Coins with the highest "market capitalization"
Higashiyama
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Which US coins have the highest market cap - that is, the highest total value if you were to try to add up the current market price of all existing examples?
Based on some very rough "back of the envelope" calculations, the highest I can think of is the 1907 St Gaudens High Relief $20. With estimates of more than 10,000 extant, many in mint state, it would seem to have a market cap in excess of US$ 200 million. I believe this far exceeds that of any coin that might be considered "rare".
Can you think of any that would exceed this, or close contenders?
The 1995-W ASE is actually one of the highest, with a likely market cap of around US$ 100 million. The 1909-s VDB is likely close to that as well. By comparison, coins like an 1895 Morgan or a Pan-Pac $ 50 seem be be closer to US$ 40 million or so.
Curiously, if you extend beyond coins with numismatic interest into coins that trade for their bullion value, all of these get blown away by the high mintage ASEs, which have a market cap in excess of US$ 1 billion. Assuming reasonably high survival rates, coins such as a 1964 Kennedy half or a 1964-D Washington quarter will also have market caps in excess of US$ 1 billion!
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They made 52 million 1922 Philly Peace dollars (the highest silver dollar mintage in US history). At bullion prices, that's around $986 million in value. Even if they've melted half of them, it's still double what the St. Gaudens registers, and that's just the bullion value.
Coin Facts estimates 2.5 million extant coins in Mint State Grades. At $40 each, that adds another $100 million in value.
As you say, I'm sure there are examples much higher than this.
PCGS Coin Facts estimates the 1,212,500 1904 double eagles survive at a conservative average value of $2,000 each that equals over two billion dollars.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
@BryceM - thanks for this example.
Moving towards the bullion side, if you look at the higher mintage AGE years, the market for some of these would be around $3 billion! It's making me wonder if the total market cap of modern coins may exceed that of classics.
100 million 1921 Morgan $s at only $20 each is $2 billion.
The widgets will win this. Your top 50 might all be bullion coins or widgets. It will not be an interesting collectible list.
It likely does. Look at what percentage of the coin market is represented annually by US Mint sales.
I agree, it has got to be some coin that is mostly intrinsic value. I'm thinking a Morgan or a double eagle.
Aercus Numismatics - Certified coins for sale
1909-s vdb market cap easily exceeds $100M...probably approaches $200M. I think an awful lot of cheap silver got melted at $50 an ounce
Don't forget about the 1964 Kennedy Half with a mintage of over 277 Million!
I asked this question to the forum a couple of years ago. It’s likely to be the 1924 Saint, with a market cap of around $3B-$4B. (PCGS estimates 1.9M examples and the average value is probably $1800-$2K).
@david3142: that's an impressive example. I looked at CoinFacts estimate of numbers in MS65 above above - 200,000!
I don't know. 64 Kennedy halves at $10 each are pushing $3billion and that's without the D's. If you count P&D mintages, there's 430 million with a current market cap of over $4 illion.
1964 P/D quarters have a combined 1.2 billion mintage with a current net market cap of $6 billion. 1964-P alone is 760 million with a market cap of 3.5 billion.
As I said, the widgets are going to dominate total market cap.
Survival estimate “only” 70M coins for the 64D
Anyone want to do the math on the 278,253 1881-S Morgan Dollars graded by PCGS? 109,000 + in 64 and 57,000+ in 65 alone.
It is an interesting thing to consider........ If most of these "boring" types of coins are owned by collectors, stackers, or others with at least a marginal interest in "classic" US coins, it represents a tremendous store of potential buying power. We all know the price of bullion affects the amount of cash flowing in and out of classic US numismatic coins. This represents the base of the pyramid, perhaps where extreme rarities are at the pinnacle, but broad stretches of ho-hum coins make a large base.
We often try to equate coin collecting with other collecting hobbies like stamps, sports cards, comics and such but I doubt any of those have the same foundation.
Interesting... the SLV and GLD etf's are only a combined $80B
Smaller than 3M and a third the size of ExxonMobil.
What has Hanson spent? Close to $1B?
Maybe the numismatic side of the hobby is much larger and more alive than any of us thought?
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SLV and GLD are a tiny fraction of the actual bullion out there.
And a lot of the coins we've mentioned are really bullion, including 1924 $20s and common date Morgan $s. So I'm not sure I would put them on the "numismatic side of the hobby" necessarily.
https://www.numismaticnews.net/archive/coin-market-got-smaller