"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."
I'm sure you grossly overestimate the number of modern cherry pickers and hoarders. I doubt there are more than 20 in the country on average since 1975. It's tough to estimate the number of coins saved but I doubt it's all that high. Sure, there are a couple of entities that have fairly substantial numbers and ACE has a bunch of clad quarters for sale right now. But the aggregate supply here is largely drawn from existing raw coin rather than purchases from the mint or supply from banks. Mint prices have always been too high to set aside coins and it's expensive to tie up a lot of money in raw coins from the bank. It's hard to find nice coins at the bank. I looked for months to find nice '82 quarters and never did find nice '83's even after scouring much of the country.
Your idea of vast supply is merely an idea. There is no vast supply to cherry pick. WYSIWHG. Try going out and cherry picking 1969 quarters. let me know how many Gems you can find. Start at a big wholesaler and you might actually find one or two. Otherwise it might take a long while. It might be far more difficult to find the raw coins than you imagine. Just remember every single roll you see advertised anywhere will be a mint set roll and almost all the mint set rolls are already cherry picked. Now days recently assembled rolls will also be tarnished.
Quick question. I have quite a few original rolls from the early 80's to the early 90's of most denominations. I just saved a few whenever I came across new rolls from the cash register. With your experience would you advise leaving them intact or searching them for gems ? I have no timeline and can leave them unsearched long term if that might be a better play. Talking maybe a dozen rolls of each denomination from every year.
There are also die varieties (complete with variety attribution) that I would consider to be cherrypicks at current market prices, based on their low availability.
Quick question. I have quite a few original rolls from the early 80's to the early 90's of most denominations. I just saved a few whenever I came across new rolls from the cash register. With your experience would you advise leaving them intact or searching them for gems ? I have no timeline and can leave them unsearched long term if that might be a better play. Talking maybe a dozen rolls of each denomination from every year.
I always err toward opening such rolls but then they are harder to sell. Usually there won't be any varieties anyway. At the current time most of these don't have a lot of premium other than cents and halfs so I'd keep the others. Zincolns are a real darkhorse and could become valuable with some dates already going for up to ~$20. These are a tough call. Gems are far more likely than the clad and varieties are as well. Zincolns are extremely prone to rot. If you have very storage conditions then they might be a good bet to save but if they were ever poorly stored you might let someone else take the risk of opening them. I'd check the half dollars and then sell them. You won't find much but it's low cost to check them. I'd sit on the nickels, dimes, and quarters a few years and expect to open them later. '84 t0 '86 cents seem especially prone to tarnish and these dates are pretty expensive.
This entire thread and the individual replies posted herein are examples of why I enjoy the Forums. Multiple points of view, each supported by one's personal experience and one's point of view.
Some persons are no fans of moderns, some persons are big fans of moderns, some persons have no strong feelings pro or con.
To me it appears that circulating US Coinage dated 1965 forward has been largely ignored by collectors and by the general public for substantial amounts of time. As a result this coinage has not been saved from circulation in significant numbers. Post 1964 mint sets have also been destroyed or the coins contained in the remaining sets have deteriorated. The above, coupled with the the fact that these coins were often of poor quality when minted has resulted in there being minimal numbers of these coins that exist in GEM MS condition.
Most MS clad eagle reverse quarters that I have seen during hobby pursuits are not attractive. However, there are exceptions and when I see a GEM clad quarter (or dime or half or dollar) made in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's my reaction is "that is a very attractive coin" that I would enjoy owning.
Whether these modern US coins will ever become an area of the hobby where collectors and dealers will focus on is unknown. While I wait to see what, if anything, happens in the future I will continued to enjoy reading threads like this and enjoying owning the few modern MS clads that I collected as a kid in the 1960's and 1970's and the few of these same clads I have picked up after returning to the hobby as an adult.
I am still looking forward to seeing Cladking post photos of some of his best clad coinage (Hint, Hint.).
“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?”
WCC. Sorry for not answering your question. My involvement on these boards is a bit more sporadic these days as I spent close to 50% of the year out of the country. The time zone differences play a large role as well.
If memory serves me right, I believe we were discussing higher grade 70D 50C...yes? MS66 grade and higher. I’ll put together a reply on that later this weekend.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
So, what did I mean by “undervalued” in my opinion in the MS66 grade at PCGS. First, this is just my 2 cents. I understand that the next guy might believe the coin is overvalued in the top grades. That’s what makes a horse race.
Anyway, PCGS has graded about 6,500 coins already just in the MS63-MS65 grades, with the typical MS65 selling between $25-$50. And, this does not even take into account all of the coins that fail to show in the pop report submitted in bulk with a min grade that is not achieved.
And, in almost (35) years, PCGS has only graded less than (600) coins in MS66, (16) coins in MS66+ and just a scant (15) coins in MS67 valued in the Price Guide at $5,000.
I believe eBay reports sales history for around 3-4 months as well as what is currently for sale. In the past 3-4 months (as well as at the moment) there has not been a single MS67 1970-D coin available for sale on eBay at any price. If there was an MS67 coin available, I believe it could likely trade in the $3,500-$4,000 range.
But, there always seems to be around 8-12 MS66 coins available on eBay with a Price Guide of $300. These coins are typically offered between $175-$399. An attractive buy price appears to be around 50% - 60% of Price Guide for a nice clean MS66 coin. I just successfully grabbed one off eBay at $153.50 best offer a few minutes before posting this. If it is as nice as the eBay auction pic suggests, I’ll just toss it into my large pile of MS66 specimens and continue to wait until the right day to resubmit the pile for possible MS66+/MS67 upgrades.
Back to my “undervalued” comment on the MS66 specimens... if MS65 coins are worth around $40 and MS67 specimens worth around $3,750, I love buying nice quality MS66 specimens at $150-$175 as I just did 30 minutes ago. I would buy (100) more tomorrow sight-seen at the same price.
You have less than 10% of the handpicked graded coins (and a tiny % of overall coins) achieving an MS66 grade with a spread that looks like this....
MS65-$40
MS66 - $165
MS67 - $3,750
Load me up on nice MS66 coins at $165/coin!
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
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.
I know you are a "cherrypicker". That is my entire point. You think others should pay a lot more than current prices at any meaningful level when your posting history demonstrates you won't. The other point I was making is that your claims would have a lot more credibility if you did.
@cladking said:
"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.
You are missing my entire point. I never said that someone such as you cannot make money in isolation or that a relatively low number won't do so. I have told you that before. I made a lot more off of collecting South African coinage than at least 95% of modern collectors will ever make in their entire life, back from about 2002-2009.
The point of this extract is that your claims have no relation to how collectors actually act, whether in the past or now and I have never read a single post of yours explaining how we get there either. You have predominantly projected your preferences onto others.
Since your claims don't reflect collector behavior, there isn't ever going to be the scale you imply because they are never going to have the preferences you believe. The only way anyone can believe it is by concurrently believing that an unprecedented number will ignore the prices of all other coinage while completely changing their preferences which go back all the way to the beginning of coin collecting.
I make this last statement because the future preferences you imply would make this coinage a lot more expensive than many or even most coinage which is a lot scarcer and have attributes which the vast majority of the collector base find a lot more interesting. An example is the MS-66 Kennedy half which I asked you about in the other thread. You wouldn't answer but your inference is that this common coin should be worth a big multiple to it's current price right now, maybe up to several thousand. As I told you there, it simply isn't that interesting.
@WCC said:
An example is the MS-66 Kennedy half which I asked you about in the other thread. You wouldn't answer but your inference is that this common coin should be worth a big multiple to it's current price right now, maybe up to several thousand. As I told you there, it simply isn't that interesting.
The typical (note specifically- not specialist) Kennedy collector is filling holes in his Dansco album. High grade/top pop slabbed coins aren't even on his radar.
@cladking said:
"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."
I'm sure you grossly overestimate the number of modern cherry pickers and hoarders. I doubt there are more than 20 in the country on average since 1975. It's tough to estimate the number of coins saved but I doubt it's all that high. Sure, there are a couple of entities that have fairly substantial numbers and ACE has a bunch of clad quarters for sale right now. But the aggregate supply here is largely drawn from existing raw coin rather than purchases from the mint or supply from banks. Mint prices have always been too high to set aside coins and it's expensive to tie up a lot of money in raw coins from the bank. It's hard to find nice coins at the bank. I looked for months to find nice '82 quarters and never did find nice '83's even after scouring much of the country.
Your idea of vast supply is merely an idea. There is no vast supply to cherry pick. WYSIWHG. Try going out and cherry picking 1969 quarters. let me know how many Gems you can find. Start at a big wholesaler and you might actually find one or two. Otherwise it might take a long while. It might be far more difficult to find the raw coins than you imagine. Just remember every single roll you see advertised anywhere will be a mint set roll and almost all the mint set rolls are already cherry picked. Now days recently assembled rolls will also be tarnished.
Good luck.
Once again, I never said what you claim. You can go back and read my reply to your post to wondercoin. I wasn't saying a thing about hoarders or referring to the supply in this extract. You also know from my prior posts that I haven't claimed that this coinage is as common as most collectors presumably believe.
Your definition of "high" is a lot more liberal than mine. As I told you, this coinage is relatively common, very common. In this thread, I clarified for you that US moderns collectively are more common than in the vicinity of 99% of all coinage ever struck in equivalent quality, excluding: NCLT, recent proofs (depends upon the source but maybe back to the late 50's for the US) and coinage struck elsewhere in the last 10 or maybe 20 years. The latter because of improved communication and far more travel which enables it to be set aside in much higher proportion.
@SanctionII said:
This entire thread and the individual replies posted herein are examples of why I enjoy the Forums. Multiple points of view, each supported by one's personal experience and one's point of view.
Some persons are no fans of moderns, some persons are big fans of moderns, some persons have no strong feelings pro or con.
To me it appears that circulating US Coinage dated 1965 forward has been largely ignored by collectors and by the general public for substantial amounts of time. As a result this coinage has not been saved from circulation in significant numbers. Post 1964 mint sets have also been destroyed or the coins contained in the remaining sets have deteriorated. The above, coupled with the the fact that these coins were often of poor quality when minted has resulted in there being minimal numbers of these coins that exist in GEM MS condition.
Most MS clad eagle reverse quarters that I have seen during hobby pursuits are not attractive. However, there are exceptions and when I see a GEM clad quarter (or dime or half or dollar) made in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's my reaction is "that is a very attractive coin" that I would enjoy owning.
Whether these modern US coins will ever become an area of the hobby where collectors and dealers will focus on is unknown. While I wait to see what, if anything, happens in the future I will continued to enjoy reading threads like this and enjoying owning the few modern MS clads that I collected as a kid in the 1960's and 1970's and the few of these same clads I have picked up after returning to the hobby as an adult.
I am still looking forward to seeing Cladking post photos of some of his best clad coinage (Hint, Hint.).
