Is the popularity of Ikes on the rise or is it just a local thing?

tttwo

I visited a local coin shop last week that I had not been to in a couple of years. The owner remembered me as an Ike variety collector. He made the observation that he is having trouble keeping Ikes on hand. In the past there was little demand to see his bin of circulated Ikes, and he rarely sold any in bulk, but lately he can't keep up with the demand. Are other dealers seeing this, or collectors noticing it? It may be just a local demand created by one or two cherry pickers but I'm curious if there is a sense that the popularity of Ikes is increasing in general. It did not seem that the demand has reached his rolls of Uncs which cost only a little more. I bought two rolls of 71-Ds and found a few nice, clashed-die minor varieties.

Hydrant

Might not be local......maybe people are looking for something to do. I recently put together a full set of Ikes, date, mint, and proofs. I was not exactly particular in my selection, just looking for MS . Never paid any attention to them before. I consider myself to be just part of the herd. Maybe it's the new thing.
And......It Was

Can't Beat That!

tttwo

I started out the same way...filling a Dansco album. Then worked on a graded set. Then worked on upgrading that set. When I got the graded set to about as high of grade as I could afford, the hunt for varieties began, which is much more of a challenge, especially with limited resources. Much more interesting too. I prefer to find them in the raw but occasionally cherry pick a rare variety already graded. Someday I'll get around to having the raw ones graded too. To me, it's like working on a VAM set of Morgans in the 1940s and 50s when Morgans were of little interest, and interest in VAMs didn't exist yet. Lots of low hanging fruit.

GRANDAM

Depends on what you call Popular. Current prices on high grade IKE's are a fraction of their highs several years back.
If you bought back then and still have them you are hurting.

You can buy most dates at 1/3 or less of the prices realized at the CSNS HERITAGE AUCTION on 4/29/11.

I sold off my coins in this auction and I am glad that Idid.

ricko

@tttwo... Welcome aboard. I have seen several threads here in the past few months about Ike dollars... So perhaps there is a general increase in interest. A few were due to the bright colored tarnish, but others were high grade. I made a note to check my collection of Ike dollars - have not done it yet. Cheers, RickO

johnny9434

I finished a set as well and still have it somewhere. It was kinda fun to do

MASSU2

I sold my Dansco set about 15 years ago to finance another purchase. Then last summer as I was looking for an easy low cost set to put together as I was waiting for the higher priced coins I was looking for to hit the market, so I decided to reassemble another Ike Dansco set with a couple of varieties. Although I didn't have any issues finding Ikes I liked between Ebay and my local dealer, he did make a comment that he was surprised in the increase of overall Ike volume he was experiencing. So, I don't think it's local and it's been going on for over a year at least.

Cougar1978

Must be a fad or local thing.

Cladiator

Love Ikes, always have. It's the first coin I got enamored by as a kid. My dad used to hide a small stash of them inside the back of the case of a grandfather clock at my childhood home. I can vividly remember going through them with him and thinking they were so huge! Got multiple collections of them finished and in progress. Carry a bicen Ike as a pocket piece too lol. Ike's rock.

Zoins

My gut feel is that Ike's are growing in popularity and coming into their own as people that were YNs with Ikes are coming into prime collecting age.

SPalladino

I think that more folks are putting together Ike albums these days. I'm not sure that the same is true for the other end of the Ike collecting spectrum - the registry set collectors. CAC Ikes and graded/slabbed toned Ikes seem to be doing well. And yet another, perhaps the most interesting, part of Ike collecting - Ike die varieties - is in limbo of sorts due to the failure to have a new CherryPickers Guide out. I understand that there were to be some new Ike die variety listings in the next edition of the CPG. I think that new Ike die variety listing in CPG -> PCGS recognized variety -> new collectors and expanded registry sets.

Zoins

@SPalladino said:
I think that more folks are putting together Ike albums these days. I'm not sure that the same is true for the other end of the Ike collecting spectrum - the registry set collectors. CAC Ikes and graded/slabbed toned Ikes seem to be doing well. And yet another, perhaps the most interesting, part of Ike collecting - Ike die varieties - is in limbo of sorts due to the failure to have a new CherryPickers Guide out. I understand that there were to be some new Ike die variety listings in the next edition of the CPG. I think that new Ike die variety listing in CPG -> PCGS recognized variety -> new collectors and expanded registry sets.

It’s an interesting observation about varieties.

I love toned and error Ikes, both of which seem to be doing well.

mark_dak

I like them, especially great DCAM examples. I've picked up a number of them at pretty reasonable prices.

Mark