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Raw Moderns

cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited January 14, 2020 7:21PM in U.S. Coin Forum

As most people know the lion's share of moderns on the market come from mint sets.

There seems to be some tightening in these markets. Finding nice sets for sale is getting tougher and tougher every year as more and more are destroyed and as many of the key dates are very prone to tarnishing. Now there appears to be a significant tightening as evidenced by the fact that dealer inventories are shrinking and the few that are for sale are increasing in price. Remember there is very little demand for these so even the few companies that sell a lot of sets don't really sell very many.

Wholesale prices on BU Ike rolls is up to $60/ roll on common dates and $80 to $90 on the key dates! Buy ads for mnt sets are starting to appear. Prices on '82 and '83 key date clads are going higher as they become more difficult to locate. Nobody seems to have these souvenir sets in stock at any price.

Of course I've called ten of the last two bull markets but if mint sets ever get off the dime it will be a powerful signal that things are finally changing only 40 years after I first predicted higher prices were imminent.

I'm still selling because of age rather than because these prices are good or I expect a downturn. I wouldn't mind if prices go up before I get it all sold. ;) I'll continue to collect tokens and medals and several low value collections. I might even start an old series once I think prices have bottomed.

https://www.davescollectiblecoins.com/mint-sets/

Tempus fugit.
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Comments

  • ECHOESECHOES Posts: 2,974 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for the info...

    ~HABE FIDUCIAM IN DOMINO III V VI / III XVI~
    POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
    Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
  • bcdeluxebcdeluxe Posts: 207 ✭✭✭

    I don't have enough knowledge in this area, but this is a very interesting and informative post @cladking.

  • HemisphericalHemispherical Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks @cladking.

    Tightening is occurring on the secondary market and with the latest price increases at the US Mint there will be more scrunching (spell check didn’t flag that word.)

    IMO

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That is an interesting thought... I may have to open that box of mint and proof sets that has been sitting unopened for the last ten years or so.... ;) Cheers, RickO

  • TradesWithChopsTradesWithChops Posts: 640 ✭✭✭✭

    information - until the "im still selling - heres my link" - that makes it advertising/marketing.

    Minor Variety Trade dollar's with chop marks set:
    More Than It's Chopped Up To Be

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just about the time I posted this last night HSN was selling mint sets live. Unfortunately they were not selling like hotcakes.

    Very little has really changed. Mint sets simply are not very popular and never really were. The '69 set got up to $20 just in time for the ANA Pittsburgh convention in 1989 but it was a flash in the pan. I had believed it was real since this is the best date. I never did get a handle on what caused this anomaly. Individual sets were sometimes popular back in the day and there was a small furor over the 1970 issue and the set eventually reached $50 before settling back about $5 in the middle of the "great depression" in 1995.

    But it's not at all "popularity" that appears ro be underlying these recent changes. Neither the sets nor the coins in them are very popular. But there is a growing demand and vast percentages of the sets no longer exist. I'd guess fewer than 20% of the 1969 sets survive and of these 80% are now tarnished. There are no rolls or bags of most of the coins in this set. The cent and nickel rolls can be found but there really aren't many of the Denver nickels. There are half dollar rolls but these are tough enough after years of melting (40% is melted preferentially to 90%) that these sell for $56/ roll. The dimes and quarters are available almost only in the set and the vast majority are poorly made, banged up, AND have tarnished in the last quarter century. This applies to the few surviving sets but it also applies to many of the pieces that survive from previously destroyed sets.

    Out of sight the coin hobby has been growing in leaps and bounds. It is readily visible on various internet platforms but it is more visible anecdotally like the huge numbers of folders and albums being produced for moderns. Everywhere there are signs of this growth but these new collectors are not buying XF bust half dollars or New Jersey coppers. They are collecting things like "themes" in world coins, old silver, low grade indian cents, and modern US coins. These collectors are becoming more advanced and sophisticated with each passing year and their collections are growing.

    It remains to be seen if this growing demand will have much effect on things like nice chBU 1969 quarters but the supply is still quite tiny compared to the potential demand and apparently current demand is beginning to exceed current supply. Already the very "common" 1976 Ike is wholesaling at $4. This had a mintage of over 4,000,000 and large percentages were saved. But it not readily available and many have been destroyed because it has always been considered so common. Many were very poorly made and even mint set coins tend to be atrocious.

    Tempus fugit.
  • SanctionIISanctionII Posts: 11,660 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My thought is that coin collecting has been, is and will continue to be a hobby that will always have new persons entering into it. There is an aspect of human behavior that causes some people to gravitate towards collecting (be it coins, jewels, minerals, books, stamps, toys, art, cars, etc.).

    As time goes by and younger persons enter the hobby their interests and collecting endeavors will be different from those of prior generations. Many collectors of US coinage who were born in the 1920s - 1950s who remember when US coinage was made of silver and gold. Most of these older collectors have little interest in clad and other post 1964 coinage.

    Younger persons who enter the hobby will not have the same mindset of older collectors and it is possible that they will view post 1964 clad and other coinage as worthy of collecting.

    As Cladking has mentioned before, if demand for post 1964 coinage increases, that demand will be met with a paltry supply. The lack of interest in post 1964 coinage at the time that they were produced has resulted in newly minted examples of these coins not being saved in great number.

    Many examples of post 1964 clad coinage are of poor quality and are not eye appealing. However there are exceptions, and these coins are very attractive (take a look at some of the highest graded clads shown on CoinFacts).

    Maybe one day Wondercoin will post a thread containing photos of his clad quarter collection (like he did with his silver Washington quarters). When he does so, I expect that said thread will be widely viewed and that it will garner many, many likes.

    Maybe one day Cladking will also favor fellow forumites with photographs of some of his prized clad coins.

  • mannie graymannie gray Posts: 7,259 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yes, @cladking , most surviving 1969 mint sets are toned/tarnished, but I think your estimate of 20% survival rate is way too low.
    These are available at most coin shops, shows, and on line in quantity.

  • davewesendavewesen Posts: 5,761 ✭✭✭✭✭

    wow, I never would have thought about watching HSN to get a pulse on the market.

  • keetskeets Posts: 25,351 ✭✭✭✭✭

    As most people know the lion's share of moderns on the market come from mint sets

    I have always assumed most of the raw Moderns come from rolls.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @keets said:
    As most people know the lion's share of moderns on the market come from mint sets

    I have always assumed most of the raw Moderns come from rolls.

    It depends on the specific coins. Most bicentennial and states quarters come from rolls. Most cents are more common in rolls than mint sets but some like '69, '71PDS, '73-D, '84, '86-D, '91-D, and '93-D are difficult to find in rolls. Many of the zincolns are corroded when found in rolls anyway. Nickels like the '71, '73, and '86-D are tough in rolls. All dimes up to 1999 are scarce in rolls. All eagle reverse quarters are elusive in rolls and some are virtually unknown. Only the '71-D, '74-D, and the early '80's are seen more than rarely. Other dates aren't really rare but quality is abysmal, they don't trade, and they are all hard to find. All half dollars can be found in rolls but most are not very common. Halfs like the '78-D and many of the '80's and '90's are elusive. Ikes used to appear in rolls but most of these have been searched and distributed.