To be clear, I don't have anything against clad or US moderns. Sometimes, I might get carried away in my replies but that is all. It's an academic exercise for me and nothing else. If you read my prior posts, you will see an answer to your points above to some extent and I have answered it elsewhere.
The coins were saved in "large" numbers, just not to the same extent as the predecessor coinage presumably from 1933-1964. Going by current market and the TPG population data, most of this coinage is almost certainly a Judd R-1 in PCGS MS-66 (usually but not always right below condition census grade). The rest, mostly and R-2 and very infrequently an R-3. While this is probably often (usually?) scarcer than 1933-1964 coinage, the prices don't indicate that most collectors really care, as both can be bought at any time most of the time. Some of these coins may turn out to scarcer than I believe, but if there is a reason o believe it now, I have yet to see it..
So, what did I mean by “undervalued” in my opinion in the MS66 grade at PCGS. First, this is just my 2 cents. I understand that the next guy might believe the coin is overvalued in the top grades. That’s what makes a horse race.
Anyway, PCGS has graded about 6,500 coins already just in the MS63-MS65 grades, with the typical MS65 selling between $25-$50. And, this does not even take into account all of the coins that fail to show in the pop report submitted in bulk with a min grade that is not achieved.
And, in almost (35) years, PCGS has only graded less than (600) coins in MS66, (16) coins in MS66+ and just a scant (15) coins in MS67 valued in the Price Guide at $5,000.
I believe eBay reports sales history for around 3-4 months as well as what is currently for sale. In the past 3-4 months (as well as at the moment) there has not been a single MS67 1970-D coin available for sale on eBay at any price. If there was an MS67 coin available, I believe it could likely trade in the $3,500-$4,000 range.
But, there always seems to be around 8-12 MS66 coins available on eBay with a Price Guide of $300. These coins are typically offered between $175-$399. An attractive buy price appears to be around 50% - 60% of Price Guide for a nice clean MS66 coin. I just successfully grabbed one off eBay at $153.50 best offer a few minutes before posting this. If it is as nice as the eBay auction pic suggests, I’ll just toss it into my large pile of MS66 specimens and continue to wait until the right day to resubmit the pile for possible MS66+/MS67 upgrades.
Back to my “undervalued” comment on the MS66 specimens... if MS65 coins are worth around $40 and MS67 specimens worth around $3,750, I love buying nice quality MS66 specimens at $150-$175 as I just did 30 minutes ago. I would buy (100) more tomorrow sight-seen at the same price.
You have less than 10% of the handpicked graded coins (and a tiny % of overall coins) achieving an MS66 grade with a spread that looks like this....
@WCC said:
An example is the MS-66 Kennedy half which I asked you about in the other thread. You wouldn't answer but your inference is that this common coin should be worth a big multiple to it's current price right now, maybe up to several thousand. As I told you there, it simply isn't that interesting.
The typical (note specifically- not specialist) Kennedy collector is filling holes in his Dansco album. High grade/top pop slabbed coins aren't even on his radar.
That's my opinion as well, where I also agreed with you in the other thread.
I think upgrading your coins to better ones so your coins match in strike, grade and luster is the driving force behind building collections and achieving a market within your series. I can't count how many times a collector I've sold a coin to has told me, "that's the best coin in my collection". The strike of the coin rules in my book, it has for a long time. The luster, toning and often times, the condition doesn't matter all that much either as long as they aren't too bad. Those EDS examples, the first off the new fresh dies were the first to hit the hoppers.......unless, of course, they made it a point to catch those separately for mint sets and/or distribute them evenly when they begged them.
I didn't read every or all of anyone's post but may know the gist of this discussion. Having collected Jefferson nickels for 30 years, along the way, I found myself setting new goals. One that stood out the most was upgrading a coin to match the others. At first, I was enthralled with finding coins with full steps but I soon tired of checking every coin. So I began checking only lustrous coins for full steps ignoring the dull ones. And toned coins caught my eye as well. I took notice right away, most notably, poorly struck coins when a better struck coin came along. I've completed my collection probably a dozen times over the years but early on, I had several mushy coins including 53-S and 54-S and 61-D with full steps or close to full steps (Bern Nagengast use to sell 61-D's in the Coin World periodical) but I sold or traded those mushy coins as I upgraded them, mostly before PCGS started grading FS nickels and prices took off.
Collecting coins is not an every day event with most collectors. They go to school, college, serve our country, discover girls or boys, get a career, start a family. Only when they get a break from all that, they just might pull out those coins again and take a new look at them and some begin again, some with a new perspective. All series are collected that way, not by everyone but there will be collector coins saved for generations to come. It's locating what's out there is the battle. Connecting up with that like-minded individual who has the coins you want and it's usually another collector. This has always been the "needle in the haystack" with me. I have always been amazed on the number of dealers and collectors who just don't know what a collector's coin is...…..by my standards anyways. lol
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
The typical (note specifically- not specialist) Kennedy collector is filling holes in his Dansco album. High grade/top pop slabbed coins aren't even on his radar.
Of course you are correct.
But the typical collector of Kennedy half dollars is going to look at his coins from time to time. He'll see his '69 is marked up and splotchy. He'll see his '82-P is poorly struck and scratched with gouges. He'll see other coins that are less than desirable.
Many collectors will eventually try to find nicer examples. Some collectors will want every coin to be as choice as his '72-D or even as Gem as some random date (no Kennedy is common in Gem).
Considering the simple fact that so many moderns are quite ugly there will be a natural tendency to upgrade that is much stronger than the tendency to want to upgrade BU bust half dollars. It will also be far less expensive to upgrade an ugly '70-D to a nice choice or gemmy MS-64.
Once again, I never said what you claim. You can go back and read my reply to your post to wondercoin. I wasn't saying a thing about hoarders or referring to the supply in this extract. You also know from my prior posts that I haven't claimed that this coinage is as common as most collectors presumably believe.
Your definition of "high" is a lot more liberal than mine. As I told you, this coinage is relatively common, very common. In this thread, I clarified for you that US moderns collectively are more common than in the vicinity of 99% of all coinage ever struck in equivalent quality, excluding: NCLT, recent proofs (depends upon the source but maybe back to the late 50's for the US) and coinage struck elsewhere in the last 10 or maybe 20 years. The latter because of improved communication and far more travel which enables it to be set aside in much higher proportion.
>
So,,, ...how common is the '75 dime Wondercoin recently sold or his '76 Ike Proof from Philly?
How common are quarter varieties in Unc? Lots of moderns are scarce, rare, or unique. Others are scarce or rare well made. Some are highly elusive in any grade at all but as it applies to mass produced coins these are mostly foreign.
You seem to think higher demand than supply is a virtual impossibility but when availability starts at "1" then you can not be correct. When the number of collectors is in the tens of millions and there are ads on TV and the Sunday papers for coins you are apparently already incorrect as it applies to most modern coins. The question is merely "how much demand can grow" not whether or not it will grow. It is highly improbable that this field that has been growing for 40 years is going to suddenly decrease in popularity as older collectors who hate moderns retire and the number of coin collectors keeps growing. Frankly it seems more like a no-brainer. It's hardly impossible attractive clad won't or won't soon experience enough demand to increase prices but there certainly will be enough demand to continue exerting pressure on the prices of scarcer and more desirable pieces.
@cladking said:
Many collectors will eventually try to find nicer examples.
Sure- up to a point. wondercoin listed these prices for a 1970-D half...
MS65 - $40
MS66 - $165
MS67 - $3,750
Most people who are filling albums don't want slabbed coins for their sets. It's my opinion the majority of album collectors will be okay with this one for twenty bucks instead:
A few might spring for the MS65 and a few more will try to cherrypick one that's even nicer as long as they don't have to pay up for it, but virtually none of the collectors I'm talking about will even consider for a moment paying the price it takes to own an MS66 or 67.
Whether collectors will pay up for higher graded modern coins (i.e. the three quoted prices for 65, 66 and 67 1970D half dollars quoted above) is any interesting question.
People today routinely pay hundreds of dollars to purchase a new pair of shoes or a new I phone, only to replace same 6 months later when a new, upgraded version is introduced into the market. They do not bat an eye. Earnings of some people today, even those in their twenties who have just finished college are in the 6 figure range.
If younger persons with high incomes (or even those with more modest incomes in the $50k range) decide to take up the hobby, their mind set about the value of a slabbed PCGS 1970D half dollar may be much different than older collectors who think of 1970 mint sets and the coins contained therein as exceedingly common and thus not worthy of paying up for.
It is hard to believe that a 1970D half is now 5 P0 years old.
As produced this nice gemmy (MS-64) coin isin about the top 5%.
After half a century of cherry picking and years of tarnishing it's in the top 1%.
In the old days these sets were found in large numbers and as recently as 1980 there were still about 1 1/2 million sets. Today it will take you a while to find those 100 sets to match this coin.
The point is you can only find those 100 sets because so few are looking. If these were as popular as two cent pieces there wouldn't be much left to cherry pick.
@cladking said:
In the old days these sets were found in large numbers and as recently as 1980 there were still about 1 1/2 million sets. Today it will take you a while to find those 100 sets to match this coin.
A Kennedy collector doesn't need to find 100 sets- just one coin. I found this one on eBay- took a couple of minutes, maybe.
“Whether collectors will pay up for higher graded modern coins (i.e. the three quoted prices for 65, 66 and 67 1970D half dollars quoted above) is any interesting question.”
Well I posted publicly that I would buy 100 more MS66’s for a fair offer. So, you know at least one collector that will pay up. I would also pay up for real MS67’s. A gem my MS65 for $25 is a bargain too, but I am fishing for Marlin, not octopus (although I just ate the most delicious octopus ever in Singapore last week)!
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@cladking said:
In the old days these sets were found in large numbers and as recently as 1980 there were still about 1 1/2 million sets. Today it will take you a while to find those 100 sets to match this coin.
A Kennedy collector doesn't need to find 100 sets- just one coin. I found this one on eBay- took a couple of minutes, maybe.
To supply a coin of this quality to the market requires someone to find 100 sets or to find it in someone's stock.
Something on the order of 1.7 million of these survive and 1.0 million are unaffected by tarnish or having been very poorly made. About 150,000 are what I call nice choice unc or "gemmy" like the coin you pictured or better. This supply dwarfs the current demand but it is not a lot by historical standards. In the '60-s the '31-S cent with five times the supply went for FORTY TIMES the current value of the '70-D in constant dollars. You can say that those priced out of any potential increase will just buy the lower grade coins but there's a difference; most collectors didn't discern much difference between any given two '31-S cents while there is a huge difference between '70 half dollars and today's collectors are sensitive to even small differences. Most of the lower grade moderns look like junk and this especially applies to cu/ ni clad. It also applies to '70 half dollars. Many of these are simply ugly even when they are pristine.
