specific things collectors will collect in the future is a matter of pure speculation, but keep in mind that numismatic collectors have been active for centuries. My own approach is to recognize that hobbies cost money and, staying within my own means, not worry about future values.
I think that is something of a mistake. There is much more action in more widget-like series coins than commems. And commems are largely "rare" relative to mintages for circulation strikes. The issue is demand not supply. Or, demand relative to supply if you wish.
Iowa is a "common commemorative" that is only worth about $125 in 66. The total mintage of Iowa is 100,000. For a circulation coin, that would be "rare" [rare overstates it, but I'll use it to be consistent].
New Rochelle 15,000
Antietam 18,000
The only really "common" ones are the Columbians, Stone mountain and the BTW and Wash-Carv, especially if you consider them as type rather than year. Even "overproduced" types like Oregon only have about a quarter million coins across ALL years.
Heck, the Mint still sells over 200,000 mint sets per year and 400,000+ proof sets.
If you ask me, it's potentially another canary in the coal mine. You can't judge the coin market by the pop 10 coins. If there is no support for a U.S. type with only 15,000 examples, how broad is the coin market or the collectors in it?
Clearly, there are more U.S. collectors than there are U.S. commem collectors. But the answer to why CAN'T be the rarity of the commems since the commems are more rare than most other types. [And I'm not talking about condition rarities. Otherwise, try to find a Monroe in 68.]
Just my two cents...er...two Columbian halves
e American flair.
I'm not saying I agree with the point. LOL. I'm just saying I think that's what he meant.
I mean, honestly, why would a foreigner care about a Washington Quarter or a Merc dime?
While I agree with much of this, I strongly disagree with the last part about there ALWAYS being collectors. Take a look at the stamp hobby - once bigger than the coin hobby - and decide how certain you can be that there will ALWAYS be collectors. In fact, it seems like the collector base might be shrinking. [ANA membership has dropped from 32,000 in 2009 to 24,000 today.]
Also, the millennial and post-millennial generation have grown up in a rental society. They don't own things. Books, magazines, photos, music recordings, videos. They rent/stream them when they need them. I think they might feel very differently about "hoarding things" than we old-timers.
Naah.... they're just....resting.