    Rolls of all moderns exist from mint sets and this is what most of them are; from mint sets. Mint set only coins are relatively common because these are saved rather than spent. For instance even though 65% of 1973 mint sets have been destroyed most of the Ikes survive because they have a premium but the other coins in the set tend to be spent unless they are Gems or varieties. Even Gems and varieties tended to be spent for many years because so few collected them.

    Only the '82 and '83 issues are mostly from rolls (~10% from souvenir sets, 20% from private sets, and 70% from rolls). Contrary to popular belief these dates were saved in greater quantities than other dates from that era. It's just that the number of rolls saved in those days was so tiny that these dates are scarce because there are no mint sets that would normally constitute most of the supply. It might be noted that while 80,000 '83-P quarters were saved as singles and in rolls, there are very few rolls left. The coins are searched and used in collections and dealer stock. Attrition is significant but not high.

    Tempus fugit.
  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @SanctionII said:
    My thought is that coin collecting has been, is and will continue to be a hobby that will always have new persons entering into it. There is an aspect of human behavior that causes some people to gravitate towards collecting (be it coins, jewels, minerals, books, stamps, toys, art, cars, etc.).

    As time goes by and younger persons enter the hobby their interests and collecting endeavors will be different from those of prior generations. Many collectors of US coinage who were born in the 1920s - 1950s who remember when US coinage was made of silver and gold. Most of these older collectors have little interest in clad and other post 1964 coinage.

    Younger persons who enter the hobby will not have the same mindset of older collectors and it is possible that they will view post 1964 clad and other coinage as worthy of collecting.

    As Cladking has mentioned before, if demand for post 1964 coinage increases, that demand will be met with a paltry supply. The lack of interest in post 1964 coinage at the time that they were produced has resulted in newly minted examples of these coins not being saved in great number.

    Many examples of post 1964 clad coinage are of poor quality and are not eye appealing. However there are exceptions, and these coins are very attractive (take a look at some of the highest graded clads shown on CoinFacts).

    Maybe one day Wondercoin will post a thread containing photos of his clad quarter collection (like he did with his silver Washington quarters). When he does so, I expect that said thread will be widely viewed and that it will garner many, many likes.

    Maybe one day Cladking will also favor fellow forumites with photographs of some of his prized clad coins.

    There is no evidence that age has any general predictive value on collector preferences financially. (Nostalgia has no general predictive value on the price level.) Many seem to believe it, yet the evidence doesn't support this belief.

    There is a difference between "popular" measured by the size of the collector base and an actual preference. Look at the relative preference (not "popularity") between different US series. Has it changed for even one pre-existing series? If so, which one? I have been a collector off and on since 1975 and to my knowledge, it hasn't happened with even one.

    Collectors prefer coins which didn't exist in the past (an overwhelming example being recent NCLT) over previously existing series but otherwise, the primary difference for the most recent generation and in the future is the ability to find practically any coin on the internet, now or at any time.

    The supply of this coinage isn't low. It's scarcer than NCLT, many recent proof sets and maybe coinage generally struck over the last 10-20 years. Excluding these exceptions, it's more common than 99% of all coins ever struck in equivalent quality.

  • kiyotekiyote Posts: 5,568 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 15, 2020 6:08PM

    I’ve broken up a lot of US mint and proof sets for my US quarter collection 1965-present. The 1999 silver proof one was particularly tough because I checked the aftermarket prices the next year and they had gone through the roof.

    "I'll split the atom! I am the fifth dimension! I am the eighth wonder of the world!" -Gef the talking mongoose.
  • BoosibriBoosibri Posts: 11,841 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Athens MI, I live in Kalamazoo!

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @mannie gray said:
    Yes, @cladking , most surviving 1969 mint sets are toned/tarnished, but I think your estimate of 20% survival rate is way too low.
    These are available at most coin shops, shows, and on line in quantity.

    Ya' made me look.

    I just counted about 110 of them available on eBay with many of them tarnished and several at very high prices that are very unlikely to sell.

    I'm aware they made a couple million of them and even 20% is still 400,000 sets. I've never suggested nor believed these sets were scarce or would EVER BE scarce. it is merely my contention that the 5,000 nice attractive BU 1969 quarters that survive in aggregate in all of the remaining sets are far too few to meet a mass demand. There was a time that 2 1/2 million '50-D quarters seemed rare and here I am talking about far fewer than 5000 nice '69 quarters being still available at current prices. I don't really know where a new supply will come from when these 5000 are gone. I don't know anyone who has substantial numbers of nice specimens. No doubt there are some hoards and I know where a few are located but they are not sufficient to meet a mass demand and there are almost no "old time collections" to make up the difference.

    So long as we have no mass demand the sets will be available on eBay for very low cost. It's not supply that is huge it's the demand which is tiny.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @davewesen said:
    wow, I never would have thought about watching HSN to get a pulse on the market.

    I wouldn't either. I posted this thread just before they started selling them. ;)

    It was mere coincidence that they sold mint sets for the first time in years.

    I do watch HSN to see what they are selling though because I supply some of these markets. What HSN pays for the coins being sold tends be quite high.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 15, 2020 6:34PM

    @WCC said:
    There is no evidence that age has any general predictive value on the price level.) Many seem to believe it, yet the evidence doesn't support this belief.

    >

    I NEVER said it did. What I have tried to get through more times than I can count is that there is such a thing as regression toward the mean. It's highly unnatural that US coin collectors would shun any US coin in such vast percentages. US coin collectors hated clads in 1965 and many have never softened their stance. They not only don't want to collect them but they don't want others to collect them either. Large numbers of new collectors in the last 20 years have been turned away from the mainstream hobby by the notion they aren't real collectors nor are they collecting real US coins.

    It is a virtual impossibility that so many collectors in 40 years will have this attitude.

    Pendulums swing... ...they return to center... ...they don't just keep going in one direction forever.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wondercoin is correct. I haven't screened any coins made in the last 15 years and very few made since 1983. I used to go through lots of rolls and bags saving nice coins but when quality improved in 1999 I almost stopped altogether.

    Most of the best coins used to be in mint sets so I paid an inordinate amount of attention to them. There were nice coins made for circulation but you could check bag after bag of the current date and not find any. Meanwhile looking in mint sets was like shooting fish in a barrel. About 2% of mint set coins used to be Gem. It's lower now because sets are cherrypicked a little and many have tarnished.

    Wondercoin probably knows more about the modern markets than anyone else. He is also very well versed on what coins exist and in what condition as well as how to grade them. I try to keep up with pre-1985 clad and how to find them. I'm only familiar with some of the varieties.

    Tempus fugit.
  • wondercoinwondercoin Posts: 16,648 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thank you CladKing.

    The only wild card is gradeflation.