Let me ask you this; if a collector is putting together a set of Kennedy half dollars in nice attractive chBU why would he want an ugly specimen of the '70-D? If he wants a Gem set (and this is quite affordable even tio beginners) why would he want only a chBU '70-D?
Very few of the thousands of modern collectors have much interest in MS-60. This is largely because MS-60 moderns look like road kill AU's. There are tens of thousands of MS-60 sets that have been assembled and sold to the public by retailers but these should not even be thought of as "collections" per se. And more importantly they contain very few choice coins and the attrition is extremely high. Many of the '70-D half dollars found in "circulation" no doubt come from these sets.
WYSIWYG and the numbers of raw moderns have been whittled down to a nub and most of the survivors are tarnished. You don't see stacks of '70 mint sets because they are gone not because they've been sold to collectors and are sitting in safety deposit boxes. You don't see old time collections of choice or Gem moderns because they were never made at all. You don't see rolls of 1970 quarters because nobody saved any. When you do see raw moderns they are often highly inferior examples because this is how most were made and tarnish and carbon spots have not improved their condition.
@SanctionII said:
Whether collectors will pay up for higher graded modern coins (i.e. the three quoted prices for 65, 66 and 67 1970D half dollars quoted above) is any interesting question.
People today routinely pay hundreds of dollars to purchase a new pair of shoes or a new I phone, only to replace same 6 months later when a new, upgraded version is introduced into the market. They do not bat an eye. Earnings of some people today, even those in their twenties who have just finished college are in the 6 figure range.
If younger persons with high incomes (or even those with more modest incomes in the $50k range) decide to take up the hobby, their mind set about the value of a slabbed PCGS 1970D half dollar may be much different than older collectors who think of 1970 mint sets and the coins contained therein as exceedingly common and thus not worthy of paying up for.
It is hard to believe that a 1970D half is now 5 P0 years old.
There is and always has been a natural tendency for collectors to seek superior specimens. This is ceaseless force that reduces the quantity and quality of the populations of any given collectible. Now days there are millions of collectors and thousands of modern collectors willing to pay extra for quality. But remember modern coin collectors tend to be less sophisticated than old coin collectors. They are less willing to pay premiums for any coins and the amount of premium is lower. Even some very highly sophisticated modern collectors will not chase rarities because of the huge premium or because they simply can't afford it. But modern coin collectors tend to be much younger than old coin collectors so as time goes by they will become more sophisticated and they'll have more resources to purchase higher value coins.
This process of collection formation has been going on since 1980 (even earlier for FS nickels). There are now several thousand collections and most of them are less than ten years old. Every year there are more and this aggregate demand from these collectors as well as the tens of thousands of beginners is already stressing supplies of coins like "chBU Ike dollars".
It might be noted that coin collecting has always had a "bandwagon mindset". I believe this is caused by the fact that many coin collectors have profit as a significant or large part of their motivation to collect. Certainly we almost all desire completion but most of us hope to make money even if profit motive is tertiary. When something gets popular collectors pile on. I believe this would already have happened back in 1989 except the population of all coin collectors had (but no longer has) an aversion to clad and moderns.
When something gets popular collectors pile on. I believe this would already have happened back in 1989 except the population of all coin collectors had (but no longer has) an aversion to clad and moderns.
>
In 1989 the best mint set (1969) briefly ran up to over $20 wholesale. I believe this was caused by speculation that these tough to find coin (P 25c) were going to get snapped up. This date was already getting harder to find and nice well made coins were the exception rather than the rule. But back then there were still nearly a million of these and most were pristine. The math just didn't work because higher prices brought sets out of storage.
Today there are only tired longs and a quarter million badly tarnished sets. The Coin Depression of 1989 smashed this rally before it was well begun.
@cladking said:
To supply a coin of this quality to the market requires someone to find 100 sets or to find it in someone's stock.
I'm not sure why you think I need to find 100 sets since as a collector, I'm not trying to supply anything to the market. All I need to find is one piece for my collection. As I said before, I found the coin on eBay in a couple of minutes. Can you find comparable pieces every day that quickly? I don't know. I would guess some days yes, some no.
@cladking said:
Let me ask you this; if a collector is putting together a set of Kennedy half dollars in nice attractive chBU why would he want an ugly specimen of the '70-D?
He probably won't if he can find a nicer piece in a reasonable amount of time for not a lot more money. That's a number of subjective decisions to be made there, but that's just how it is.
@cladking said:
If he wants a Gem set (and this is quite affordable even tio beginners) why would he want only a chBU '70-D?
What is your definition of "gem" and "affordable"?
@cladking said:
You can say that those priced out of any potential increase will just buy the lower grade coins but there's a difference; most collectors didn't discern much difference between any given two '31-S cents while there is a huge difference between '70 half dollars and today's collectors are sensitive to even small differences.
You didn't say anything about price differences between grades. Ignoring that, I'd agree that collectors would obviously prefer a nicer coin to a lesser one. Once you take prices into consideration, however, preferences will change. $20 vs. $30? Probably not a lot. $50 vs. $500? Definitely a lot. Unless you include the prices for the coins you're talking about, it's not possible to have a meaningful discussion of preferences.
@cladking said:
Very few of the thousands of modern collectors have much interest in MS-60. This is largely because MS-60 moderns look like road kill AU's.
Sure, if nicer coins are available for nearly the same price. Why settle if you don't have to?
@cladking said:
There are tens of thousands of MS-60 sets that have been assembled and sold to the public by retailers but these should not even be thought of as "collections" per se.
That sounds awfully elitist, but maybe that's just me. I don't think the coins people choose to collect should be disparaged because they're not up to somebody else's standards.
I'm not sure why you think I need to find 100 sets since as a collector, I'm not trying to supply anything to the market. All I need to find is one piece for my collection. As I said before, I found the coin on eBay in a couple of minutes. Can you find comparable pieces every day that quickly? I don't know. I would guess some days yes, some no.
Everytime anyone removes a coin from the supply someone has to find a raw coin to replace it or the price increases. These modern markets are dissimilar to the classic coin markets because there are no collections to supply coins.
>
What is your definition of "gem" and "affordable"?
"Gem" is a well made relatively mark free coin. About 20% of MS-64's, 75% of MS-65's, and '90% of MS-66's would be "Gem".
"Affordable" is something within an individual's comfort zone. Some people will spend $5 for a coin and some $5,000. Most collectors won't bat an eye at spending $5 to $40 for a coin and this will get you most of all modern sets in Gem. There are some "stoppers" where lower grades are necessary if $50 is your limit. Some sets (like dimes) can be acquired for a few hundred dollars.
That sounds awfully elitist, but maybe that's just me. I don't think the coins people choose to collect should be disparaged because they're not up to somebody else's standards.
I'm not disparaging coins or collectors. If someone wants to assemble a collection of modern "dogs" I'd be interested in seeing it and talking to him. I myself dabble in "dogs" just as an education. I even saved a few rolls of the ugliest coins anyone ever saw. My favorite is a nice pristine roll of 1966 quarters that all look like VF's at a glance. It came this way right from the FED and is not put together. They are most sincerely ugly coins. I've heard of '74 Ike rolls that are just as bad and maybe worse. Many coins were barely struck at all by heavily worn dies and in the case of '74 Ikes, some were tumbled in a machine similar to a cent truck to knock down excessive "finning".
But because low grade moderns are so ugly I doubt they'll ever be popular to collect. Most MS-60 to MS-62 moderns are banged up and poorly made. There aren't large numbers of them because they weren't saved.
In ~1976 I found a group of twenty beautiful 1974-S cent rolls. It was apparent they had been choiced out of a whole bag. I knew this was a scarce date because it already had a slight premium (90c). I was interested in it because these rolls were lousy with small dates and no small dates exist in mint sets. I figured I'd set them, aside for a few years until collectors woke up and wanted one for their collections. I'd trade them off for a dollar or two apiece and acquire better coins.
Little did I imagine that nearly half a century later I'd still have them. Now I'm getting rid of everything due to age. I went through these rolls and they all have problems. Despite the fact the rolls wholesale for about $7, buyers want pristine rolls and I couldn't even find 50 pristine coins. These are just going in the dump barrel for the bank. I did save out three rolls of not too bad small dates and a single fairly good small date and one Gem large date.
These rolls were a great asset in 1976 but they turned into a liability because collectors are still doing a Rip Van Winkle. I wore out shoe leather in the '70's seeking these and now I'll wear out more taking spotted coins to the bank. The coins were reasonably well stored but in paper. Part of the reason the wholesale price is so high is that buyers are seeking small dates but these won't wholesale even as small dates because they have spots.
Most collectors just don't understand these markets because they don't collect the coins and many of those who do are not sophisticated yet.
The main reason '74-S cents are so valuable today is that the mint knew large percentages of S mint cents were being hoarded. To counteract this many were shipped to Denver and mixed with their production. Most people didn't set aside these mixed rolls. It was possible to buy bags and rolls of S-mints in 1974 but the total number was greatly reduced. About 40% of production appears to have been small dates but most Gem moderns come from mint sets and all mint set '74-S cents are large dates. The number of choice and pristine small dates might be about comparable to the number of choice and pristine '31-S cents today. It's really difficult to know how available these are since they aren't collected so the lack of demand can't show the supply. It's hard to know how many of these coins were stabilized in acetone and then stored in a protected environment. It's hard to believe the total number is very high.
Large dates in the mint sets are often very gemmy and most are pristine. About half of these sets are gone now.
Perhaps I spoke too fast about the difficulty of the '74-S sm dt.
I just went through the rolls of '74-D's stored in the same places but with different paper wrappers. These were mostly pristine and there were even three Gem sm dt's that are worthy of having graded and one even nicer lg dt. There were no RPM's.
With the millions of coins saved (the '74-D is much more common in rolls) some probably have survived. But I'd be surprised if more than half a million S sm dts exist and the real question is what percentage are OK.
The typical (note specifically- not specialist) Kennedy collector is filling holes in his Dansco album. High grade/top pop slabbed coins aren't even on his radar.
Of course you are correct.
But the typical collector of Kennedy half dollars is going to look at his coins from time to time. He'll see his '69 is marked up and splotchy. He'll see his '82-P is poorly struck and scratched with gouges. He'll see other coins that are less than desirable.
Many collectors will eventually try to find nicer examples. Some collectors will want every coin to be as choice as his '72-D or even as Gem as some random date (no Kennedy is common in Gem).
Considering the simple fact that so many moderns are quite ugly there will be a natural tendency to upgrade that is much stronger than the tendency to want to upgrade BU bust half dollars. It will also be far less expensive to upgrade an ugly '70-D to a nice choice or gemmy MS-64.
True.
