Rarity does not equal price or weight in Lincoln registry

clackamas

For the sake of argument I will exclude post 34 lincolns. The rarest coins are not the ones neccsarily with the lowest mintages or the highest set weights, yet the low mintage coins still have significant price premiums despite not being rare because so many examples are known. For the Lincoln series the 8 rarest coins in total Red examples graded are:

17-S - 64 (13 in 65 and 1 in 66) 64RD sold for $850 - Bargain
15-S - 73 (26 in 65 and 3 in 66) 64RD sold for $675 --- THIS WAS the bargain of the day for Lincolns - Congrats to whomever won it!
26-S - 78 (62 in 64 and 1 in 65) 3 x 64RDs sold for $3300, $3200, $2200 - What were people thinking?
18-S - 83 (56 in 64 and 14 in 65) none sold
24-S - 85 (57 in 64 and 8 in 65) 64RD sold for $900 - Bargain
20-S - 85 (61 in 64 and 8 in 65) 64RD sold for $750 - Bargain
25-S - 91 (59 in 64 and 9 in 65) 2 x 64RD sold for $975, and $1200
23-S - 95 (62 in 64 and 16 in 65) 2 x 64RD sold for $1100 and $1250



09-S VDB - 1414 (133 in 66 and 9 in 67) 66RD sold at heritage for $7000; 65RD sold for $3400; 64RD sold for $1825
14-D - 180 (45 in 65 and 3 in 66) 65RD sold for $7250; 64RD sold for $3800; 63BN sold for $1500


Based on rarity the PCGS weights are all wrong. The 10 weight coin should be the 17-S, followed by 2 8 weights in the 15-S and the 26-S (correctly weighted), the 18-S should be a 7 weight, as well as the 24-S.

Is there a logical explanation or is the market just being stupid right now and what people should be doing is selling 14-D's and buying 17-S's?

Brian

lincolnSence

clackamas - I'm sorry, but this thread made no sence to me. I just don't understand what you are trying to say. First you start off without introducing where or what your data is. Was this from a recent auction? Then you go into pops that I just can't understand what the point is. Can we agree that the registry weighting says the following:

10 points - 14d
8 - 26s
8 - 09svdb
8 - 14s
7 - 11s
7 - 20s
7 - 24d
7 - 25s

This is what it is currently. These are all tough coins. Pretty much all the S mints from 09s to 27s (excluding the 10s, 19s) are all tied for 6's in the weighting schema. Again all tough coins. I can agree that it looked like the 17s was a real steal but I must say, what I have discovered about lincoln collectors is that some may buy the holder, but they are smart enough not to over pay for poor examples. Please help me understand you thoughts on this post.

clackamas

My point is that the market and the PCGS registry are not accurately reflecting what is actually rare, only what is perceived as rare. This is reflected in the weightings and the prices realized. Since there are 1,400+ MSRD 09-S VDB's known they should be cheap and not have an 8 weight , especially relative to coins that are actually quite rare. This is a market inconsistency that no one, it seems, actually sees. Does this make sense? I believe this also points to some of the influence PCGS has on the market. It has been hyped in the past couple of years that the 26-S is a "recently" identified rarity and the market has read this and 26-S prices are going up considerably. But it is more fair to say that the 17-S should have a higher weighting and "hype" and command a premium over the 26-S not to mention a superbly common coin the 09-SVDB.

Weightings, IMO, should be based on the rarity of a coin and not its fame. Here is a weighting scheme that makes more sense. Note only 3 coins stay in the grouping.

10 points - 17S
8 - 26S
8 - 15S
8 - 18S
7 - 24S
7 - 20s
7 - 25S
7 - 23S


>These are all tough coins.
I disagree, because tough to me implies its hard to find. If you mean tough because its expensive then yes but finding an 09S VDB in 66RD is a cake walk.

>Was this from a recent auction?
Yes these prices were from the heritage Long Beach sale on Thursday.

Keyrock

I've seen the 26S in 64 rd trend for 4000 to 4500 on average (decent coins mind you, not spotty). I must have missed the 15S in 64 RD at 675 I would love to buy several. Where these all PCGS coins? Solid for the grade etc...

depending on the coin something like the 15 S may be more like PQ63 money or 64 RB money.

Rich

sonofagunk

Brian, the prices you listed are WITHOUT the 15% juice


17-S $750+15%=$977.50
20-S $750+15%=$862.50
25-S $975+15%=$1,495.00

Keyrock

Lot 5588 1926 S PCGS RD 64 4370 w/ juice

Lot 5589 1926 S PCGS RD 64 2530 w/ juice
(I would call it RB and the bid I feel is accurate {PQ rb64})

Lot 5590 not sold 1926 S PCGS 1926 S RD
(You can Buy it now for 3910 including juice) on the darker side of RD

That 1915 S is a NGC and a great looking coin, how I missed it I don't know but I would have bid on it easily. A very nice coin.