    At the FUN auction, Heritage was selling a PR69 1942 proof quarter ... an unheard of beast. No PR69 of any 1936-1942 proof quarter. In fact, no PR68+ even exists in 1942! I was a close underbidder to the $14,000 hammer the coin sold at. And, it should have sold for more in my view as I valued the coin in that unique grade at $20,000 (as did a world class US numismatist I discussed the coin with).

    Only “problem” to me at least... I believe it recently sold in a prior Heritage sale as a PR68. It didn’t upgrade to a pop 1/0 PR68+. I would have been fine with that. It went to the previously unheard of grade of PR69! And, whether I am right or wrong, I suspect once the PR69 barrier has been broken there will be more coins graded in that grade. In fact, I might have bid more for the coin in a PR68+ holder than it just sold for in a PR69 holder.

    This gradeflation, or whatever you want to call it - this is also the wild card with modern and ultra modern coin grading in my view. I say there are virtually no MS68’s of this or that... but there could be MS69’s tomorrow.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Wondercoin

    Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
  • IkesTIkesT Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Collecting modern die varieties is often a challenge for the reasons already discussed. If you're looking for Lincoln cents, which people saved a lot of, or Kennedy halves/Ike dollars, which didn't circulate much, you've got a decent chance of finding UNC varieties.

    On the other hand, if you're looking for the major nickel/dime/quarter varieties of the 60's and 70's - and those varieties are not found in mint sets or proof sets - you will probably have to settle for a well-circulated specimen (and hope for one that does not have rolling marks or other damage!).

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:

    @WCC said:
    There is no evidence that age has any general predictive value on the price level.) Many seem to believe it, yet the evidence doesn't support this belief.

    >

    I NEVER said it did. What I have tried to get through more times than I can count is that there is such a thing as regression toward the mean. It's highly unnatural that US coin collectors would shun any US coin in such vast percentages. US coin collectors hated clads in 1965 and many have never softened their stance. They not only don't want to collect them but they don't want others to collect them either. Large numbers of new collectors in the last 20 years have been turned away from the mainstream hobby by the notion they aren't real collectors nor are they collecting real US coins.

    It is a virtual impossibility that so many collectors in 40 years will have this attitude.

    Pendulums swing... ...they return to center... ...they don't just keep going in one direction forever.

    With the quote you extracted from my post, I wasn't singling you out. Many others seem to think so too. But yes, your demographic claim is based upon collector age as it isn't related to ethnicity or national origin. If it isn't, how is a new generation of collectors supposed to make any difference, as you have repeatedly claimed many times?

    The reason collectors (regardless of age) have such a low generic preference for this coinage isn't because of your claims, but due to the coin attributes: predominantly small (same size as minors as opposed to crowns), base metal, very common outside of specialization, and with designs most collectors don't find appealing.

    As I have told you, collectors in the past mostly didn't actually prefer the coinage in circulation in the 1960's. (The exception was key and semi-key dates.) That's your baseline for "normalcy".

    Collecting predominantly out of circulation at FV particularly when much less variety (versus today) was available to be collected isn't an actual preference. It's a **communication limitation **which no longer exists. You incorrectly presume they did then, so somehow there is something unusual in collector behavior now,

    Given the choices available to be collected now, that's why a **lower proportion **collect US 20th century coinage than in the past. Hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect the coinage you like. They just don't and won't pay the prices you think they should. This isn't "shunning" anything.

    There isn't anything unusual between collector behavior recently and the 1960's. I can demonstrate this for you if you so choose.

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:

    @mannie gray said:
    Yes, @cladking , most surviving 1969 mint sets are toned/tarnished, but I think your estimate of 20% survival rate is way too low.
    These are available at most coin shops, shows, and on line in quantity.

    Ya' made me look.

    I just counted about 110 of them available on eBay with many of them tarnished and several at very high prices that are very unlikely to sell.

    I'm aware they made a couple million of them and even 20% is still 400,000 sets. I've never suggested nor believed these sets were scarce or would EVER BE scarce. it is merely my contention that the 5,000 nice attractive BU 1969 quarters that survive in aggregate in all of the remaining sets are far too few to meet a mass demand. There was a time that 2 1/2 million '50-D quarters seemed rare and here I am talking about far fewer than 5000 nice '69 quarters being still available at current prices. I don't really know where a new supply will come from when these 5000 are gone. I don't know anyone who has substantial numbers of nice specimens. No doubt there are some hoards and I know where a few are located but they are not sufficient to meet a mass demand and there are almost no "old time collections" to make up the difference.

    So long as we have no mass demand the sets will be available on eBay for very low cost. It's not supply that is huge it's the demand which is tiny.

    5,000 isn't a low number, relatively. It is very common, except when compared to likely even more common coinage such as 1933-1964 US classics.

    As I have told you, hardly any collectors collect in a vaccum where they will ignore the price of competing alternatives. If any coin increases to the point where it sells "noticeably" higher than the competing alternatives, the overwhelming majority will opt to buy something else.

    As for demand, look at the US Census Bureau population forecasts. The last one I know (2014) goes out to 2060 to my recollection. The collector base may increase (I don't believe it will), but the proportion who collect US 20th century coinage is almost certainly going to be lower later than it is now, noticeably lower. This will occur due to culture in addition to many more choices in a comparable price range from subsequently struck coinage.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @IkesT said:
    Collecting modern die varieties is often a challenge for the reasons already discussed. If you're looking for Lincoln cents, which people saved a lot of, or Kennedy halves/Ike dollars, which didn't circulate much, you've got a decent chance of finding UNC varieties.

    On the other hand, if you're looking for the major nickel/dime/quarter varieties of the 60's and 70's - and those varieties are not found in mint sets or proof sets - you will probably have to settle for a well-circulated specimen (and hope for one that does not have rolling marks or other damage!).

    You're spot on here.

    Other than rare dates, types, and errors most moderns only have much value as varieties or Gems.

    The last several days I've been trying to get rid of penny and nickel rolls. I had offered these for sale several times but there just isn't any demand. The highest offer was less than 80% of wholesale and I won't sell anything at this price. It will go to the bank or landfill first or be given to friends. I've been going through the rolls pulling out Gems and varieties and since there are so many original rolls I'm finding quite a few varieties and a few Gems. Indeed, I was first able to sell off some of the best dates at more than wholesale and get most of the money I had been asking!

    But, I didn't keep very many original; rolls of clad even though I was one of the few who believed in them and believed they were highly collectible. I simply couldn't afford to set aside a $10 roll of quarters. I'd go through it and pull out Gems and the few varieties I knew about including some that still aren't listed.

    So many modern varieties are scarce or rare and except for mint set varieties most will be rare in Unc. How this situation came to pass is incredible. Just because people hated the coins and what they represented they spent half a century ignoring them. This has played out all over the world so now there are coins from all over the world that had huge mintages but are rare and valuable in high grade. Many of the extremely common Soviet era coins from the '60's and '70's have high prices even in XF and a few aren't readily available in any grade at all.

    Soon enough even the VG and cull coins in circulation will be gone and the rarities are still in circulation now! People still don't care.