However, there is a difference between what you are saying here and what you stated earlier in this thread.> @cladking said:
Once again, I never said what you claim. You can go back and read my reply to your post to wondercoin. I wasn't saying a thing about hoarders or referring to the supply in this extract. You also know from my prior posts that I haven't claimed that this coinage is as common as most collectors presumably believe.
Your definition of "high" is a lot more liberal than mine. As I told you, this coinage is relatively common, very common. In this thread, I clarified for you that US moderns collectively are more common than in the vicinity of 99% of all coinage ever struck in equivalent quality, excluding: NCLT, recent proofs (depends upon the source but maybe back to the late 50's for the US) and coinage struck elsewhere in the last 10 or maybe 20 years. The latter because of improved communication and far more travel which enables it to be set aside in much higher proportion.
>
So,,, ...how common is the '75 dime Wondercoin recently sold or his '76 Ike Proof from Philly?
How common are quarter varieties in Unc? Lots of moderns are scarce, rare, or unique. Others are scarce or rare well made. Some are highly elusive in any grade at all but as it applies to mass produced coins these are mostly foreign.
You seem to think higher demand than supply is a virtual impossibility but when availability starts at "1" then you can not be correct. When the number of collectors is in the tens of millions and there are ads on TV and the Sunday papers for coins you are apparently already incorrect as it applies to most modern coins. The question is merely "how much demand can grow" not whether or not it will grow. It is highly improbable that this field that has been growing for 40 years is going to suddenly decrease in popularity as older collectors who hate moderns retire and the number of coin collectors keeps growing. Frankly it seems more like a no-brainer. It's hardly impossible attractive clad won't or won't soon experience enough demand to increase prices but there certainly will be enough demand to continue exerting pressure on the prices of scarcer and more desirable pieces.
I have given you specific reasons why this coinage has it's current and historical preference. I have also explained to you what it's going to take for it to change. The coin attributes I listed matter, even you cannot deny that. Once again, you write in the abstract as what you wrote here has no predictability on how much anyone will pay.
Of course demand "can" grow and obviously, if enough other collectors agreed with you, you would be correct. I'm disputing demand will increase anywhere near as much as you claim or imply. The fact is, they don't or else you wouldn't have been wrong for the last 45+ years by your own admission. They aren't going to either in the future for the reasons I have told you. If I were to organize my thoughts from the prior posts I have written in response to your claims, I could literally write a book.
You just aren't listening. Not that I am surprised, as I received the same response from the South African collectors I know and this was my primary series at one time.
I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age. Yet here you are (again) using this definition. Collector age has zero predictability on collector preferences. You could randomly choose as many collectors as you like and the result would be no better than random chance. Any apparent correlation would actually be the result of something else.
Hundreds of thousands to millions do collect this coinage right now and have in the past. The market just won't assign the value you insist should exist, an entirely different issue.
Lastly, as before, I never said that prices would not increase. I expect the :"share of wallet" for the most widely collected 20th century US coins to shrink generally but even if it happens, it won't apply to every coin.
In the '60-s the '31-S cent with five times the supply went for FORTY TIMES the current value of the '70-D in constant dollars. You can say that those priced out of any potential increase will just buy the lower grade coins but there's a difference; most collectors didn't discern much difference between any given two '31-S cents while there is a huge difference between '70 half dollars and today's collectors are sensitive to even small differences. Most of the lower grade moderns look like junk and this especially applies to cu/ ni clad. It also applies to '70 half dollars. Many of these are simply ugly even when they are pristine.
My explanation for the prior prices of coins like the 31-S cent was a communication limitation. In their ignorance, collectors believed this and other similar coins were "scarce" or "rare". There is no such limitation today and hasn't been in the recent past. The prior price on this type of coin has no predictability on any US modern, except maybe for specialization.
Not sure you remember it but maybe four years ago I commented on the price history of key and semi-key Lincoln cents. I looked at 1909-S VBD, 1914-D, 1926-S, 1931-S and 1955/55.. I went back to 1963 or 1965 using the Red Book as historical data and the Heritage Archives for current value. I used MS-63 BN as a proxy for a 60's "UNC".
Every one lost noticeable value adjusted for price changes, except maybe the 1955/55. The 31-S and the 26-S lost the most proportionately. The 1914-D went from $750 to around $3000, The 09-S VD, from $335 to about $1200. (It varied depending upon which recent sale chosen.)
This coinage was also more valuable or a lot more valuable than many coins which have since left it in the dust financially. As an example, the "UNC" 1815/12 bust half sold for $500. The conclusion is that this coinage reached peak preference a long time ago and has been losing it ever since, generically. Due to the internet, there is every reason to believe it will continue.
You just aren't listening. Not that I am surprised, as I received the same response from the South African collectors I know and this was my primary series at one time.
I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age. Yet here you are (again) using this definition.
>
You are parsing my words wrong and I am, no doubt parsing your's wrong and this same thing goes on all the time because we each see only what we believe. I say a smaller percentage of younger collectors hate moderns and you hear that they must all collect moderns then in the long run. I say in a population that most individuals don't hate clad that the potential for the number of clad collectors to be higher exists. I was mostly wrong for most of 45 years because I underestimated the hatred of moderns by the collectors who collected during that time period. This is not evidence I was wrong about the desirability of clad merely that I'm no Nostradamus. I freely admit to not being a prophet or a good forecaster of numismatic trends. But even a stopped clock might be right in the future.
I'm not certain how to parse the sentence " I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age." but this doesn't mean that I'm not correct that older collectors are retiring from the hobby or that younger collectors are less likely to hate clad. If you think I said anything else then read the sentence again.
My explanation for the prior prices of coins like the 31-S cent was a communication limitation. In their ignorance, collectors believed this and other similar coins were "scarce" or "rare". There is no such limitation today and hasn't been in the recent past. The prior price on this type of coin has no predictability on any US modern, except maybe for specialization.
But this is still a $100 coin. I'm not saying that I believe the '31-S is overpriced. I am saying that if very many collectors desire the '70 half then the price is likely to increase substantially in Nice MS-64 and better.
Not sure you remember it but maybe four years ago I commented on the price history of key and semi-key Lincoln cents. I looked at 1909-S VBD, 1914-D, 1926-S, 1931-S and 1955/55.. I went back to 1963 or 1965 using the Red Book as historical data and the Heritage Archives for current value. I used MS-63 BN as a proxy for a 60's "UNC".
Every one lost noticeable value adjusted for price changes, except maybe the 1955/55. The 31-S and the 26-S lost the most proportionately. The 1914-D went from $750 to around $3000, The 09-S VD, from $335 to about $1200. (It varied depending upon which recent sale chosen.)
This coinage was also more valuable or a lot more valuable than many coins which have since left it in the dust financially. As an example, the "UNC" 1815/12 bust half sold for $500. The conclusion is that this coinage reached peak preference a long time ago and has been losing it ever since, generically. Due to the internet, there is every reason to believe it will continue.
I remember it. It was in the marathon thread in the foreign coin forum ATS.
What you are seeing here, I believe, is partly exactly what you are talking about (many widely collected coins aren't rare enough in the current economy) and partly something you probably don't see; the tendency of collectors to chase the same coins. There are lots and lots of late '20's bust half in high grades and Unc but the prices are still high due to their popularity. As you often say most coins are pretty common but you overlook the fact that most collectibles either are fads or manifest fads. In the early 1970's silver art bars were all the rage. Now even rarities can be had at near melt. I didn't buy art bars then and I wouldn't buy them now. But I certainly picked up choice ones back in the '90's when silver was at four or five dollars.
Almost everybody buys high and sells low so tracking the actions of the masses just show how to lose money.
No, I'm not saying bust silver is going to drop. I am merely saying I put little stock in the accuracy of price guides when common and scarce coins are priced similarly. It's apparent these coins are popular and have been for years. I'd like to collect them myself and just might start when I trust the guides. It's just like moderns where non-existent coins or grades are listed as being almost valuless. Rare clad is valuable now even if the Redbook lists it for nothing. It would be far more valuable if collectors were tripping over one another to buy it.
The future is the hardest thing to predict. Experts don't even agree on the past so why expect me to have a perfect track record on the future?
But this is still a $100 coin. I'm not saying that I believe the '31-S is overpriced. I am saying that if very many collectors desire the '70 half then the price is likely to increase substantially in Nice MS-64 and better.
The 31-S cent isn't relevant to your point. What I am telling you is that the circumstances which led to the price of the 31-S cent and other common 20th century key and semi-key dates are done and never coming back. Collectors aren't ever going to believe that a 70-D half (or any other US circulating modern outside of specialization) is scarce or rare because they know it isn't, unlike the past when communication limitations led them to incorrectly believe it for this other coinage.
There are no actual US circulating modern key dates outside of specialization, not equivalent to the examples I used earlier. The last one I would describe as one is an error, the 82 dime w/out MM. It's actually a common coin but has a high price presumably for the same reason. Collectors pay this price because that's what it is worth now, just as with the 50-D nickel which we discussed before. Since these coins have an extended history of high prices, collectors will pay it as long as they believe they can recover most, all or even more than their outlay but probably not otherwise.
Collectors also now have access to in the vicinity of 95% of all coins ever struck (at minimum) and aren't limited to what US collectors could mostly buy in the 1960's. They can buy this 95% either on demand or on short notice, not in the quality they always prefer but most don't actually care about that where they won't settle for a slightly lower quality coin. If this applied in the 1960's, they wouldn't have had the prior preference either.-Given this variety, there is no reason to believe that future collectors will choose this common 20th century US coinage (classic or modern) in the same proportion, either as today and especially not the past.
Your last sentence I have extracted is simply another truism. What you are really saying is that enough collectors agree with you, you will be correct. What is your definition here of "substantial"?
What you are seeing here, I believe, is partly exactly what you are talking about (many widely collected coins aren't rare enough in the current economy) and partly something you probably don't see; the tendency of collectors to chase the same coins. There are lots and lots of late '20's bust half in high grades and Unc but the prices are still high due to their popularity. As you often say most coins are pretty common but you overlook the fact that most collectibles either are fads or manifest fads. In the early 1970's silver art bars were all the rage. Now even rarities can be had at near melt. I didn't buy art bars then and I wouldn't buy them now. But I certainly picked up choice ones back in the '90's when silver was at four or five dollars.
Almost everybody buys high and sells low so tracking the actions of the masses just show how to lose money.
No, I'm not saying bust silver is going to drop. I am merely saying I put little stock in the accuracy of price guides when common and scarce coins are priced similarly. It's apparent these coins are popular and have been for years. I'd like to collect them myself and just might start when I trust the guides. It's just like moderns where non-existent coins or grades are listed as being almost valuless. Rare clad is valuable now even if the Redbook lists it for nothing. It would be far more valuable if collectors were tripping over one another to buy it.
The future is the hardest thing to predict. Experts don't even agree on the past so why expect me to have a perfect track record on the future?
