Demand Trumps Supply

bosox

So, Stacks sold the OMEGA three coin one-cent sets today. 232 sets were sold. Cheapest sets went for $48K with most going considerably higher than that. Congrats to the U.S. collectors that bought them.

As a darkside collector, I find myself marveling at how large the American market demand is to absorb these sets and how small the demand is for many world-coin collecting areas. I know many of us here own patterns, trials, varieties, and even business strikes within our areas of expertise that have surviving mintages of between 1 and 10. They usually go for much less than $48K. If their mintages were 232, they would go for peanuts.

I enjoy what I collect, and if some of my rare pieces sold for $50-100K, instead of fractions of that, I probably would not be collecting very many of them. So, no complaints, just an observation about a vivid example of the relative sizes of the U.S. and world coin markets.

pruebas

@bosox said:
So, Stacks sold the OMEGA three coin one-cent sets today. 232 sets were sold. Cheapest sets went for $48K with most going considerably higher than that. Congrats to the U.S. collectors that bought them.

As a darkside collector, I find myself marveling at how large the American market demand is to absorb these sets and how small the demand is for many world-coin collecting areas. I know many of us here own patterns, trials, varieties, and even business strikes within our areas of expertise that have surviving mintages of between 1 and 10. They usually go for much less than $48K. If their mintages were 232, they would go for peanuts.

I enjoy what I collect, and if some of my rare pieces, sold for $50-100K, instead of fractions of that, I probably would not be collecting very many of them. So, no complaints, just an observation about a vivid example of the relative sizes of the U.S. and world coin markets.

I completely agree. I actually think some of the sets sold more cheaply than expected due to all the technical difficulties Stacks Bowers had today with their auction platform. (As an aside, I have been telling anyone at Stacks who will listen that they have outgrown that tired Auction Mobility platform long ago and should have moved to something better years ago. But I digress.)

The money coin was clearly the gold cent. As there are (for the time being) only 232 of them, they will continue to do well.

But yes, our rarities with mintages only a fraction of that bring significantly less. Crazy world for sure.

I was looking at the latest Baldwin fixed price list, and the unique, well-pedigreed, gold 1788 SoHo (restrike) penny was calling my name. Loudly. If only for the £55,000 price tag!

Maybe Santa Claus will read this?!

jgenn

There are a lot of Americans with more money to invest than they have interest in building a real coin collection. I suspect we'll see these hit the auction market again in a year after they transition into long term capital gain/loss territory.

MEJ7070

I’ve caught myself scrolling through Mexican minors lately being tickled as I see gem graded top pops from issues with sub 40,000 mintage available for 3 figures.

I always catch myself thinking, “If this were a common date Barber dime it would be $2500”.

7Jaguars

Absolutely to all of the above.
HOWEVER, might you choose a better verb than the "T" one you used....LOL

In the recent Baldwin auction, an extremely rare CURRENCY issue Great Britain 1839 halfcrown wonderfully preserved and what most would consider beautiful went for about 35k USD. No comparison really at this price.

1984worldcoins

But those are very rare and beautiful coins, no wonder they were so expens....oh wait.

johnnyb

The future will tell the truth, but were these bought by collectors, investors, or speculators? Will they be “fun” like a rare 18th or 19th century rare issue? There is something cool about the last coin, but at what cost?

lordmarcovan

Because the “T” in the verb “trumps” in the title was capitalized, I thought this was gonna be a political post. LOL

As a fellow Darksider, I’ve made similar observations and had similar thoughts.