Crystal Ball 1986

MrEureka

It’s 1986. PCGS has just opened it’s doors. My predictions:

1. Slabs will come to dominate the market for valuable coins.
2. Slabs will attract lots of new buyers and greatly expand the market for quality coins.
3. Slabs will increase the storage space required for each coin, which will lead many collectors to collect far fewer and much better coins. The best coins will appreciate greatly, the rest will fall behind.

How accurate would these predictions have been? How obvious was it?

jedm

Right on! Number 3 is what is so obvious now that you mention it. Why did I not see this or realize it for myself 15 years ago when I started buying raw low value coins and not just a few nice examples in slabs and properly graded?

Coin Finder

You were spot on. So now then, what are your predictions for 2019?

ricko

Sound predictions.... Want to pick the lottery numbers?? JK.... Your knowledge of the business, combined with a market acumen, allowed predictions that were more knowledgeable statements than guesswork. Cheers, RickO

MrEureka

I said "How accurate would these predictions have been?" because I didn't actually make them. Actually, I did make the first two predictions about a year later. (I was a little slow to jump in the slab game.) The third prediction, like @jedm said, was not obvious to me until recent years. Today, most people still don't get it. Yes, most people understand that the market has moved towards trophy coins (in all price ranges), but very few people seem to understand that storage and display issues have been a major cause of the shift.

Namvet69

Someone had kryptonite in his crazy eightball! Peace Roy

MrEureka

@thebigeng said:
You were spot on. So now then, what are your predictions for 2019?

I think we can pretty much expect more of the same until we get some serious inflation. I have no idea if that will be in 2019 or 2029, so my attitude is that if I'm going to keep a coin, I'd better be prepared to hold it a long, long time.