I am aware that collectors chase the same coins. It's evident from my prior posts, including my replies to you. The primary reason collectors buy the same coins include:
One: Most collectors have a demonstrated preference for the coinage of their home country or culture of origin. Two: Within the limits I previously described, most collectors prefer to collect coinage with "reasonable" availability.
**Three: **Going by the price level and TPG data, the lopsided proportion of the collector base agrees with my characterization of coin attributes I used earlier. That's why I used it. Rarity alone isn't an important factor. In your example of Bust halves, even if one of these coins was ten times as common as some clad quarter date, collectors would still prefer it anyway because of the other attributes. That's what also exists with silver Washington quarters.
The future is not hard to predict in the context you are claiming. It's easy to predict (with 100% virtual certainty) that collectors will have the same generic preferences they have now for as long as it will matter to anyone reading our post exchanges. This was the whole point of my description of the four attributes: coin size, metal content, coin design and availability.
For your claim to be true, you or anyone else who agrees with you needs to explain how the preference toward these attributes is going to change. I have read similar (though less exaggerated) claims by others, both on coin forums and in the numismatic press. Concurrently, I have yet to see even one explanation of how we get from "here" to "there". It's all written in the abstract.
You just aren't listening. Not that I am surprised, as I received the same response from the South African collectors I know and this was my primary series at one time.
I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age. Yet here you are (again) using this definition.
>
You are parsing my words wrong and I am, no doubt parsing your's wrong and this same thing goes on all the time because we each see only what we believe. I say a smaller percentage of younger collectors hate moderns and you hear that they must all collect moderns then in the long run. I say in a population that most individuals don't hate clad that the potential for the number of clad collectors to be higher exists. I was mostly wrong for most of 45 years because I underestimated the hatred of moderns by the collectors who collected during that time period. This is not evidence I was wrong about the desirability of clad merely that I'm no Nostradamus. I freely admit to not being a prophet or a good forecaster of numismatic trends. But even a stopped clock might be right in the future.
I'm not certain how to parse the sentence " I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age." but this doesn't mean that I'm not correct that older collectors are retiring from the hobby or that younger collectors are less likely to hate clad. If you think I said anything else then read the sentence again.
Yes, there probably is some misinterpretation on both sides but mostly, I just disagree with you.
Here, I disagree with you that collectors ever "hated" moderns. But even if they did in the past, they don't now. As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?
Your complaint (which is exactly what it is) is that the consensus doesn't see this coinage as you think it should. It's as simple as that. Collectors declining to pay what you believe this coinage should be worth isn't remotely "hating" anything, as no one has to share your preferences.
In our initial debate back in 2013, I even agreed with you that this demographic turnover might increase the preference minimally for the reason you state. But the key word here is "minimally", not the exaggerated extrapolations you have claimed or implied in numerous threads and posts.
The generic reason I have disagreed with your position is due to what I told you before. Your claims are not consistent with how collectors collect as evident from prices, TPG data or even anecdotally from opinions expressed on coin forums. Another poster here didn't identify me but inferred (since it was most likely me) that I don't like moderns.
I have taken the opposing view numerous times when I see claims that don't "add up" with all types of coins, including South African coinage. When I debated South African collectors, I'd use different data driven and logical arguments (those applicable to this coinage) while they would also write in the abstract. Their motives (completely financially driven) were different than yours but they didn't agree with me either because it was contrary to their personal preference.
“As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?”
This makes no sense to me. Take, for example, the current S Mint quarters that can only be purchased in rolls or bags. If “hundreds of thousands to millions” of collectors collect these coins, then why is the Mint only selling a few thousand bags and rolls of these coins? And, I suspect a great many to dealers as opposed to true collectors as well. For example, I, personally, buy about 1% of the $25 bags of each S Mint quarter the Mint sells. With all due respect, the collector base is a tiny % of this exaggerated amount.
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Please visit my website at www.wondercoins.com and my ebay auctions under my user name www.wondercoin.com.
@cladking said:
I'm not disparaging coins or collectors.
Earlier in this thread...
@cladking said:
There are tens of thousands of MS-60 sets that have been assembled and sold to the public by retailers but these should not even be thought of as "collections" per se.
"Not even be thought of as collections"? Perhaps you can understand how I came to my conclusion here?
@wondercoin said:
“As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?”
This makes no sense to me. Take, for example, the current S Mint quarters that can only be purchased in rolls or bags. If “hundreds of thousands to millions” of collectors collect these coins, then why is the Mint only selling a few thousand bags and rolls of these coins? And, I suspect a great many to dealers as opposed to true collectors as well. For example, I, personally, buy about 1% of the $25 bags of each S Mint quarter the Mint sells. With all due respect, the collector base is a tiny % of this exaggerated amount.
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
I didn't say they were paying any premium. Or perhaps those collecting at FV aren't collectors?
Collecting at FV was also the predominant form of collecting in the 60's and prior which is one reason I see nothing unusual in collecting today.
In your example and with this coinage generally, the reason such a low proportion (whatever the actual number actually may be) do is precisely because of the low generic preference I described.
The 31-S cent isn't relevant to your point. What I am telling you is that the circumstances which led to the price of the 31-S cent and other common 20th century key and semi-key dates are done and never coming back.
>
You couldn't be more wrong.
What "led to the price of the '31-S cent" was there more demand than supply. Coins like this and the far more common '50-D nickel are merely indicators of potential demand. Supply for these is fixed and known and demand is the variable.
Indeed, "demand" is paramount in fixing the price of virtually all collectibles. Unless supply dwarfs potential demand the price of ANYTHING can go far higher.
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"Collectors also now have access to in the vicinity of 95% of all coins ever struck (at minimum) and aren't limited to what US collectors could mostly buy in the 1960's. "
>
Again you are missing my point. There are millions of old time classic coin collections. These all come back on the market eventually and constitute "supply". There are no old clad collections. Supply must come almost solely from raw coins.
You make the internet and the ability to find quality coins at the most affordable price seem like a liability to collecting moderns even though it's actually one of the greatest strengths for all coins.
Here, I disagree with you that collectors ever "hated" moderns. But even if they did in the past, they don't now. As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?
Your complaint (which is exactly what it is) is that the consensus doesn't see this coinage as you think it should. It's as simple as that. Collectors declining to pay what you believe this coinage should be worth isn't remotely "hating" anything, as no one has to share your preferences.
None of this is true.
There were virtually no collectors of moderns before 1980. Yeoman was first, Herb Hicks was second, and John Jay Pittman was third. I don't know how many other got there first but I started in 1972 because I had hated clad so much before that. They were a manifestation of sloppy work, the cessation of real money, and the utter destruction of the coin market in 1965 as well as a reminder of what Congress and the mint had done to me personally by wrecking the collecting of coins from circulation.
NOBODY needs to collect moderns. But the collecting of moderns as a percentage of the total hobby is still incredibly low. It is ILLOGICAL to believe this will persist indefinitely.
"Not even be thought of as collections"? Perhaps you can understand how I came to my conclusion here?
>
Certainly I understand it.
But I consider a collector someone who not only strives to complete a set but to also strive to understand it and learn about it. If someone buys one of those junky sets and studies it then, yes, he is a collector. But many of those junky sets are just sold to someone who plunks down $99.99 and shoves it in a drawer or in a box of junk to never be seen again.
The difference is not mere semantics. The real collector is far more likely to save and protect his coins. He's far far more likely to upgrade some of the worst coins. But most importantly his collection will not end up getting spent or tossed in the trash. A very large percentage of the sets made for the public are already gone and more will not be around in 20 years.
I've known passionate and sophisticated collectors who have collected some of the most "trivial" items. It's not the collection that makes a collection, it's the collector.
Comments
"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."
I'm sure you grossly overestimate the number of modern cherry pickers and hoarders. I doubt there are more than 20 in the country on average since 1975. It's tough to estimate the number of coins saved but I doubt it's all that high. Sure, there are a couple of entities that have fairly substantial numbers and ACE has a bunch of clad quarters for sale right now. But the aggregate supply here is largely drawn from existing raw coin rather than purchases from the mint or supply from banks. Mint prices have always been too high to set aside coins and it's expensive to tie up a lot of money in raw coins from the bank. It's hard to find nice coins at the bank. I looked for months to find nice '82 quarters and never did find nice '83's even after scouring much of the country.
Your idea of vast supply is merely an idea. There is no vast supply to cherry pick. WYSIWHG. Try going out and cherry picking 1969 quarters. let me know how many Gems you can find. Start at a big wholesaler and you might actually find one or two. Otherwise it might take a long while. It might be far more difficult to find the raw coins than you imagine. Just remember every single roll you see advertised anywhere will be a mint set roll and almost all the mint set rolls are already cherry picked. Now days recently assembled rolls will also be tarnished.
Good luck.
Hey clad. Good to see you post.
Quick question. I have quite a few original rolls from the early 80's to the early 90's of most denominations. I just saved a few whenever I came across new rolls from the cash register. With your experience would you advise leaving them intact or searching them for gems ? I have no timeline and can leave them unsearched long term if that might be a better play. Talking maybe a dozen rolls of each denomination from every year.
@wondercoin
There are also die varieties (complete with variety attribution) that I would consider to be cherrypicks at current market prices, based on their low availability.
I always err toward opening such rolls but then they are harder to sell. Usually there won't be any varieties anyway. At the current time most of these don't have a lot of premium other than cents and halfs so I'd keep the others. Zincolns are a real darkhorse and could become valuable with some dates already going for up to ~$20. These are a tough call. Gems are far more likely than the clad and varieties are as well. Zincolns are extremely prone to rot. If you have very storage conditions then they might be a good bet to save but if they were ever poorly stored you might let someone else take the risk of opening them. I'd check the half dollars and then sell them. You won't find much but it's low cost to check them. I'd sit on the nickels, dimes, and quarters a few years and expect to open them later. '84 t0 '86 cents seem especially prone to tarnish and these dates are pretty expensive.
This entire thread and the individual replies posted herein are examples of why I enjoy the Forums. Multiple points of view, each supported by one's personal experience and one's point of view.
Some persons are no fans of moderns, some persons are big fans of moderns, some persons have no strong feelings pro or con.
To me it appears that circulating US Coinage dated 1965 forward has been largely ignored by collectors and by the general public for substantial amounts of time. As a result this coinage has not been saved from circulation in significant numbers. Post 1964 mint sets have also been destroyed or the coins contained in the remaining sets have deteriorated. The above, coupled with the the fact that these coins were often of poor quality when minted has resulted in there being minimal numbers of these coins that exist in GEM MS condition.
Most MS clad eagle reverse quarters that I have seen during hobby pursuits are not attractive. However, there are exceptions and when I see a GEM clad quarter (or dime or half or dollar) made in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's my reaction is "that is a very attractive coin" that I would enjoy owning.