    Tempus fugit.
  • johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 27,411 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @davewesen said:
    wow, I never would have thought about watching HSN to get a pulse on the market.

    I have a good idea on what not to buy as well :)

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @WCC said:

    @cladking said:

    @WCC said:
    There is no evidence that age has any general predictive value on the price level.) Many seem to believe it, yet the evidence doesn't support this belief.

    >

    I NEVER said it did. What I have tried to get through more times than I can count is that there is such a thing as regression toward the mean. It's highly unnatural that US coin collectors would shun any US coin in such vast percentages. US coin collectors hated clads in 1965 and many have never softened their stance. They not only don't want to collect them but they don't want others to collect them either. Large numbers of new collectors in the last 20 years have been turned away from the mainstream hobby by the notion they aren't real collectors nor are they collecting real US coins.

    It is a virtual impossibility that so many collectors in 40 years will have this attitude.

    Pendulums swing... ...they return to center... ...they don't just keep going in one direction forever.

    With the quote you extracted from my post, I wasn't singling you out. Many others seem to think so too. But yes, your demographic claim is based upon collector age as it isn't related to ethnicity or national origin. If it isn't, how is a new generation of collectors supposed to make any difference, as you have repeatedly claimed many times?

    The reason collectors (regardless of age) have such a low generic preference for this coinage isn't because of your claims, but due to the coin attributes: predominantly small (same size as minors as opposed to crowns), base metal, very common outside of specialization, and with designs most collectors don't find appealing.

    As I have told you, collectors in the past mostly didn't actually prefer the coinage in circulation in the 1960's. (The exception was key and semi-key dates.) That's your baseline for "normalcy".

    Collecting predominantly out of circulation at FV particularly when much less variety (versus today) was available to be collected isn't an actual preference. It's a **communication limitation **which no longer exists. You incorrectly presume they did then, so somehow there is something unusual in collector behavior now,

    Given the choices available to be collected now, that's why a **lower proportion **collect US 20th century coinage than in the past. Hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect the coinage you like. They just don't and won't pay the prices you think they should. This isn't "shunning" anything.

    There isn't anything unusual between collector behavior recently and the 1960's. I can demonstrate this for you if you so choose.

    What people like, find historic, see aesthetically, and desire to collect are ALL demographic considerations.

    You can't step into the same river twice. This is the nature of the world and the nature of man is the nature of the world on steroids.

    Tempus fugit.
  • IkesTIkesT Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 16, 2020 9:20PM

    @cladking said:
    So many modern varieties are scarce or rare and except for mint set varieties most will be rare in Unc. How this situation came to pass is incredible. Just because people hated the coins and what they represented they spent half a century ignoring them. This has played out all over the world so now there are coins from all over the world that had huge mintages but are rare and valuable in high grade. Many of the extremely common Soviet era coins from the '60's and '70's have high prices even in XF and a few aren't readily available in any grade at all.

    No doubt that is a factor, but I would suggest that how many rolls were saved is also dependent on factors other than whether people hated or loved the coins. Back when rolls of U.S. coins were being saved in large numbers, the key dates were genuinely scarce and speculating on rolls was a big deal. They didn't always hold their value, of course, but if for example you had bought and sold 1950 d nickels at the right time, you could have made a lot of money. The modern mintages are so much higher that even the "low" mintages are huge. Not until the 2019-W quarters have we had modern key dates of circulating coins with some genuine scarcity. Ironically, rolls from high mintage years are now scarce - perhaps the high mintages lead people to be complacent about actually saving them.

    Also, when people were buying and saving rolls of silver coins, they knew the metal value would soon be worth more than face. Not so with moderns. Those who were speculating on key date rolls and silver need not even have been coin collectors or had any numismatic preferences - they might as well have been trading in pork bellies or some other commodity (no offense to anyone who trades pork bellies - I'm sure that requires its own special expertise B) ).

  • HemisphericalHemispherical Posts: 9,370 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Pork bellies are great grilled!

    (Sorry OT)

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:

    @WCC said:

    @cladking said:

    @WCC said:
    There is no evidence that age has any general predictive value on the price level.) Many seem to believe it, yet the evidence doesn't support this belief.

    >

    I NEVER said it did. What I have tried to get through more times than I can count is that there is such a thing as regression toward the mean. It's highly unnatural that US coin collectors would shun any US coin in such vast percentages. US coin collectors hated clads in 1965 and many have never softened their stance. They not only don't want to collect them but they don't want others to collect them either. Large numbers of new collectors in the last 20 years have been turned away from the mainstream hobby by the notion they aren't real collectors nor are they collecting real US coins.

    It is a virtual impossibility that so many collectors in 40 years will have this attitude.

    Pendulums swing... ...they return to center... ...they don't just keep going in one direction forever.

    With the quote you extracted from my post, I wasn't singling you out. Many others seem to think so too. But yes, your demographic claim is based upon collector age as it isn't related to ethnicity or national origin. If it isn't, how is a new generation of collectors supposed to make any difference, as you have repeatedly claimed many times?

    The reason collectors (regardless of age) have such a low generic preference for this coinage isn't because of your claims, but due to the coin attributes: predominantly small (same size as minors as opposed to crowns), base metal, very common outside of specialization, and with designs most collectors don't find appealing.

    As I have told you, collectors in the past mostly didn't actually prefer the coinage in circulation in the 1960's. (The exception was key and semi-key dates.) That's your baseline for "normalcy".

    Collecting predominantly out of circulation at FV particularly when much less variety (versus today) was available to be collected isn't an actual preference. It's a **communication limitation **which no longer exists. You incorrectly presume they did then, so somehow there is something unusual in collector behavior now,

    Given the choices available to be collected now, that's why a **lower proportion **collect US 20th century coinage than in the past. Hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect the coinage you like. They just don't and won't pay the prices you think they should. This isn't "shunning" anything.

    There isn't anything unusual between collector behavior recently and the 1960's. I can demonstrate this for you if you so choose.

    What people like, find historic, see aesthetically, and desire to collect are ALL demographic considerations.

    You can't step into the same river twice. This is the nature of the world and the nature of man is the nature of the world on steroids.

    I'll ask you a simple question. How much do you think one of these coins or the series (1965-1998 quarters) should be worth now or at a future date in 2020 money? You can pick the coin date, the future date and the TPG equivalent quality.

    When I asked you a similar question in the 70-D Kennedy half thread, you claimed (or certainly implied) that this coin should be worth a lot more than current price, right now. You also declined to answer. Are you going to answer it now?

    I'll give you mine. Except for the coins with a noticeable demonstrated preference today, none will be worth meaningfully more later than now. It isn't going to happen for all the numerous reasons I have previously given you.

    The exceptions are potentially condition census coins where the count is and stays low, toning viewed as highly appealing, errors, a very low number of die varieties, and any which fit into a new specialization.

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @IkesT said:

    Not until the 2019-W quarters have we had modern key dates of circulating coins with some genuine scarcity.

        
    

    This coin isn't and won't be meaningfully scarce, though I presume due to the artificially low mintage, it's not that easy to find from circulating change.

