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Q David Bowers says treasures in circulation are few and far between...
cladking
Posts: 28,348 ✭✭✭✭✭
...and an alert informed collector has small chance of making a "find".
Of course Mr. Bowers deals in multi-thousand dollar coins and hasn't even seen any
"pocket change" since the 1970's. He made the comments in a 10-7-02 Coin World
article decrying the loss of interest in numismatics (and related hobbies). Ironically
he says that part of the reason for this is that information on collectibles is so readily
available nowdays. Ironic because modern circulating coinage is so poorly researched.
Perhaps the "masses" that "numismatics continues to draw" will be disappointed to
learn that the "sense of wonderment, the quest for information, the thrill of discovery,
the search for unrevealed treasures is not what it used to be".
Since so many hobby leaders are so obviously incapable of interesting people in coins,
perhaps people here can come up with some ideas to spread our interest.
Of course Mr. Bowers deals in multi-thousand dollar coins and hasn't even seen any
"pocket change" since the 1970's. He made the comments in a 10-7-02 Coin World
article decrying the loss of interest in numismatics (and related hobbies). Ironically
he says that part of the reason for this is that information on collectibles is so readily
available nowdays. Ironic because modern circulating coinage is so poorly researched.
Perhaps the "masses" that "numismatics continues to draw" will be disappointed to
learn that the "sense of wonderment, the quest for information, the thrill of discovery,
the search for unrevealed treasures is not what it used to be".
Since so many hobby leaders are so obviously incapable of interesting people in coins,
perhaps people here can come up with some ideas to spread our interest.
Tempus fugit.
0
Comments
He's being honest. I got started collecting in the early 60's. I found a F 12 1932 S quarter and a 1924 S Nickel in change. I also found most Buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes in pocket change, and even found a few Indian Head Cents, Liberty Nickels and Barber Dimes & Quarters, and ten SLQs. I did not have to go to a shop or a coin show.
When I found a coin that was 30 or 40 years old, chances were that it was worth at least a buck or two. Those days are gone, and Mr. Bowers is being candid about this.
Also, IMO, we haven't had an attractive coin in circulation since they stopped making the Walker in 1947. If we really wanted to encourage new collectors, we should have some attractive coins which are actually circulating. The Ike dollar was ugly, ditto the Franklin Half, and someone who hated women designed the Susie B. Issuing some new Commems may also be an idea; I definitely think the State quarters have helped to a degree.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
extensively and built a small empire through hard work and determination. However,
he is mostly unfamiliar with circulating coinage and repeatedly makes comments like
these. He is certainly stating what he believes to be the case and it is certainly true
that coins that command a dollar or two are difficult to find in change. It is not true
that there are no scarce or interesting coins in circulation. There are many highly de-
sirable coins like AU 1969 dimes and broad struck nickels. Just because most of these
coins don't command a lot of money (or any premium) doesn't make them worthless
or of no value to collectors. Hundreds of thousands of people are collecting these now
and one of the most respected hobby leaders continues to make comments of this sort.
It can't be good for the hobby.
So what would be?
When I was a kid, my father owned a coin operated laundry mat. I remember sitting in the den floor bagging and rolling silver for him to take to the bank. Every once in a while I would find a Columbian Expo half, or the occasional Walker. What I wouldn't give to do that again. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money to buy all the coins I wanted then either.
and it sets us apart from practitioners and consultants. Gregor
(For example the Sac mules, the clad Sacs, the mule state quarters, and probably a lot of other error coins that I can't think of right now.)
rare errors or varieties. But there are many treasures in circulation which
don't. A 14 year old looking for a Mississippi quarter (released today?)
would consider one a treasure. If it were very high grade it may even com-
mand a substantial premium. Another collector who finally finds a 68-S
cent after months of looking would believe it's a treasure. A more advanced
collector who upgrades his 1973-D quarter to a solid VF might disagree with
Mr. Bowers. If I found a nice solid XF 1977 quarter with type "d" reverse it
would surely have limited demand and price. This situation may well be dif-
ferent in a few years if we can keep some of the newbies around. Perhaps
a few more years of wear and a lot more interest will suddenly put "valuable"
coins back in circulation.
I think what Bowers and Elcontador are saying is that finding old, obsolete type coins, even if worn out, was a kick. There was always a chance of actually finding a key date, even if not a gem. And back in the pre-inflationary 1950s and early 60s, finding a nickel worth a $1.00 was a big deal to a lot of kids. To put that in perspective, a nickel bought a pack of baseball cards or a candy bar and a comic book was a dime.
Back in the 1960s it was possible to put together a nearly complete sets of current coins from circulation, including Lincolns, sans perhaps 09-s vdb, 31-s, 55dd and where I lived 55-s was a coveted "modern" coin. Yeah, you probably weren't going to find a 32-s or 32-d quarter but you might, even if it was worn out. Even long runs of out of production Mercs could be assembled, sans 16-d, and a few others. But there was always the allure of maybe turning over that worn out 1916 dime and finding a D mint mark. So the "treasure hunt" part of the fun was there.