Whether these modern US coins will ever become an area of the hobby where collectors and dealers will focus on is unknown. While I wait to see what, if anything, happens in the future I will continued to enjoy reading threads like this and enjoying owning the few modern MS clads that I collected as a kid in the 1960's and 1970's and the few of these same clads I have picked up after returning to the hobby as an adult.
I am still looking forward to seeing Cladking post photos of some of his best clad coinage (Hint, Hint.).
Thanks clad.
Your opinion is always wanted.
Being the contrarian, I like the idea of moderns being undervalued.
Being the realist, it will be a long time coming.
I do love these debates!
BST: KindaNewish (3/21/21), WQuarterFreddie (3/30/21), Meltdown (4/6/21), DBSTrader2 (5/5/21) AKA- unclemonkey on Blow Out
“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?”
WCC. Sorry for not answering your question. My involvement on these boards is a bit more sporadic these days as I spent close to 50% of the year out of the country. The time zone differences play a large role as well.
If memory serves me right, I believe we were discussing higher grade 70D 50C...yes? MS66 grade and higher. I’ll put together a reply on that later this weekend.
Wondercoin
1970-D Kennedy 50C
So, what did I mean by “undervalued” in my opinion in the MS66 grade at PCGS. First, this is just my 2 cents. I understand that the next guy might believe the coin is overvalued in the top grades. That’s what makes a horse race.
Anyway, PCGS has graded about 6,500 coins already just in the MS63-MS65 grades, with the typical MS65 selling between $25-$50. And, this does not even take into account all of the coins that fail to show in the pop report submitted in bulk with a min grade that is not achieved.
And, in almost (35) years, PCGS has only graded less than (600) coins in MS66, (16) coins in MS66+ and just a scant (15) coins in MS67 valued in the Price Guide at $5,000.
I believe eBay reports sales history for around 3-4 months as well as what is currently for sale. In the past 3-4 months (as well as at the moment) there has not been a single MS67 1970-D coin available for sale on eBay at any price. If there was an MS67 coin available, I believe it could likely trade in the $3,500-$4,000 range.
But, there always seems to be around 8-12 MS66 coins available on eBay with a Price Guide of $300. These coins are typically offered between $175-$399. An attractive buy price appears to be around 50% - 60% of Price Guide for a nice clean MS66 coin. I just successfully grabbed one off eBay at $153.50 best offer a few minutes before posting this. If it is as nice as the eBay auction pic suggests, I’ll just toss it into my large pile of MS66 specimens and continue to wait until the right day to resubmit the pile for possible MS66+/MS67 upgrades.
Back to my “undervalued” comment on the MS66 specimens... if MS65 coins are worth around $40 and MS67 specimens worth around $3,750, I love buying nice quality MS66 specimens at $150-$175 as I just did 30 minutes ago. I would buy (100) more tomorrow sight-seen at the same price.
You have less than 10% of the handpicked graded coins (and a tiny % of overall coins) achieving an MS66 grade with a spread that looks like this....
MS65-$40
MS66 - $165
MS67 - $3,750
Load me up on nice MS66 coins at $165/coin!
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
I know you are a "cherrypicker". That is my entire point. You think others should pay a lot more than current prices at any meaningful level when your posting history demonstrates you won't. The other point I was making is that your claims would have a lot more credibility if you did.
You are missing my entire point. I never said that someone such as you cannot make money in isolation or that a relatively low number won't do so. I have told you that before. I made a lot more off of collecting South African coinage than at least 95% of modern collectors will ever make in their entire life, back from about 2002-2009.
The point of this extract is that your claims have no relation to how collectors actually act, whether in the past or now and I have never read a single post of yours explaining how we get there either. You have predominantly projected your preferences onto others.
Since your claims don't reflect collector behavior, there isn't ever going to be the scale you imply because they are never going to have the preferences you believe. The only way anyone can believe it is by concurrently believing that an unprecedented number will ignore the prices of all other coinage while completely changing their preferences which go back all the way to the beginning of coin collecting.
I make this last statement because the future preferences you imply would make this coinage a lot more expensive than many or even most coinage which is a lot scarcer and have attributes which the vast majority of the collector base find a lot more interesting. An example is the MS-66 Kennedy half which I asked you about in the other thread. You wouldn't answer but your inference is that this common coin should be worth a big multiple to it's current price right now, maybe up to several thousand. As I told you there, it simply isn't that interesting.
The typical (note specifically- not specialist) Kennedy collector is filling holes in his Dansco album. High grade/top pop slabbed coins aren't even on his radar.
Once again, I never said what you claim. You can go back and read my reply to your post to wondercoin. I wasn't saying a thing about hoarders or referring to the supply in this extract. You also know from my prior posts that I haven't claimed that this coinage is as common as most collectors presumably believe.
Your definition of "high" is a lot more liberal than mine. As I told you, this coinage is relatively common, very common. In this thread, I clarified for you that US moderns collectively are more common than in the vicinity of 99% of all coinage ever struck in equivalent quality, excluding: NCLT, recent proofs (depends upon the source but maybe back to the late 50's for the US) and coinage struck elsewhere in the last 10 or maybe 20 years. The latter because of improved communication and far more travel which enables it to be set aside in much higher proportion.
To be clear, I don't have anything against clad or US moderns. Sometimes, I might get carried away in my replies but that is all. It's an academic exercise for me and nothing else. If you read my prior posts, you will see an answer to your points above to some extent and I have answered it elsewhere.
The coins were saved in "large" numbers, just not to the same extent as the predecessor coinage presumably from 1933-1964. Going by current market and the TPG population data, most of this coinage is almost certainly a Judd R-1 in PCGS MS-66 (usually but not always right below condition census grade). The rest, mostly and R-2 and very infrequently an R-3. While this is probably often (usually?) scarcer than 1933-1964 coinage, the prices don't indicate that most collectors really care, as both can be bought at any time most of the time. Some of these coins may turn out to scarcer than I believe, but if there is a reason o believe it now, I have yet to see it..
Thanks for your extensive reply.
That's my opinion as well, where I also agreed with you in the other thread.
I think upgrading your coins to better ones so your coins match in strike, grade and luster is the driving force behind building collections and achieving a market within your series. I can't count how many times a collector I've sold a coin to has told me, "that's the best coin in my collection". The strike of the coin rules in my book, it has for a long time. The luster, toning and often times, the condition doesn't matter all that much either as long as they aren't too bad. Those EDS examples, the first off the new fresh dies were the first to hit the hoppers.......unless, of course, they made it a point to catch those separately for mint sets and/or distribute them evenly when they begged them.
I didn't read every or all of anyone's post but may know the gist of this discussion. Having collected Jefferson nickels for 30 years, along the way, I found myself setting new goals. One that stood out the most was upgrading a coin to match the others. At first, I was enthralled with finding coins with full steps but I soon tired of checking every coin. So I began checking only lustrous coins for full steps ignoring the dull ones. And toned coins caught my eye as well. I took notice right away, most notably, poorly struck coins when a better struck coin came along. I've completed my collection probably a dozen times over the years but early on, I had several mushy coins including 53-S and 54-S and 61-D with full steps or close to full steps (Bern Nagengast use to sell 61-D's in the Coin World periodical) but I sold or traded those mushy coins as I upgraded them, mostly before PCGS started grading FS nickels and prices took off.
Collecting coins is not an every day event with most collectors. They go to school, college, serve our country, discover girls or boys, get a career, start a family. Only when they get a break from all that, they just might pull out those coins again and take a new look at them and some begin again, some with a new perspective. All series are collected that way, not by everyone but there will be collector coins saved for generations to come. It's locating what's out there is the battle. Connecting up with that like-minded individual who has the coins you want and it's usually another collector. This has always been the "needle in the haystack" with me. I have always been amazed on the number of dealers and collectors who just don't know what a collector's coin is...…..by my standards anyways. lol
Leo
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
Of course you are correct.
But the typical collector of Kennedy half dollars is going to look at his coins from time to time. He'll see his '69 is marked up and splotchy. He'll see his '82-P is poorly struck and scratched with gouges. He'll see other coins that are less than desirable.
Many collectors will eventually try to find nicer examples. Some collectors will want every coin to be as choice as his '72-D or even as Gem as some random date (no Kennedy is common in Gem).
Considering the simple fact that so many moderns are quite ugly there will be a natural tendency to upgrade that is much stronger than the tendency to want to upgrade BU bust half dollars. It will also be far less expensive to upgrade an ugly '70-D to a nice choice or gemmy MS-64.
For Kennedy half dollars, I want the reverse shield as mark-free as Kennedy's profile and those are not easy coins to find.
The more qualities observed in a coin, the more desirable that coin becomes!
My Jefferson Nickel Collection
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So,,, ...how common is the '75 dime Wondercoin recently sold or his '76 Ike Proof from Philly?
How common are quarter varieties in Unc? Lots of moderns are scarce, rare, or unique. Others are scarce or rare well made. Some are highly elusive in any grade at all but as it applies to mass produced coins these are mostly foreign.
You seem to think higher demand than supply is a virtual impossibility but when availability starts at "1" then you can not be correct. When the number of collectors is in the tens of millions and there are ads on TV and the Sunday papers for coins you are apparently already incorrect as it applies to most modern coins. The question is merely "how much demand can grow" not whether or not it will grow. It is highly improbable that this field that has been growing for 40 years is going to suddenly decrease in popularity as older collectors who hate moderns retire and the number of coin collectors keeps growing. Frankly it seems more like a no-brainer. It's hardly impossible attractive clad won't or won't soon experience enough demand to increase prices but there certainly will be enough demand to continue exerting pressure on the prices of scarcer and more desirable pieces.
Sure- up to a point. wondercoin listed these prices for a 1970-D half...
MS65 - $40
MS66 - $165
MS67 - $3,750
Most people who are filling albums don't want slabbed coins for their sets. It's my opinion the majority of album collectors will be okay with this one for twenty bucks instead:
A few might spring for the MS65 and a few more will try to cherrypick one that's even nicer as long as they don't have to pay up for it, but virtually none of the collectors I'm talking about will even consider for a moment paying the price it takes to own an MS66 or 67.
Whether collectors will pay up for higher graded modern coins (i.e. the three quoted prices for 65, 66 and 67 1970D half dollars quoted above) is any interesting question.
People today routinely pay hundreds of dollars to purchase a new pair of shoes or a new I phone, only to replace same 6 months later when a new, upgraded version is introduced into the market. They do not bat an eye. Earnings of some people today, even those in their twenties who have just finished college are in the 6 figure range.
If younger persons with high incomes (or even those with more modest incomes in the $50k range) decide to take up the hobby, their mind set about the value of a slabbed PCGS 1970D half dollar may be much different than older collectors who think of 1970 mint sets and the coins contained therein as exceedingly common and thus not worthy of paying up for.
It is hard to believe that a 1970D half is now 5 P0 years old.