    Not singling your post out because I have seen many others also say something similar, but this type of coin doesn't meaningfully qualify as a key date. The key dates in the most widely collected series during the 1933-1964 era were presumably much harder to find,, By key dates here, I'm referring to roughly one dozen coins which had and have the highest prices even in low grades.

    Due to improved communication, anyone can buy this coin or other supposedly recent key dates at any time. Much less true or not at all in the past, depending upon where the collector lived.

  • IkesTIkesT Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 17, 2020 7:52PM

    @WCC said:
    This coin isn't and won't be meaningfully scarce, though I presume due to the artificially low mintage, it's not that easy to find from circulating change.

    Not singling your post out because I have seen many others also say something similar, but this type of coin doesn't meaningfully qualify as a key date. The key dates in the most widely collected series during the 1933-1964 era were presumably much harder to find,, By key dates here, I'm referring to roughly one dozen coins which had and have the highest prices even in low grades.

    Nope, those were easier to find. Each variety of 2019-W quarter has a mintage of 2,000,000. Most key dates/semi-key dates/better dates of circulating U.S. coins within the period you specified have a mintage higher than that. A handful of walking liberty halves and peace dollars are lower, but among the smaller denominations, only the 1932-D, 1932-S and 1937-S quarter mintages are lower.

    When those earlier coins were released, you could buy solid rolls of them. The 2019-W quarters are mixed sparingly into rolls of 2019-P and 2019-D, so you can't just walk into a bank and buy them en masse. A lot of them got dumped into circulation before they could be collected from BU rolls. I've collected several dozen of them, and 90%+ came out of customer rolls and machine-wrapped circulated rolls.

    Due to improved communication, anyone can buy this coin or other supposedly recent key dates at any time. Much less true or not at all in the past, depending upon where the collector lived.

    That's true of almost all key dates now - they are all readily available online. Except for a few of the gold issues, none of the 20th century key dates for circulating U.S. coins are rarer than R1.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @WCC said:

    I'll ask you a simple question. How much do you think one of these coins or the series (1965-1998 quarters) should be worth now or at a future date in 2020 money? You can pick the coin date, the future date and the TPG equivalent quality.

    I'm still not going to answer the question because no coin "should" be worth anything.

    but I will say most moderns are right now worth much more than the catalog prices because the catalogs are simply wrong and I'm sure they know it. Take a 1978 Ike for example. This coin wholesales at $3 in BU. "BU" just means the coin needs to be lustrous and original. Buyers aren't really looking for MS-60 but they would certainly buy original rolls at this price. If all your rolls are poor (many are) they will not want them. But the Redbook lists the 1978 Ike at only $2.50 in MS-63. This is a nice grade and the Redbook price is LESS THAN WHOLESALE for lower grades!!!.

    There are other examples that are far worse. A nice well made raw MS-64 1982-P quarter will bring three or four times the listed price of an MS-65. Save the grading fees and sell it for much more on eBay.

    I've told you this before but I seriously doubt there is a true Gem (ms-65) '82-P. Sure there are some that are pretty clean and some that are reasonably well struck but clean very well struck coins from good dies probably don't even exist. Finding well made coins is the issue with most moderns. Lots of moderns (~1%) are reasonably clean but most dates are very tough well made from good dies.

    What these "should" sell at is a function of demand and how many people "should" collect these coins is a meaningless question. Let's just say it wouldn't take many collectors to force the price of the MS-64's well into 100's of dollars. It wouldn't take much demand to push clean specimens or well made specimens much higher. There are ~70,000 of these in BU and the majority are ugly. 95% have severe problems with strike or marking and often both.

    I don't care if you think 7000 nice BU's is "common", "significant", "important" or anything else. The fact is if more than 7,000 collectors desire a nice choice and attractive coin the price must increase. Many moderns are much scarcer than this and everything is scarce in very high grade. The mint did not make so many nice coins and most all the coins they made went into circulation. That's just the way it is. I know these aren't everyone's cup of tea but, then, I don't think anyone should collect them either and I think it's foolish to "invest" in coins. Even though I've done very well from an investment standpoint I didn't know better when I started.

    Tempus fugit.
  • MasonGMasonG Posts: 6,268 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:
    The fact is if more than 7,000 collectors desire a nice choice and attractive coin the price must increase.

    The fact is if the price increases enough, a lot of those collectors will decide to settle for an example that is not quite as choice and attractive.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 17, 2020 9:46PM

    @MasonG said:

    @cladking said:
    The fact is if more than 7,000 collectors desire a nice choice and attractive coin the price must increase.

    The fact is if the price increases enough, a lot of those collectors will decide to settle for an example that is not quite as choice and attractive.

    Yes. Of course.

    There are many factors that keep the price of every coin from going straight up. There are enough in circulation that everyone in North America could have one.

    But moderns aren't like classics. For the main part any pristine indian cent will look like any other. Of course some are Gem and some are dogs but most fall in a narrow range. Most look fairly nice and collectors tend to not focus much on striking and die characteristics. Most of the quarters in circulation are banged up and unattractive. They were initially weakly struck by worn dies and now they are banged up. They are mostly ugly. This doesn't so much apply to indian cents or other classics.

    Modern collectors want attractive coins whether they collect in VF or Gem. They tend to focus more on strike and good dies. Only a very small percentage of many moderns are well made by good dies. While anyone might be priced out of high grade '82 quarters it's not so easy to find an attractive alternative. Of course there are millions in nice AU, XF, and VF as well as some in F but they are not very common in any grade. They are most common in VF+ to XF- but even these will take effort to find and if thousands are being priced out of higher grades they will become even harder.

    Back in the mid-'60's there were several million collectors chasing moderns before they tanked due to various Congressional actions. Today there are several thousand people collecting '82 quarters. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE I've been trying to highlight. The simple fact is there are now tens of millions of collectors and if any real proportion of them decide they want any nice attractive modern then prices will necessarily soar, nice and rare coins will disappear from circulation, and Redbook will be forced to print more realistic prices for moderns.

    Tempus fugit.
  • MasonGMasonG Posts: 6,268 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:
    Modern collectors want attractive coins whether they collect in VF or Gem.

    Modern collectors want attractive coins whether they collect in VF or Gem, as long as the price isn't outrageous. Once it gets high enough, they'll settle for a lesser coin.

    @cladking said:
    The simple fact is there are now tens of millions of collectors and

    if

    any real proportion of them decide they want any nice attractive modern then prices will necessarily soar, nice and rare coins will disappear from circulation, and Redbook will be forced to print more realistic prices for moderns.

    If. If. If.

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 18, 2020 6:36AM

    @IkesT said:

    @WCC said:
    This coin isn't and won't be meaningfully scarce, though I presume due to the artificially low mintage, it's not that easy to find from circulating change.

    Not singling your post out because I have seen many others also say something similar, but this type of coin doesn't meaningfully qualify as a key date. The key dates in the most widely collected series during the 1933-1964 era were presumably much harder to find,, By key dates here, I'm referring to roughly one dozen coins which had and have the highest prices even in low grades.