The modern varieties you often refer to are the kind that an advanced collector would know about and find interesting. Beginners are focused on dates and mint marks, and maybe an overdate or double die that is visible to the naked eye.
and a 73-D quarter. The former is readily available in VF the latter is
not. There were fewer than 2,000,000 1973 mint sets produced and
the bulk of these have been consumed. The 73-D is scarce in grades
above F. Most of the coins above F are uncs and many of these are
very unattractive. A few more years of wear and attrition will not make
any of these easier to find nor will it likely diminish the demand.
or magic in them, but then few saw much magic in a 16-D dime or a 14-D cent back
in the teens. These coins had little or no premium in circulated condition at the
time. Indeed their value in unc was nominal also. Todays coins were mostly minted
in the 100's of millions but most have been heavily worn or permanently lost. There
were a lot more fans of the 16-D dime when it was current than a '71 dime. For
better or worse people are collecting these now. Why don't we encourage them
rather than tell them there's nothing of "value" in circulation.
Perhaps we could attract and retain more of these collectors if we built bridges. Perhaps
give away folders for the circulation coins. The states coins are a great start, but we've
got to get people to make the jump to older coins. It's still possible to assemble all the
current coin sets for face value (not easy, just possible). This is not a stretch for people
who are already pulling states quarters out of circulation. At some point more of these
people will discover there's much more treasure in numismatics than just the coins in
circulation. There's 250 years of US coins, there are higher grades than what can be found
at the local laundromat, there are world coins dating back millinea, and there's a whole
wide world of exonumia.
We need to get the word out that there are treasures in circulation. When people believe
this, it will be true. And there's no better motivator to collect coins than some profit to be
made by looking at pocket change.
Isn't this what got us all started and what we're all talking about here including Mr. Bowers.
I soon began collecting from circulation in late 70s, early 80s. I loved Jeffersons....oldest I found was the 1939 from Philly. In the 6-7 years I looked, I only turned up maybe one or two silver war nickels. My interest was also spurred by errors/varieties, such as finding a 1960 d/d Lincoln. I never thought there weren't any interesting coins to find....seems like there was always something turning up that I wanted or needed to upgrade. None of those finds had any significant monetary value, but that wasn't and still isn't the point of my collecting.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
Mr Bowers in my thoughts is an old collector. There is nothing wrong about that it has to do when he started to collect and what he had to collect. The coins that were still in circulation then and the coins in circulation now are alot different. And through time if he picked those out he made money on them and he improved the collection he has with better and more expensive coins.
Now the flip side there is me and many other collector. We dont have the circulation of great coinage that was around back then. So we have to really work our asses to find something that is in our thoughts a great coin. And any really great coins that we have we have to buy from dealers and through shows. Where we are again limited because of budgets on what we can buy. So when we do find that odd coin out there even if its the 1945 mercury or the 1958 lincoln it is a treasure for "US" the new collector.
With all consideration to Mr Bowers he need to remember this. We are starting in a time where coinage isnt what it was 50 or 60 years ago. The chance to find a repunched mintmark or a double die or any other variety of rare elusive coin of the likes back then are almost as rare as finding a Dodo bird. Mr Bowers might not think highly of my 1995D double die lincoln cent buy I think Very highly of it.
So just to sum this up there are alot of treasures out there. Its in what a treasure looks like to you the collector and the enjoyment you get in searching for those treasures. To make this even handed I dont mean to get down on Mr Bowers this is ment for all the old time collectors out there. Remember there were guys before you, and they thought the stuff you collected wasent all that worthy of the time spent to find it. But you did it because of a love or a passion for the hobby. Remember that when you say "new collectors dont have any treasures to find".
Byron
Ps . I wish Q David Bowers would see this .
My first YOU SUCK on May 6 2005
You make many good points. But keep in mind that only a select few people can find most errors in minted coins. Yes, these coins are certainly scarce, and command premiums. For many years, I couldn't tell the difference between a small & large date 1960 Lincoln Cent & it also took me a long time to be able to distinguish between the large & small 1970 S variety Lincoln Cents. At that time, I could probably grade Lincoln Cents better than I can now.
My point is that the new collector probably is not interested in and / or is unable to differentiate between normally struck modern coins from a coin like your 1995 D double die cent. I have been collecting on and off for 35 years, and if you didn't point out your particular cent, I probably wouldn't notice anything unusual about it. OTOH, if when I found a 1932 S quarter in change, though I was 12 years old and did not know much about coins, I KNEW I had something interesting.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
CG
Like most dealers, we frequently purchase bulk silver, or accept it in trade, and rather than search through it, we dump it in a bucket, and when a certain weight is reached, wholesale it. The time/money ratio has proven that it is just not worth our effort to search through such accumulations. But whenever we set up at a coin show, we always bring along a scoop of the silver coins, and hand out a couple of free coins to every child who stops by our booth. We will also sell it at 3.5 times face to anyone who happens to be interested in searching through it.