As produced this nice gemmy (MS-64) coin isin about the top 5%.
After half a century of cherry picking and years of tarnishing it's in the top 1%.
In the old days these sets were found in large numbers and as recently as 1980 there were still about 1 1/2 million sets. Today it will take you a while to find those 100 sets to match this coin.
The point is you can only find those 100 sets because so few are looking. If these were as popular as two cent pieces there wouldn't be much left to cherry pick.
A Kennedy collector doesn't need to find 100 sets- just one coin. I found this one on eBay- took a couple of minutes, maybe.
“Whether collectors will pay up for higher graded modern coins (i.e. the three quoted prices for 65, 66 and 67 1970D half dollars quoted above) is any interesting question.”
Well I posted publicly that I would buy 100 more MS66’s for a fair offer. So, you know at least one collector that will pay up. I would also pay up for real MS67’s. A gem my MS65 for $25 is a bargain too, but I am fishing for Marlin, not octopus (although I just ate the most delicious octopus ever in Singapore last week)!
Wondercoin
To supply a coin of this quality to the market requires someone to find 100 sets or to find it in someone's stock.
Something on the order of 1.7 million of these survive and 1.0 million are unaffected by tarnish or having been very poorly made. About 150,000 are what I call nice choice unc or "gemmy" like the coin you pictured or better. This supply dwarfs the current demand but it is not a lot by historical standards. In the '60-s the '31-S cent with five times the supply went for FORTY TIMES the current value of the '70-D in constant dollars. You can say that those priced out of any potential increase will just buy the lower grade coins but there's a difference; most collectors didn't discern much difference between any given two '31-S cents while there is a huge difference between '70 half dollars and today's collectors are sensitive to even small differences. Most of the lower grade moderns look like junk and this especially applies to cu/ ni clad. It also applies to '70 half dollars. Many of these are simply ugly even when they are pristine.
Let me ask you this; if a collector is putting together a set of Kennedy half dollars in nice attractive chBU why would he want an ugly specimen of the '70-D? If he wants a Gem set (and this is quite affordable even tio beginners) why would he want only a chBU '70-D?
Very few of the thousands of modern collectors have much interest in MS-60. This is largely because MS-60 moderns look like road kill AU's. There are tens of thousands of MS-60 sets that have been assembled and sold to the public by retailers but these should not even be thought of as "collections" per se. And more importantly they contain very few choice coins and the attrition is extremely high. Many of the '70-D half dollars found in "circulation" no doubt come from these sets.
WYSIWYG and the numbers of raw moderns have been whittled down to a nub and most of the survivors are tarnished. You don't see stacks of '70 mint sets because they are gone not because they've been sold to collectors and are sitting in safety deposit boxes. You don't see old time collections of choice or Gem moderns because they were never made at all. You don't see rolls of 1970 quarters because nobody saved any. When you do see raw moderns they are often highly inferior examples because this is how most were made and tarnish and carbon spots have not improved their condition.
There is and always has been a natural tendency for collectors to seek superior specimens. This is ceaseless force that reduces the quantity and quality of the populations of any given collectible. Now days there are millions of collectors and thousands of modern collectors willing to pay extra for quality. But remember modern coin collectors tend to be less sophisticated than old coin collectors. They are less willing to pay premiums for any coins and the amount of premium is lower. Even some very highly sophisticated modern collectors will not chase rarities because of the huge premium or because they simply can't afford it. But modern coin collectors tend to be much younger than old coin collectors so as time goes by they will become more sophisticated and they'll have more resources to purchase higher value coins.
This process of collection formation has been going on since 1980 (even earlier for FS nickels). There are now several thousand collections and most of them are less than ten years old. Every year there are more and this aggregate demand from these collectors as well as the tens of thousands of beginners is already stressing supplies of coins like "chBU Ike dollars".
It might be noted that coin collecting has always had a "bandwagon mindset". I believe this is caused by the fact that many coin collectors have profit as a significant or large part of their motivation to collect. Certainly we almost all desire completion but most of us hope to make money even if profit motive is tertiary. When something gets popular collectors pile on. I believe this would already have happened back in 1989 except the population of all coin collectors had (but no longer has) an aversion to clad and moderns.
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In 1989 the best mint set (1969) briefly ran up to over $20 wholesale. I believe this was caused by speculation that these tough to find coin (P 25c) were going to get snapped up. This date was already getting harder to find and nice well made coins were the exception rather than the rule. But back then there were still nearly a million of these and most were pristine. The math just didn't work because higher prices brought sets out of storage.
Today there are only tired longs and a quarter million badly tarnished sets. The Coin Depression of 1989 smashed this rally before it was well begun.
I'm not sure why you think I need to find 100 sets since as a collector, I'm not trying to supply anything to the market. All I need to find is one piece for my collection. As I said before, I found the coin on eBay in a couple of minutes. Can you find comparable pieces every day that quickly? I don't know. I would guess some days yes, some no.
He probably won't if he can find a nicer piece in a reasonable amount of time for not a lot more money. That's a number of subjective decisions to be made there, but that's just how it is.
What is your definition of "gem" and "affordable"?
You didn't say anything about price differences between grades. Ignoring that, I'd agree that collectors would obviously prefer a nicer coin to a lesser one. Once you take prices into consideration, however, preferences will change. $20 vs. $30? Probably not a lot. $50 vs. $500? Definitely a lot. Unless you include the prices for the coins you're talking about, it's not possible to have a meaningful discussion of preferences.
Sure, if nicer coins are available for nearly the same price. Why settle if you don't have to?
That sounds awfully elitist, but maybe that's just me. I don't think the coins people choose to collect should be disparaged because they're not up to somebody else's standards.
Everytime anyone removes a coin from the supply someone has to find a raw coin to replace it or the price increases. These modern markets are dissimilar to the classic coin markets because there are no collections to supply coins.
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"Gem" is a well made relatively mark free coin. About 20% of MS-64's, 75% of MS-65's, and '90% of MS-66's would be "Gem".
"Affordable" is something within an individual's comfort zone. Some people will spend $5 for a coin and some $5,000. Most collectors won't bat an eye at spending $5 to $40 for a coin and this will get you most of all modern sets in Gem. There are some "stoppers" where lower grades are necessary if $50 is your limit. Some sets (like dimes) can be acquired for a few hundred dollars.
I'm not disparaging coins or collectors. If someone wants to assemble a collection of modern "dogs" I'd be interested in seeing it and talking to him. I myself dabble in "dogs" just as an education. I even saved a few rolls of the ugliest coins anyone ever saw. My favorite is a nice pristine roll of 1966 quarters that all look like VF's at a glance. It came this way right from the FED and is not put together. They are most sincerely ugly coins. I've heard of '74 Ike rolls that are just as bad and maybe worse. Many coins were barely struck at all by heavily worn dies and in the case of '74 Ikes, some were tumbled in a machine similar to a cent truck to knock down excessive "finning".
But because low grade moderns are so ugly I doubt they'll ever be popular to collect. Most MS-60 to MS-62 moderns are banged up and poorly made. There aren't large numbers of them because they weren't saved.
In ~1976 I found a group of twenty beautiful 1974-S cent rolls. It was apparent they had been choiced out of a whole bag. I knew this was a scarce date because it already had a slight premium (90c). I was interested in it because these rolls were lousy with small dates and no small dates exist in mint sets. I figured I'd set them, aside for a few years until collectors woke up and wanted one for their collections. I'd trade them off for a dollar or two apiece and acquire better coins.
Little did I imagine that nearly half a century later I'd still have them. Now I'm getting rid of everything due to age. I went through these rolls and they all have problems. Despite the fact the rolls wholesale for about $7, buyers want pristine rolls and I couldn't even find 50 pristine coins. These are just going in the dump barrel for the bank. I did save out three rolls of not too bad small dates and a single fairly good small date and one Gem large date.
These rolls were a great asset in 1976 but they turned into a liability because collectors are still doing a Rip Van Winkle. I wore out shoe leather in the '70's seeking these and now I'll wear out more taking spotted coins to the bank. The coins were reasonably well stored but in paper. Part of the reason the wholesale price is so high is that buyers are seeking small dates but these won't wholesale even as small dates because they have spots.
Most collectors just don't understand these markets because they don't collect the coins and many of those who do are not sophisticated yet.
The main reason '74-S cents are so valuable today is that the mint knew large percentages of S mint cents were being hoarded. To counteract this many were shipped to Denver and mixed with their production. Most people didn't set aside these mixed rolls. It was possible to buy bags and rolls of S-mints in 1974 but the total number was greatly reduced. About 40% of production appears to have been small dates but most Gem moderns come from mint sets and all mint set '74-S cents are large dates. The number of choice and pristine small dates might be about comparable to the number of choice and pristine '31-S cents today. It's really difficult to know how available these are since they aren't collected so the lack of demand can't show the supply. It's hard to know how many of these coins were stabilized in acetone and then stored in a protected environment. It's hard to believe the total number is very high.
Large dates in the mint sets are often very gemmy and most are pristine. About half of these sets are gone now.
Perhaps I spoke too fast about the difficulty of the '74-S sm dt.
I just went through the rolls of '74-D's stored in the same places but with different paper wrappers. These were mostly pristine and there were even three Gem sm dt's that are worthy of having graded and one even nicer lg dt. There were no RPM's.
With the millions of coins saved (the '74-D is much more common in rolls) some probably have survived. But I'd be surprised if more than half a million S sm dts exist and the real question is what percentage are OK.
True.
However, there is a difference between what you are saying here and what you stated earlier in this thread.> @cladking said:
I have given you specific reasons why this coinage has it's current and historical preference. I have also explained to you what it's going to take for it to change. The coin attributes I listed matter, even you cannot deny that. Once again, you write in the abstract as what you wrote here has no predictability on how much anyone will pay.
Of course demand "can" grow and obviously, if enough other collectors agreed with you, you would be correct. I'm disputing demand will increase anywhere near as much as you claim or imply. The fact is, they don't or else you wouldn't have been wrong for the last 45+ years by your own admission. They aren't going to either in the future for the reasons I have told you. If I were to organize my thoughts from the prior posts I have written in response to your claims, I could literally write a book.
You just aren't listening. Not that I am surprised, as I received the same response from the South African collectors I know and this was my primary series at one time.
I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age. Yet here you are (again) using this definition. Collector age has zero predictability on collector preferences. You could randomly choose as many collectors as you like and the result would be no better than random chance. Any apparent correlation would actually be the result of something else.
Hundreds of thousands to millions do collect this coinage right now and have in the past. The market just won't assign the value you insist should exist, an entirely different issue.
Lastly, as before, I never said that prices would not increase. I expect the :"share of wallet" for the most widely collected 20th century US coins to shrink generally but even if it happens, it won't apply to every coin.