    Nope, those were easier to find. Each variety of 2019-W quarter has a mintage of 2,000,000. Most key dates/semi-key dates/better dates of circulating U.S. coins within the period you specified have a mintage higher than that. A handful of walking liberty halves and peace dollars are lower, but among the smaller denominations, only the 1932-D, 1932-S and 1937-S quarter mintages are lower.

    When those earlier coins were released, you could buy solid rolls of them. The 2019-W quarters are mixed sparingly into rolls of 2019-P and 2019-D, so you can't just walk into a bank and buy them en masse. A lot of them got dumped into circulation before they could be collected from BU rolls. I've collected several dozen of them, and 90%+ came out of customer rolls and machine-wrapped circulated rolls.

    Due to improved communication, anyone can buy this coin or other supposedly recent key dates at any time. Much less true or not at all in the past, depending upon where the collector lived.

    That's true of almost all key dates now - they are all readily available online. Except for a few of the gold issues, none of the 20th century key dates for circulating U.S. coins are rarer than R1.

    So the 1909-S VDB cent , 1916-D dime or similar key dates were easier to find in the 1950's and 1960' than a 2019-W quarter? That's what I meant by the text in my prior post highlighter in bold. Never heard that before.

    I wasn't referring to most key dates you apparently have in mind because the coins weren't actually key. There is nothing key about what are and were actually very common coins, whether by current standards or previously. If you have a coin in mind like the 1955 quarter or half which had mintages of around 3MM I believe, I presume that it was always easy to find and buy by the roll, but neither were much of a key coin.

    I wrote my post presumably in a different context that what you normally see. Like practically everything in US collecting (especially today), US collectors have a very liberal definition of "key date". None of the most widely collected US 20th century key dates are remotely even scarce, but a "key" date like the 2019-W quarter will remain more common than 99% of all coins ever struck in equivalent quality for as long as it will matter to anyone reading our posts.

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:

    @WCC said:

    I'll ask you a simple question. How much do you think one of these coins or the series (1965-1998 quarters) should be worth now or at a future date in 2020 money? You can pick the coin date, the future date and the TPG equivalent quality.

    I'm still not going to answer the question because no coin "should" be worth anything.

    but I will say most moderns are right now worth much more than the catalog prices because the catalogs are simply wrong and I'm sure they know it. Take a 1978 Ike for example. This coin wholesales at $3 in BU. "BU" just means the coin needs to be lustrous and original. Buyers aren't really looking for MS-60 but they would certainly buy original rolls at this price. If all your rolls are poor (many are) they will not want them. But the Redbook lists the 1978 Ike at only $2.50 in MS-63. This is a nice grade and the Redbook price is LESS THAN WHOLESALE for lower grades!!!.

    There are other examples that are far worse. A nice well made raw MS-64 1982-P quarter will bring three or four times the listed price of an MS-65. Save the grading fees and sell it for much more on eBay.

    I've told you this before but I seriously doubt there is a true Gem (ms-65) '82-P. Sure there are some that are pretty clean and some that are reasonably well struck but clean very well struck coins from good dies probably don't even exist. Finding well made coins is the issue with most moderns. Lots of moderns (~1%) are reasonably clean but most dates are very tough well made from good dies.

    What these "should" sell at is a function of demand and how many people "should" collect these coins is a meaningless question. Let's just say it wouldn't take many collectors to force the price of the MS-64's well into 100's of dollars. It wouldn't take much demand to push clean specimens or well made specimens much higher. There are ~70,000 of these in BU and the majority are ugly. 95% have severe problems with strike or marking and often both.

    I don't care if you think 7000 nice BU's is "common", "significant", "important" or anything else. The fact is if more than 7,000 collectors desire a nice choice and attractive coin the price must increase. Many moderns are much scarcer than this and everything is scarce in very high grade. The mint did not make so many nice coins and most all the coins they made went into circulation. That's just the way it is. I know these aren't everyone's cup of tea but, then, I don't think anyone should collect them either and I think it's foolish to "invest" in coins. Even though I've done very well from an investment standpoint I didn't know better when I started.

    The reason you aren't going to give an estimate is that I already know it won't have any relation to reality and is never going to happen.

    Nothing you wrote above has any relevance to what I asked or have written in my replies to you in the past. I have never told you that prices won't increase

    If the Red Book or some other guide listed US moderns at the prices you believe it should be worth, no one would pay it anyway if it didn't reflect actual market transactions. Not where the price is meaningful since $2.50 or anywhere near it is financially irrelevant.

    The most interesting aspect is that your posting history demonstrates you are disproportionately a "cherry picker" and won't even pay current (or prior) market prices yourself. You believe others should be willing to pay a lot more but you won't. In at least hundreds of your posts I have read, I recall exactly one example where you admitted paying what I would describe as a meaningful price for one of these coins, $40 for a 1982 quarter back in the 80's or 90's.

    You think these coins should be worth (proportionately) a lot more. Yet if you as the biggest advocate I have ever encountered won't pay a meaningful price, why would hardly anyone else?

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:

    Back in the mid-'60's there were several million collectors chasing moderns before they tanked due to various Congressional actions. Today there are several thousand people collecting '82 quarters. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE I've been trying to highlight. The simple fact is there are now tens of millions of collectors and if any real proportion of them decide they want any nice attractive modern then prices will necessarily soar, nice and rare coins will disappear from circulation, and Redbook will be forced to print more realistic prices for moderns.

    What is your definition of "soar"?

    If it's anything like your prior description for the world coinage you describe as "modern", it can happen because the increase won't hardly ever be material except to someone like you. With these coins, you used percentages which no one except for you will care about as the amounts involved aren't hardly ever meaningful.

    If you are claiming that this coinage has the prospect to "soar" to amounts which most collectors presumably actually consider meaningful, it's never going to happen except as I described above in my post. This outcome will make this coinage hopelessly uncompetitive with the competing alternatives and collectors will overwhelmingly opt to buy something else. This isn't just true for US moderns, but also for the coinage which I collect.

  • savitalesavitale Posts: 1,406 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My daughter and I are trying to fill an America The Beautiful quarter album. It’s hard because I don’t really use cash anymore so my pocket change is essentially non existent. My bank is cashless except for the ATMs. Any ideas of a fun way to do it?

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 18, 2020 9:24AM

    @WCC said:

    If the Red Book or some other guide listed US moderns at the prices you believe it should be worth, no one would pay it anyway if it didn't reflect actual market transactions. Not where the price is meaningful since $2.50 or anywhere near it is financially irrelevant.

    I remember back when all media strove for relevance and accuracy. If an MS-60 wholesales for $3 how is it possible for an MS-63 to retail for $2.50? An old indian cent that wholesales for $3 would be listed for $8 in the Redbook. Often even more. Krause is even worse. An old coin might be listed for ten times its real value and many moderns are at one tenth of their real value.