We were recently set up at a show and had our scoop of silver piled up in a tray at the end of our table. By noon, probably a fifth of the pile had already been handed out to kids, or purchased by various walk-up customers. We gladly obliged a young gentleman who asked to search through the pile, and incredibly, he found a genuine 1916-D Mercury dime in VG condition in our pile of coins! It is a coin that we might very well have given away to a child without realizing what we were doing. Had we taken the time to search the "junk" silver, we would have been the benefactors. Oddly enough, he did not need a 1916-D, so he sold our own coin back to us (we honored the 3.5 times face price)!
Earlier that same day, a dealer across the aisle and two tables down purchased several old rolls of worn dimes from an older gentleman who just wanted silver value. Later, after the show had closed down for the day, the dealer searched through the rolls, and would you believe that, against all odds, he found another 1916-D dime in AG condition in those rolls? Just hours apart, two rare coins were found in "junk" boxes.
I learned a lesson that day, and upon further searching of our silver hoard, I discovered a couple of early mint-marked standing liberty quarters that were worth 30 - 50 dollars each. Regrettably, it was not possible to trace who the rarer coins had been purchased from, or else we would have made an additional payment to the previous owners.
So maybe it is not so much that treasures are so few and far between, but rather that we don't look in the right place for them.
Sincerely,
jadecoin
PS: We have table 344 at the New Silver Dollar Show in St. Louis. Please stop by and say "Hello" if you can make to the show this weekend!
-1988-D AU+
-2002-D MS-65PL (IN)
-1979 AU type D reverse. (About 1.5% of mintage)(only 1% of this date is still over VF)
-1982-D AU- type D reverse. (15% of mintage)(tough in better than XF)
-2002-P MS-66 (OH)
Not bad for only "240" coins!
Maybe I should reexamine all my junk Ag. Perhaps
I missed something between beers a while back.
My website
Cheers,
Bob
was 1971 and was waiting to pay after dining in a restaurant in Sioux Falls,South Dakota...
the person in front of me paid his bill with a few dimes and i noticed that one of them
was a barber dime...
i paid my bill and asked the cashier for ten dimes change for a dollar...
1911 in vf...i still have it...
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
part af what his cladishness is trying to say is that with modern coinage ignored by such a high percentage of the collecting community, it hasn't been researched, documented, identified or however you want to term it to the extent of classic coinage and as a result most collectors are unaware of any value besides face. i at least understand that much.
QDB has no incentive to push this unexplored area of numismatics. he's still trying to squeeze money out of the classic segment of the hobby and finding many who are willing to participate. nothing wrong with that. but to state that moderns have nothing to offer is to miss the obvious, which is that most are ignorant to what is there to be found. and understand that i fit into this latter category, the ignorant masses. but as my saving grace, i don't push my head in the sand and ignore it's existence.
some day, somewhere down the road, modern coinage will be where the classics are today with regards to collector interest and involvement. why ignore that fact in the present day?? what the hobby needs is another tireless researcher such as Breen to document current issues. therein lies a puzzling question for me------Mr. Bowers is an acknowledged numismatic expert and prolific writer, yet he ignores 40-50 years of coinage. Why? he would be a wonderful choice for the biographer of this era's coinage yet he surrenders to the oppurtunity's challenge.
al h.
God what have I started
Byron
My first YOU SUCK on May 6 2005
<< <i>"Treasures" is a relative term. What is a treasure to me may not be to a guy that could buy and sell me a million times over. In other words, if it wouldn't interest Q. David Bowers (or bring him a healthy commission/fee) as far as he's concerned it isn't a treasure.
Cheers,
Bob >>
This is certainly true, however Bowers and Merena just recently sold a coin which
was found in circulation in Washington for around $65,000. This was a variety of
the '76 dollar.
Cladking,
My point exactly! Not only was the coin you refer to a treasure, but it was one that lined the pockets of QDB. This guy (QDB) may know a thing or two about coins, he may have written a book or two, and he may be quite a wealthy man, but he hasn't got squat for a feel of the market at my level. I don't waste one single brain cell listening to the likes of him. He probably doesn't even get excited about coins, they're just a means to his ends.
So if a circulating modern just appeared out of the blue, went under the hammer for all that money, at B&M auction no less, how can QDB say that the treasure hunt is over? I would think he'd be singing another tune. Or, perhaps, he just isn't as smart as he thinks?
Cheers,
Bob
but they keep getting shot down. There is a mind set in the hobby that old coins
are rare, valuable, and a lot of fun to collect. While this is extremely difficult to dis-
pute all these attributes equally apply to moderns. Indeed many of the moderns
are now much older than the coins that we collected in the late 1950's. Still the hobby
leaders, editors, dealers, and stalwarts tend to be vocal in their opposition to anything
modern. This is one of the first things the newbies tend to see.
It can not be good for the hobby!!
i see nothing but winners in that scenario!!!
al h.