Rich

clackamas

Pat,

>Brian, the prices you listed are WITHOUT the 15% juice
>17-S $750+15%=$977.50
>20-S $750+15%=$862.50
>25-S $975+15%=$1,495.00

I know you work in finace and all but $975 * 1.15 does not equal $1495. It should be $1125.
The buyers premium is actually 20% on this auction

sonofagunk

It is only 20% if you buy THROUGH EBAY.

It is 15% if you placed the bids through heritage

oops, I guess I did the math wrong on that one.

STEWARTBLAYNUMIS

i AM AT THE "sHOWDOWN" reading the posts .......and wondering what you guys are talking about.......Did anone see these coins?

nONE OF THESE COINS WERE VERY NICE.........The quality was fair at best......and so were the prices.........Ley's talk about an ugly
1944 d/s in ms 66 rd at almost $10,000 !!!! a 1929 d in ms 65 rd at almost $700 and a gorgeous 1955 s in ms 68 at almost $8,000

Stewart

RELLA

clackamas,

No fair comparing 64-66 graded 1917-S numbers with 63-65 graded 1926-S numbers...skews everything. The comparison should be:

1917-S MS65RD (13) MS66RD (1)
1926-S MS65RD (1) MS66RD (0)

Now which one looks harder to find?

Also...the high price of a 1909-S VDB or a 1914-D in ANY grade makes it unfair to compare them in high (64+) grade only to the 1917-S.

Stewart also makes a great point about the quality of the coins you mention...if every 17-S and every 23-S were the same then one could compare prices on two examples sold at the same time straight up...but that is not the reality of early Lincolns. I would love to buy HIGH QUALITY MS64RD examples of the 24-S for $900 and the 26-S for $2200 but that isn't going to happen unless the market for these takes a serious breather. I saw those three 26-S coins and two of them are coins I would not want in my collection...if they had been given to me I would have sold them to buy nice Lincolns.

RELLA

clackamas

I was comparing the 2 highest grades of a date. Certainly if no coin has graded at a certain level it can't be compared. I do believe it is fair, say the highest coin for a date was, unique and 2 grades lower than another pop1/0 coin. Does the fact that its a lower grade matter? Its still the best one known.

26-S - 78 (62 in 64 and 1 in 65) 3 x 64RDs sold for $3300, $3200, $2200
24-S - 85 (57 in 64 and 8 in 65) 64RD sold for $900

In this example there were 3 64RD 26-S's sold of the 62 known and 1 64RD of the 24-S's of the only 57 known. Is this a fair comparison from apples to apples? Yet the 26-S's bring 2X to 3X the price even though in 64RD are more common.

Certainly I am leaving out what these individual coins looked like but was the 17-s soo bad that with only 14 coins graded higher it sells for less than 1/3 of what you say are LQ 26-S's, or is the market just not seeing where the true value is? This is my point.

DMWJR

IMHO, you are mixing apples and oranges.

I think the weights are reflective of the rarity of the year/mm of the coin.

You are talking about condition census. The upper grades forming condition census are going to be hot because the well heeled OCD collector has to have that coin and won't think twice about an extra $1,000 to acquire a piece s/he needs. If I've got a pop 1 condition census rarity in a common date/mm series, how are you going to weight my coin? You can't unless you turn the weight system into a three dimentional one. For you proof nuts (like me) take the 1912 Lincoln Proof. Need one? You can get one anytime at a reasonable price. Need one in PR65Red? Get ready to shell out the big bucks, plus an arm or leg if you find one. I can't think what might happen if a 66red showed up. So I've got this monster 1912 65red in my set, and the weight stinks. However, all others seeking top sets are going to have fork out the same IF THEY CAN FIND ONE, so in the upper realm of collector, we are all still on even footing. If you have an average set of at 63, and spike it with a 09VDB proof in 66red, you just busted the curve, and you are in no man's land. That coin alone will not get you to the top level alonde, but you have moved out side you set pattern.

Here's another example of fluxuations of a hot coin. I have two 36BRPF's in 66red. There are only 20 in the pop chart. I bought one about eight months ago for $5,000, and people thought I was NUTS. One sold at auction this week which was W-w-weak, for about $8,000.

My point? It's impossible to calculate a weight in a two demintional world.


I don't know where this gibberish came from, but I'll try to stiffle it in the future.

Advice? Buy the coins you want, and pay what you think they are worth. Forget about the plastic and the games.

clackamas

I should start this all over or just give up. If you were putting together a FULL set of Lincolns from 09-58 all in MSRD, then what is the rarest coin (in MSRD)? Its the 17-S. This is my point about the weights, the 17-S should be the 10, not the 14-D. For total graded coins its the 15-S that is the rarest. And due to total scarcity one would think that a 17-S would be more expensive than a 09-S VDB or a 14-D.

OK I give up, prehaps I am missing something.

DMWJR

Don't give up. You used the qualifier "RED" which changes the rarity scale. The Registry set can have BN, RB, or RED coins in it. If you say only RED, you cut out the vast majority of coins out there and change the rarity of each date/mm.

Now if PCGS created a "RED" Registry Set, they should change the weights to the ones that you have proposed.

Does this make any more sense? I'll admit that I went off the deep end a little on that last post.