    Everyone knows that the Redbook has exceedingly high prices so they see the $2.50 price for an Ms-63 Ike and believe is has no value. Nice '82-P quarters in attractive MS-63 can go for $50 on eBay but Redbook lists it at $3. This is stifling the market. It takes a lot of courage for new collectors to spend more than face value for a coin and then they also have to pay multiple of catalog if they collect moderns. So many end up buying $3 indians that list for $8 for the giveaway price of only $6.50 never realizing they are paying over market while the '82-P quarter they passed because it was $10 was much less than market.

    There are many reasons catalog prices are unrealistic for moderns but much of it simply that authors and editors don't care. Moderns are not only shunned but they are ignored. Most of their customers prefer low prices for moderns because they consider the entire market a distraction to young collectors who could be buying "real coins" made 100 years ago. Dealers don't like moderns because they don't understand them and the catalogs are wrong. Even the Greysheet can be highly misleading and dealers can take a bath if they buy junk at "wholesale" prices. They don't want high prices on modern either and they certainly don't want throngs of modern collectors beating down their doors because they don't stock moderns and wouldn't know how to do it. This "stalemate" has gone on for decades now but unseen by most is an undercurrent of growing demand. This isn't demand for "moderns". People aren't investing or taking a position in "moderns". This demand is real demand, collector demand, and it appears to be bumping up against supply now days.

    This could be explosive. I say this because I have a good feel for this demand after half a century of watching the markets and the behavior of collectors. Much of my evidence is anecdotal but I can see how a known supply can affect these markets. Aggregate demand for most modern series is only about 5000 collectors. One cent coins are higher. But this tiny demand is bumping up against the available supply. There are no old time collections and most of the raw moderns are gone now. So where is the growing demand going to find new supply when it is long gone through neglect, disregard, and oversight while some of this is intent?

    There is a tendency for the most valuable collectibles to be things that were once ubiquitous, hated, and have disappeared naturally and this applies very much to clad and all moderns. There were once countless millions of AU and BU 1969 quarters in circulation but nobody cared. They're gone through widespread neglect and hatred. The few left are worn out and beat up and this same thing applies to the mint sets. the mint sets have additionally tarnished so they continue to go into circulation rather than satisfying the growing demand.

    You say only rare coins are "significant" or maybe only rare coins have a "significant" price or maybe a "significant" increase. Frankly I'm not sure I understand this point. But I disagree no matter the point. If a coin goes from 6c to $6 it is "significant" and the coin was "significant" both before and after the increase. All investors are aware that it's not the amount of increase that is significant but the percentage gain.

    A coin with a population of 50,000 with 5000 collectors isn't very valuable. But a coin with a population of 50,000 with 10,000,000 collectors most assuredly can be. Would you have set aside a few rolls of 1916 SL quarters? These were pretty valuable 50 years later and high grade ones are pretty valuable today. It's been 50 years since 1969 quarters were made but only 5000 collectors are paying attention and some prices are rising as raw moderns are drying up fast.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @WCC said:

    If it's anything like your prior description for the world coinage you describe as "modern", it can happen because the increase won't hardly ever be material except to someone like you. With these coins, you used percentages which no one except for you will care about as the amounts involved aren't hardly ever meaningful.

    Find a roll of nice MS-63/ 64 quarters for the Redbook price of $120. The Greysheet lists it at $235 by the way for MS-60.

    The current value is about $1500.

    Who knows what they'll be worth when there are more than 5000 collectors for them.

    Funny thing George Haylings wrote the book "The Profit March of Your Coin Investment" in 1964. He was singing the praises of coins with populations in the millions of rolls, or at least the hundreds of thousand of rolls. Millions took him seriously because they wanted to and roll prices were soaring. Lots of money was lost because of Congress and the next three generations learned to hate clad,

    Don't invest in coins. I'd have been better off if I hadn't because it came far too late. Almost no investors ever enjoy any sort of "Profit March". Instead it is knowledgeable collectors who make the most money and usually have the most fun. People like John J Pittman tend to be the winners. Dealers and those who supply services and products to the hobby make money. Investors just buy what's readily available and such material only increases in price as more investors come on board.

    Tempus fugit.
  • wondercoinwondercoin Posts: 16,648 ✭✭✭✭✭

    “The most interesting aspect is that your posting history demonstrates you are disproportionately a "cherry picker" and won't even pay current (or prior) market prices yourself. You believe others should be willing to pay a lot more but you won't. In at least hundreds of your posts I have read, I recall exactly one example where you admitted paying what I would describe as a meaningful price for one of these coins, $40 for a 1982 quarter back in the 80's or 90's.”

    This is very interesting. Can one be only a “cherry picker” but point to the undervalued markets they are cherry picking (rather than simply buying up product)? I think the answer is yes. In fact, this very similar to the professional upgrader who chooses to make his money upgrading coins rather than buying maxed out product at attractive prices. The method one acquires their coins really has no direct link to whether those particular coins are overvalued or undervalued.

    Me, personally... I prefer putting in the time and effort and cherry-picking the pop 1 or pop 2 MS67 or MS68 clad quarter. But, I have also put up thousands of dollars to buy such a clad coin on occasion. It simply depends on the mood I am in at a given moment coupled with my current cash flow position. Whatever I do has no direct correlation to whether the coins I am buying are undervalued or overvalued (although I try to avoid buying flat out overvalued coins unless I lose complete control).

    Wondercoin

    Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @cladking said:
    This could be explosive. I say this because I have a good feel for this demand after half a century of watching the markets and the behavior of collectors. Much of my evidence is anecdotal but I can see how a known supply can affect these markets. Aggregate demand for most modern series is only about 5000 collectors. One cent coins are higher. But this tiny demand is bumping up against the available supply. There are no old time collections and most of the raw moderns are gone now. So where is the growing demand going to find new supply when it is long gone through neglect, disregard, and oversight while some of this is intent?

    There is a tendency for the most valuable collectibles to be things that were once ubiquitous, hated, and have disappeared naturally and this applies very much to clad and all moderns. There were once countless millions of AU and BU 1969 quarters in circulation but nobody cared. They're gone through widespread neglect and hatred. The few left are worn out and beat up and this same thing applies to the mint sets. the mint sets have additionally tarnished so they continue to go into circulation rather than satisfying the growing demand.

    Do you even remember your post here where you admitted predicting 10 of the last two bull markets?

    Do you know why this happens? It's because you ignore collector motivation or don't know anything about it. When I have replied to your claims, when I can I'm giving you direct relevant evidence which you can verify for yourself and which has a demonstrated correlation to how collectors actually collect.

    That's what I told you here with the four attributes US moderns have which is the reason this coinage generically has a very low preference among the US collector base. There is no mystery on this subject. While we aren't debating physics here, there is no uncertainty on whether anything remotely resembling your claims will or won't happen.

    This is the reason collectors prefer NCLT over modern circulating coinage generically. Not just in the US, but everywhere where both are issued. World mints know what their buyers prefer which is why the alternatives are silver, large, often (though maybe not always) with designs collectors consider better and outside the US, with "reasonably low" mintages. If your claim was true, then world mints should or will be striking NCLT with the same attributes as US moderns.

