What's hot and what's not - Kingswood Lincoln Sale

DesertLizard

I am amazed that Walkers, Frankies & Kennedys all sold well. Few unsold lots. Copper sold even better, not too much a surprise.

Gold? A totally different story. Looks like 80%+ of the gold did NOT sell. What's up with that? It was not even high end stuff but mostly generic and / or impaired.

The ugly or graded out type stuff also did not sell, like seated halves and half dimes [none of the MS66s sold].

I cannot wait for Long Beach !!

michael

i think that for the most part all the really great specialized in demand monster fantastic eye appealling coins that were truly uncommon sold for good money

and all the rest of the less eye appealling generic overgraded retread dealer tired not fresh items did less well

sincerely michael

northcoin

A lot of buyers got burned on generic gold with Y2K and a lot of it has reentered the market weakening demand. Also, except for type sets, there aren't very many collectors putting together date sets for any of the gold series since key dates make it impossible for all but the millionaires and those collectors only want MS65 gems or better anyway. Just my guess, anyone care to comment?

northcoin

Just for clarification when I refer to generic gold I mean coins that one pays over bullion price for such as MS63's and MS64's. Obviously, the gold purchased at bullion price has been a good deal but that's not the gold that shows up at coin shows or auctions anyway.

oreville

northcoin: I disagree...I believe millionaires are in the minority of those who collect MS-65 gems or better.

Especially MS-65 and better St. Gaudens.

Even MS-65 $20 Liberties.

eagle7

This is just a guess. I think that generic gold type in 63/64 did not sell as well because with the rising gold market the seller, regardless of whether they are dealer or non dealer, put too high a reserve on the coins. Their thinking is, If it dont sell now maybe I will get a better price down the road.

BigD5

I think the Kingswood sales attract a wider range of bidders, as most of the lots are "realistic" in terms of the average collector obtaining lots. Heritage had a large amount of lots that went unsold in their latest auction, and a lot of those lots were of higher value. Michael makes a good point concerning what sold and what didn't. The benefit of lower priced items, such as those found at Kingswood is that someone may be more apt to take a chance on a lower priced coin than a higher priced coin. Not as much a downside. Probably why most of the Kingswood items sold. Just a thought.

steviewonder

The circulated (PCGS VG-8) early half dimes (1797, 1801, 1803) brought strong prices.

northcoin

I agree that most MS65 gold coins are purchased by persons who are not millionaires - but I suspect those buyers are mostly looking for just representative coins to complete type sets. My point is that you don't have anyone (other than millionaires) trying to put together complete gold collections like you see from collectors in other series. The market for gold coins is somewhat more speculator driven than collector driven. Those weren't collectors who were loading up on MS62 and MS63 gold durng the Y2K frenzy. Whether all this explains the offered observation at the beginning of this thread that the current market is weak for gold coins in these grades I don't know, but it could be a factor. It is entirely possible that this time all grades of gold may not go up with the increased price of bullion.