The case for $3 gold commemoratives
Overdate
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A classic $3 gold piece contains 40% less gold than a modern $5 gold commem.
A classic $3 gold piece has 90% of the design area of a modern $5 gold commem.
The rising price of gold has destroyed the premiums on all First Spouse gold coins and nearly all modern gold commems.
The rising price of gold has made collecting gold commems unaffordable for a large percentage of the modern collector community.
Mintages of recent gold commems have plummeted to the mid four figures for proofs and low four figures for uncircs.
It doesn’t make sense to continue the $5 series when demand is nearly nonexistent.
Switching from $5 to $3 gold commems would reduce the bullion value of the coins by $250 each at today’s gold price.
These savings could be passed on to collectors, making the coins more affordable, even if the premiums charged by the Mint remained the same.
Thoughts?
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Comments
Silver is your friend.
Gold plated silver is even cheaper.
If $3600 for $2700 in gold is the problem, I don't think $2200 for $1500 in gold is going to help.
The biggest problem is that starting a $3 commemorative series allows all current $5 collectors to decide to end their series and not start a new one.
The problem is $860 for a $5 gold commem. Reducing it to $610 would be a 29 percent reduction, enough to make the difference in the budgets of some collectors.
There are probably not more than a few hundred collectors of the entire series of $5 gold commems, and I would guess that most of them would not be averse to continuing with $3 gold commems. My guess is that increased demand for the lower-priced $3 commems would be more than enough to offset any losses from current collectors deciding to end their sets.
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Fair enough. But a lot of people are exhausted with Mint offerings and looking for any excuse to jump off the train. Continuity of their sets is what keeps them on the train. It's just hard to know whether it's a net win, net loss or break even.
I jumped off the train about ten years ago. I really liked the gold pieces, but the prices are out of hand. Gold plated coins are tacky. It’s solid or nothing for me.
I also got tired of celebrating “the death of the last dodo.” It’s not that bad, but you get my gist.
I have always thought that the price of gold made most all gold coins uncollectible to me. Put another way, the numismatic value for most gold coins seems to be low and all the value is bullion value.
For the few collectors of all the current commemoratives, I think some of the problem is they issue 6 coins of the same design. The cost to collect all six twice a year is prohibitive. It is the uncirculated commemoratives that have the lowest demand and final mintages, possibly even losing money for the mint. I think if they have to do them at all, just strike proofs which are more popular.
As far as a $3 commemorative, from gold, it would probably sell really well as a retro idea using an actual classic design like the flowing hair did recently to generate demand. I bet they would be surprised at how many people would buy them just because a $3 dollar gold coin would be something special to keep and show their kids, etc.
The mint does not seem to be too concerned about their pricing structure. The comic golds are half ounce and will be double the cost of the $5 commemoratives and people will buy those, too.
I wish they would quit making so many finish variations of the same thing; proofs, reverse proofs, uncirculated bullion, burnished uncirculated, privy, etc.
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Most of the classic gold commemorative coins were of the one-dollar denomination so they would be affordable to most collectors. I wouldn't mind seeing them come back assuming the mint picked topics that are actually significant and worthy of commemoration.
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
A 3 dollar princess sounds good as a commemorative.
This is the real reason for a collapse in the mintages, not just with the gold but also the silver, too much product with too many uninteresting themes. There are plenty of US collectors who can afford this coinage, it just isn't competitive as a collectible because there are far more interesting coins available at comparable or lower prices. This leaves buyers mostly speculating on the mintage or as a substitute for bullion.
If the Morgan and Peace dollars + the Flowing Hair become the start of recurringly issuing classic designs, I don't think the success would last that long either.
I also suspect any new ones will follow the pricing pattern of the Flowing Hair where the mintage will be limited and the issue price will be high, meaning a $3 would be sold at 2X+ melt.