what is your defenition of "stupid money"

barberlover

Mine is buying a coin for a huge percentage more than anyone else would pay for a coin i want at the time i buy it.

Would i pay an extra premium for a high end original coin, the truth is i will always try to get the best deal i can, but i will pay a percentage extra for what i consider exeptional coins. What that percentage is might very from coin to coin but i will not pay 100 x bid for any coin in the world. 95% of all the slabbed coins i've personally seen have little eye appeal to me and are not grey sheet quality, just genaric trash. The other 5% i will pay prevailing prices needed to aquire them unless or untill the stupid money starts chasing the ones i like, if that happens i won't have to worry about going back to work, I'll just sell my coins at auction for a minumum reserve of 10 x bid !!!

ANACONDA

"95% of all the slabbed coins i've personally seen have little eye appeal to me and are not grey sheet quality, just genaric trash"

I gotta tell you, you are runnin' on all 12 on that one - i couldn't agree more.

If i go to a coin show and there are 100 dealers, i might ask to see just 25 coins and buy just 5 of them.

There's an ocean of crap out there, just dying to become a part of your collection!

Bustman

aaaahh, but to find that pearl. Its a great feeling!

Bear

I always pay a bit more for the coins of real quality. It is an investment in enjoyment of the

hobby and future real value of your collection. No matter what kind of market tomorrow brings,

real quality will always be in demand. Thats why Anaconda, Wondercoin, GSAguy. Mark Feld

Mike Printz, Laura, Wayne Herndon, Mike DeFalco and Brian Osborn are so successful.

(If I forgot some people , please foregive me, Im only a little bear )

gmarguli

Stupid Money is one bid increment above what I was willing to pay.

Actually, when you're at auction and the bidding has long blown away the sheet price, if you look around and only you and one other guy are bidding it to the moon, chances are you've entered the area of stupid money.

Bear

I wish I spent stupid money to capture that stupendous toned Antietem, which later upgraded

two points to a NGC-68 and went from 9500+ l5% to a 20,000 dollar coin.

My instinct shouted go for it, but my stupid head ruled and now I am filled with remorse.

Clankeye

Bear--
You can't waste any time worring about the woulda, shoulda, coulda coins. Hell, I got talked out of buying Microsoft stock in 1986. Roll on great clock, roll on!

Clank

barberlover

gmagoli, that sort of reminds me of the 32 d quarter auctioned of for 89,000 moe then a year ago. 2 millionares in a bidding war over the only 66.

the image of that coin looked o.k. but it didn't exactly floor me [ofcourse for me if i had that kind of money to spend on a single coin i'd rather have a mint state 01 S barber quarter.]

semicycler

Stupid money to me is the $2 bill. Why do they continue to make these?

Lakesammman

Stupid money is throwing good money after bad (read that, multiple failed submissions for regrades/crossovers).

coingame2000

Bear,

Your head was right, so forget about the remorse. The Antietam did indeed have MS68 color but how do you justify that grade when the coin had a big scratch across Grant's head? At best, the spectacualr color should have only carried the coin to MS67!

Mike

dorkkarl

"stupid money" = $350,000,000 spent on plastic in the last 10 years.

K S

MadMonk

To me stupid money is above greysheet up to full retail. Most of my core collection pieces are way above average. I've Left many coin shows with one or no coins. As Anaconda mentioned, there a lot of crap out there. A lot of the same recycled junk. You have to be very selective.

BillJones

Here are some parameters for “stupid money:”

1. Paying more than twice the CDN “bid” price from almost anything. The only possible exceptions are for RARE die varieties that have a solid collector following like early copper and Bust half dollars and some truly exceptional early copper coins with great color and surfaces. Properly graded early copper is under priced on the Gray Sheet. You can’t buy the good stuff for anything near those levels and dealers pay more than the prices that are listed there. The prices on the Gray Sheet are for pieces with poor to mediocre surfaces and color. The reason that copper prices are high is because of the Early American Coppers club whose members and member dealers support and exercise great control over that market. Currently this applies to the market for Bust Dollars, but that may not last if the bids are increased to reflect the market or if the market cools off.

2. Last week I wrote that buying coins is similar to buying houses. It’s not a good idea to build a $700,000 house in a neighborhood that filled with $100,000 houses. The same applies to coins. If a coin is worth $2 in MS-65, in the long run it’s not worth $3,000 or more in MS-67, 68, 69 or even 70. Even if something sells at auction for “stupid” money, remember that for you to resell that item you have to entice the under bidder and probably another collector to get involved with that piece again.

3. Paying more than double the issue price for most recently issued U.S. Mint coins often works out to be stupid money in the long run. Remember when the Statue of Liberty sets were selling for $450? Now only the recent movements in gold prices have pushed them to levels over $100.

4. Ignoring the problems and paying full catalog for whizzed, cleaned, repaired and AT is paying stupid money. Even if you can tolerate the problems with these coins in the long run, you will never fully participate in whatever upward movements that might occur in the market for these coins. “A pig’s ear is ALWAYS a pig’s ear.

And finally an indicator that you have paid stupid money… The ACID test …

Take something that you have just purchased and try to sell it at a major show. If after taking to every dealer there, you can’t get at least half of what you have paid for it, you have paid stupid money.

The true value of a coin is shown by what responsible dealers are willing to pay for it, not at the levels they quote or even the prices at which they sell the coins. So far as I’m concerned if a dealer is not willing to pay $7,000 for something that he REGULARLY sells for $8,000 or more, he’s a crook and you are paying stupid money.

barberlover

Well put Mr. jones, I've never met you, but i would love to do some coin buisness with you if i ever get back to work again. Your outlook from being a dealer is very refreshing to a small time collector like myself. barberlover [Les Levin]

Baley

bill jones that is the most intelligently written thing i've read on here today, and thats saying a lot because there is quite a bit of wisdom floating around and between the lines these days.

will post a bit more on this topic after having reread the thread again.

tjkillian

Well said BiilJones. That is very clear and concise. I've never tried to sell anything that I have just bought, I should try it.

Tom

Baley

ok, my definition of stupid money,
pragmatically,
it boils down to,
"stupid money is money that is lost, (unsuccessfully invested)
and smart money is money that was made (profits)"

the more you lose, the stupider, the more you make the smarter.

(and for the sake of this argument, disregard the intangible pleasure that one gets from owning an object, regardless of it's price, because that's a different subject entirely, and if a person decides how much they are willing to spend for a certain pleasure, it is unreasonable for anyone else to call it "stupid, unless they are simply spending too much when they could get the IDENTICAL thing for less)

ok, how much money you made on a trade is fine for analyzing
past transactions, but we can't be sure which current investment strategies will turn out to be smart or stupid until later; we can only estimate the relative probability that our activities will turn out to be profitable.


so is the title of this thread asking my opinion as to how I define "stupid money" in terms of how relatively likely specific strategies are of being profitable?

ok
stupid money is paying a lot for something that is currently rare, but may get a lot less rare because more may be "made"

stupid money is buying the finest known example of a coin, for 100x or even 10x or 5x what it costs for one of the next ten or 100 best known examples, because that one point might evaporate like smoke.

stupid money is resubmitting a coin over and over, and never getting the grade you want.


smart money is paying what it costs
for something that is currently rare, and is far less likely to become more common, because most of them have already been "made"

smart money is is buying a superior example of a coin and paying the premium it costs to get one that is on the place in the grading curve you are most comfortable with it at the price, for it's eye appeal.

smart money is submitting a coin just enough
times to finally get the grade on the slab to be correct.