In the '60-s the '31-S cent with five times the supply went for FORTY TIMES the current value of the '70-D in constant dollars. You can say that those priced out of any potential increase will just buy the lower grade coins but there's a difference; most collectors didn't discern much difference between any given two '31-S cents while there is a huge difference between '70 half dollars and today's collectors are sensitive to even small differences. Most of the lower grade moderns look like junk and this especially applies to cu/ ni clad. It also applies to '70 half dollars. Many of these are simply ugly even when they are pristine.
My explanation for the prior prices of coins like the 31-S cent was a communication limitation. In their ignorance, collectors believed this and other similar coins were "scarce" or "rare". There is no such limitation today and hasn't been in the recent past. The prior price on this type of coin has no predictability on any US modern, except maybe for specialization.
Not sure you remember it but maybe four years ago I commented on the price history of key and semi-key Lincoln cents. I looked at 1909-S VBD, 1914-D, 1926-S, 1931-S and 1955/55.. I went back to 1963 or 1965 using the Red Book as historical data and the Heritage Archives for current value. I used MS-63 BN as a proxy for a 60's "UNC".
Every one lost noticeable value adjusted for price changes, except maybe the 1955/55. The 31-S and the 26-S lost the most proportionately. The 1914-D went from $750 to around $3000, The 09-S VD, from $335 to about $1200. (It varied depending upon which recent sale chosen.)
This coinage was also more valuable or a lot more valuable than many coins which have since left it in the dust financially. As an example, the "UNC" 1815/12 bust half sold for $500. The conclusion is that this coinage reached peak preference a long time ago and has been losing it ever since, generically. Due to the internet, there is every reason to believe it will continue.
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You are parsing my words wrong and I am, no doubt parsing your's wrong and this same thing goes on all the time because we each see only what we believe. I say a smaller percentage of younger collectors hate moderns and you hear that they must all collect moderns then in the long run. I say in a population that most individuals don't hate clad that the potential for the number of clad collectors to be higher exists. I was mostly wrong for most of 45 years because I underestimated the hatred of moderns by the collectors who collected during that time period. This is not evidence I was wrong about the desirability of clad merely that I'm no Nostradamus. I freely admit to not being a prophet or a good forecaster of numismatic trends. But even a stopped clock might be right in the future.
I'm not certain how to parse the sentence " I also find it interesting that earlier in this thread, you disputed my characterization of your demographic claim as collector age." but this doesn't mean that I'm not correct that older collectors are retiring from the hobby or that younger collectors are less likely to hate clad. If you think I said anything else then read the sentence again.
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But this is still a $100 coin. I'm not saying that I believe the '31-S is overpriced. I am saying that if very many collectors desire the '70 half then the price is likely to increase substantially in Nice MS-64 and better.
I remember it. It was in the marathon thread in the foreign coin forum ATS.
What you are seeing here, I believe, is partly exactly what you are talking about (many widely collected coins aren't rare enough in the current economy) and partly something you probably don't see; the tendency of collectors to chase the same coins. There are lots and lots of late '20's bust half in high grades and Unc but the prices are still high due to their popularity. As you often say most coins are pretty common but you overlook the fact that most collectibles either are fads or manifest fads. In the early 1970's silver art bars were all the rage. Now even rarities can be had at near melt. I didn't buy art bars then and I wouldn't buy them now. But I certainly picked up choice ones back in the '90's when silver was at four or five dollars.
Almost everybody buys high and sells low so tracking the actions of the masses just show how to lose money.
No, I'm not saying bust silver is going to drop. I am merely saying I put little stock in the accuracy of price guides when common and scarce coins are priced similarly. It's apparent these coins are popular and have been for years. I'd like to collect them myself and just might start when I trust the guides. It's just like moderns where non-existent coins or grades are listed as being almost valuless. Rare clad is valuable now even if the Redbook lists it for nothing. It would be far more valuable if collectors were tripping over one another to buy it.
The future is the hardest thing to predict. Experts don't even agree on the past so why expect me to have a perfect track record on the future?
The 31-S cent isn't relevant to your point. What I am telling you is that the circumstances which led to the price of the 31-S cent and other common 20th century key and semi-key dates are done and never coming back. Collectors aren't ever going to believe that a 70-D half (or any other US circulating modern outside of specialization) is scarce or rare because they know it isn't, unlike the past when communication limitations led them to incorrectly believe it for this other coinage.
There are no actual US circulating modern key dates outside of specialization, not equivalent to the examples I used earlier. The last one I would describe as one is an error, the 82 dime w/out MM. It's actually a common coin but has a high price presumably for the same reason. Collectors pay this price because that's what it is worth now, just as with the 50-D nickel which we discussed before. Since these coins have an extended history of high prices, collectors will pay it as long as they believe they can recover most, all or even more than their outlay but probably not otherwise.
Collectors also now have access to in the vicinity of 95% of all coins ever struck (at minimum) and aren't limited to what US collectors could mostly buy in the 1960's. They can buy this 95% either on demand or on short notice, not in the quality they always prefer but most don't actually care about that where they won't settle for a slightly lower quality coin. If this applied in the 1960's, they wouldn't have had the prior preference either.-Given this variety, there is no reason to believe that future collectors will choose this common 20th century US coinage (classic or modern) in the same proportion, either as today and especially not the past.
Your last sentence I have extracted is simply another truism. What you are really saying is that enough collectors agree with you, you will be correct. What is your definition here of "substantial"?
I am aware that collectors chase the same coins. It's evident from my prior posts, including my replies to you. The primary reason collectors buy the same coins include:
One: Most collectors have a demonstrated preference for the coinage of their home country or culture of origin.
Two: Within the limits I previously described, most collectors prefer to collect coinage with "reasonable" availability.
**Three: **Going by the price level and TPG data, the lopsided proportion of the collector base agrees with my characterization of coin attributes I used earlier. That's why I used it. Rarity alone isn't an important factor. In your example of Bust halves, even if one of these coins was ten times as common as some clad quarter date, collectors would still prefer it anyway because of the other attributes. That's what also exists with silver Washington quarters.
The future is not hard to predict in the context you are claiming. It's easy to predict (with 100% virtual certainty) that collectors will have the same generic preferences they have now for as long as it will matter to anyone reading our post exchanges. This was the whole point of my description of the four attributes: coin size, metal content, coin design and availability.
For your claim to be true, you or anyone else who agrees with you needs to explain how the preference toward these attributes is going to change. I have read similar (though less exaggerated) claims by others, both on coin forums and in the numismatic press. Concurrently, I have yet to see even one explanation of how we get from "here" to "there". It's all written in the abstract.
Yes, there probably is some misinterpretation on both sides but mostly, I just disagree with you.
Here, I disagree with you that collectors ever "hated" moderns. But even if they did in the past, they don't now. As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?
Your complaint (which is exactly what it is) is that the consensus doesn't see this coinage as you think it should. It's as simple as that. Collectors declining to pay what you believe this coinage should be worth isn't remotely "hating" anything, as no one has to share your preferences.
In our initial debate back in 2013, I even agreed with you that this demographic turnover might increase the preference minimally for the reason you state. But the key word here is "minimally", not the exaggerated extrapolations you have claimed or implied in numerous threads and posts.
The generic reason I have disagreed with your position is due to what I told you before. Your claims are not consistent with how collectors collect as evident from prices, TPG data or even anecdotally from opinions expressed on coin forums. Another poster here didn't identify me but inferred (since it was most likely me) that I don't like moderns.
I have taken the opposing view numerous times when I see claims that don't "add up" with all types of coins, including South African coinage. When I debated South African collectors, I'd use different data driven and logical arguments (those applicable to this coinage) while they would also write in the abstract. Their motives (completely financially driven) were different than yours but they didn't agree with me either because it was contrary to their personal preference.
“As I told you, hundreds of thousands to millions (depending upon definition of "collector") do collect this coinage, then and now. Why would someone collect something they hate?”
This makes no sense to me. Take, for example, the current S Mint quarters that can only be purchased in rolls or bags. If “hundreds of thousands to millions” of collectors collect these coins, then why is the Mint only selling a few thousand bags and rolls of these coins? And, I suspect a great many to dealers as opposed to true collectors as well. For example, I, personally, buy about 1% of the $25 bags of each S Mint quarter the Mint sells. With all due respect, the collector base is a tiny % of this exaggerated amount.
Just my 2 cents.
Wondercoin
Earlier in this thread...
"Not even be thought of as collections"? Perhaps you can understand how I came to my conclusion here?
Sheesh! This is tiring reading!
Smitten with DBLCs.
Duplicate post
I didn't say they were paying any premium. Or perhaps those collecting at FV aren't collectors?
Collecting at FV was also the predominant form of collecting in the 60's and prior which is one reason I see nothing unusual in collecting today.
In your example and with this coinage generally, the reason such a low proportion (whatever the actual number actually may be) do is precisely because of the low generic preference I described.
True, but then perhaps another endless thread and posts about CAC would be a lot more interesting, right?
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You couldn't be more wrong.
What "led to the price of the '31-S cent" was there more demand than supply. Coins like this and the far more common '50-D nickel are merely indicators of potential demand. Supply for these is fixed and known and demand is the variable.
Indeed, "demand" is paramount in fixing the price of virtually all collectibles. Unless supply dwarfs potential demand the price of ANYTHING can go far higher.
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Again you are missing my point. There are millions of old time classic coin collections. These all come back on the market eventually and constitute "supply". There are no old clad collections. Supply must come almost solely from raw coins.
You make the internet and the ability to find quality coins at the most affordable price seem like a liability to collecting moderns even though it's actually one of the greatest strengths for all coins.
None of this is true.
There were virtually no collectors of moderns before 1980. Yeoman was first, Herb Hicks was second, and John Jay Pittman was third. I don't know how many other got there first but I started in 1972 because I had hated clad so much before that. They were a manifestation of sloppy work, the cessation of real money, and the utter destruction of the coin market in 1965 as well as a reminder of what Congress and the mint had done to me personally by wrecking the collecting of coins from circulation.
NOBODY needs to collect moderns. But the collecting of moderns as a percentage of the total hobby is still incredibly low. It is ILLOGICAL to believe this will persist indefinitely.
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Certainly I understand it.
But I consider a collector someone who not only strives to complete a set but to also strive to understand it and learn about it. If someone buys one of those junky sets and studies it then, yes, he is a collector. But many of those junky sets are just sold to someone who plunks down $99.99 and shoves it in a drawer or in a box of junk to never be seen again.
The difference is not mere semantics. The real collector is far more likely to save and protect his coins. He's far far more likely to upgrade some of the worst coins. But most importantly his collection will not end up getting spent or tossed in the trash. A very large percentage of the sets made for the public are already gone and more will not be around in 20 years.
I've known passionate and sophisticated collectors who have collected some of the most "trivial" items. It's not the collection that makes a collection, it's the collector.
Maybe it would help if we got rude and threatening.
I'm outta time right now.