    When is this going to happen? Never. It's as likely as McDonalds' customers preferring a small over a super size value meal for the same price.

    Same thing with the metal content. That's the primary reason the Heritage archives records 15 and 32 times more silver Washington quarters versus clad (1965-1998) between $101 and $1000 and over $1000. As long as silver sells for a lot more in the spot market versus base metals, there is no basis to believe collectors will exhibit a preference contrary to the general population. None of this coinage is scarce (outside of specialization) and the scarcity difference doesn't matter to most collectors, even if some clad quarter is 5, 10 or more times scarcer than one of the silver. The prices may (and probably will) narrow somewhat "eventually" but never where the it reflects the relative scarcity alone.

    With the designs, unless the culture changes where people generically find portraits of dead presidents artistically superior to the prior designs, US collectors will always prefer the Mercury dime over the FDR, silver or clad. The more common Mercury dimes aren't priced materially higher than any FDR dime anyway, so the scarcity difference (assuming it even exists) isn't a factor either.

  • IkesTIkesT Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 18, 2020 12:37PM

    @cladking said:
    There is a tendency for the most valuable collectibles to be things that were once ubiquitous, hated, and have disappeared naturally and this applies very much to clad and all moderns. There were once countless millions of AU and BU 1969 quarters in circulation but nobody cared. They're gone through widespread neglect and hatred. The few left are worn out and beat up and this same thing applies to the mint sets. the mint sets have additionally tarnished so they continue to go into circulation rather than satisfying the growing demand.

    That is it, exactly. People generally aren't interested in common things until they become rare. How many people in 1965 or 1967 would have thought to themselves that this year's quarter roll will one day sell for $100+ because they are so common that hardly anyone will save them. Obviously, not very many people.

  • WCCWCC Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 18, 2020 1:18PM

    @wondercoin said:
    “The most interesting aspect is that your posting history demonstrates you are disproportionately a "cherry picker" and won't even pay current (or prior) market prices yourself. You believe others should be willing to pay a lot more but you won't. In at least hundreds of your posts I have read, I recall exactly one example where you admitted paying what I would describe as a meaningful price for one of these coins, $40 for a 1982 quarter back in the 80's or 90's.”

    This is very interesting. Can one be only a “cherry picker” but point to the undervalued markets they are cherry picking (rather than simply buying up product)? I think the answer is yes. In fact, this very similar to the professional upgrader who chooses to make his money upgrading coins rather than buying maxed out product at attractive prices. The method one acquires their coins really has no direct link to whether those particular coins are overvalued or undervalued.

    Me, personally... I prefer putting in the time and effort and cherry-picking the pop 1 or pop 2 MS67 or MS68 clad quarter. But, I have also put up thousands of dollars to buy such a clad coin on occasion. It simply depends on the mood I am in at a given moment coupled with my current cash flow position. Whatever I do has no direct correlation to whether the coins I am buying are undervalued or overvalued (although I try to avoid buying flat out overvalued coins unless I lose complete control).

    Wondercoin

    There is nothing wrong with "cherry picking" and I'm not knocking cladking or anyone else for doing it. It's always been my assumption that most dedicated collectors of this coinage predominantly collect this way, particularly if they have been doing it a long time. I'd do so as well both to save money, make it more interesting and to finance the acquisition of other coins I want to buy.

    Since I do believe most US modern collectors of the better coinage are predominantly "cherry pickers", don't believe it has much relevance to the future price level. There is a big difference between someone such as you or your customers who are willing to pay "full freight" for a graded coin and most everyone else who won't.

    As far as "undervalued", compared to what? I asked you a similar question in the 70-D Kennedy half thread and you didn't answer, What exactly is this coinage "undervalued" to relatively?

    If your answer is what I think it is (predominantly the most widely collected 20th century US classics), that's not saying much. Collectively, it is among the most overpriced coinage in the world in higher quality given it's availability and what most of it actually is as a collectible. For a variety of reasons which I have covered both on this forum and elsewhere, I believe this coinage is destined to lose noticeable "share of wallet" which will only be worse if the "size of the wallet" shrinks as well.

  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @wondercoin said:

    This is very interesting. Can one be only a “cherry picker” but point to the undervalued markets they are cherry picking (rather than simply buying up product)? I think the answer is yes. In fact, this very similar to the professional upgrader who chooses to make his money upgrading coins rather than buying maxed out product at attractive prices. The method one acquires their coins really has no direct link to whether those particular coins are overvalued or undervalued.

    Actually WCC is incorrect and I did buy some raw moderns to cherry pick. I got a lot from the banks to cherry pick but it was hardly unusual to buy coins raw or to pay market price plus a premium to cherry pick dealers. If a dealer set scarce coins in front of me I could almost always pay enough to buy them even when it was multiples of market price.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    "Do you know why this happens? It's because you ignore collector motivation or don't know anything about it. When I have replied to your claims, when I can I'm giving you direct relevant evidence which you can verify for yourself and which has a demonstrated correlation to how collectors actually collect."

    I have made a huge amount of money on those last two bull markets. The first was when high grade moderns got popular and the second was when high grade modern foreign coins got popular. Eventually (now?) the coins below pop tops that I set aside in some quantity will get popular but this could be a very long time. I always believed it would happen many years ago but some trends die hard.

    Tempus fugit.
  • cladkingcladking Posts: 28,307 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @IkesT said:

    @cladking said:
    There is a tendency for the most valuable collectibles to be things that were once ubiquitous, hated, and have disappeared naturally and this applies very much to clad and all moderns. There were once countless millions of AU and BU 1969 quarters in circulation but nobody cared. They're gone through widespread neglect and hatred. The few left are worn out and beat up and this same thing applies to the mint sets. the mint sets have additionally tarnished so they continue to go into circulation rather than satisfying the growing demand.

    That is it, exactly. People generally aren't interested in common things until they become rare. How many people in 1965 or 1967 would have thought to themselves that this year's quarter roll will one day sell for $100+ because they are so common that hardly anyone will save them. Obviously, not very many people.

    Exactly. In those days I didn't believe in them. In those days the mint made no effort to rotate their stocks of coins so old BU clad was continually being released. 1965 quarters were still being released as late as 1975! But in 1972 the mintand Fed did begin rotating their stocks so all the coins get chewed up in circulation evenly. There aren't Unc, AU, or XF clads around because the odds are stacked against it. If you do see one it probably came from a mint set or a coin a dealer spent because such coins have been statistically gone for two decades now. It's hard to even find a nice AU from the mid-90's any longer. Ugly AU's and low end AU's are still easy enough with effort but sliders and nice AU-50 and better are quite tough. There are "no" more unc eagle reverse quarters and AU's are getting unusual.

    Lots of rolls were set aside in '65 to '67 but they couldn't be sold so most were spent. After this savings went down and the percentages later spent went down as well. There are no common BU rolls of eagle reverse quarters but there are some in the '80's and '90's that are not tough. '74-D's are seen now and again. '72-D are around. Varieties that don't appear in mint sets will be scarce in Unc. Even common varieties will be scarce in grades over VF.

    Tempus fugit.

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