Rare, Key Date Coins by the Roll? Yep! That's What the Wall Stree Crowd Is After...
BillJones
Posts: 33,970 ✭✭✭✭✭
Here is a quote from the commentary section of the June 18 Gray Sheet:
“Demand for key dates has not let up in the least. Many a dealer is looking to load-up on the keys. We are learning that several collector/investors aren’t necessarily happy with just buying one or two. Rather, there is a demand from a select group that is looking to buy key dates by the ROLL. Dealers tell us that these buyers are disgusted with the recent returns of their investments in the stock market and would rather put their money in rare coins.”
This is VERY BAD news for the average collector. These people who buy up large blocks of coin for speculation, NOT as collectables, have had a history driving up markets artificially and then starting crashes when they decided that their coin investments were not performing as hoped.
Please remember that the collector is the ultimate consumer, and in the long run collector demand is the factor that drives REAL price increases. Sure the investors can drive up the market for a while, but they get impatient. When they decide to sell sometimes the herd mentality takes over and too much material comes on the market at once.
Buy and speculate in whatever you like, but remember, anything, including key date coins, can be overpriced. And remember this like all bull markets will end. Buy coins if you want to collect them, but don’t become as Alan Greenspan has said, “Excessively Exuberant.”
“Demand for key dates has not let up in the least. Many a dealer is looking to load-up on the keys. We are learning that several collector/investors aren’t necessarily happy with just buying one or two. Rather, there is a demand from a select group that is looking to buy key dates by the ROLL. Dealers tell us that these buyers are disgusted with the recent returns of their investments in the stock market and would rather put their money in rare coins.”
This is VERY BAD news for the average collector. These people who buy up large blocks of coin for speculation, NOT as collectables, have had a history driving up markets artificially and then starting crashes when they decided that their coin investments were not performing as hoped.
Please remember that the collector is the ultimate consumer, and in the long run collector demand is the factor that drives REAL price increases. Sure the investors can drive up the market for a while, but they get impatient. When they decide to sell sometimes the herd mentality takes over and too much material comes on the market at once.
Buy and speculate in whatever you like, but remember, anything, including key date coins, can be overpriced. And remember this like all bull markets will end. Buy coins if you want to collect them, but don’t become as Alan Greenspan has said, “Excessively Exuberant.”
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
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Comments
You're now official, Bubba 4/24/04
To me, it looks like the top may be in just from observation of what is coming (and staying) on the market in many dlr inventory websites and on ebay.
Some are still lagging.
To me, it just seems DUMB to .....keep..... chasing the RUNNING hens when the "setters" are staying put.
It's even carrying over into the "bullion" market. When you can buy $20 gold pieces in XF for 450 or so during $400 gold, paying $7.66 for silver eagles with $6.10 silver is just plain nuts.
It just seems crazy to me to see common US gold (which isn't as "common" as believed) sitting inert while people pay MORE PREMIUM for junk dollars and silver bullion eagles.
There are SOOOOOO many coin bargains out there.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Thomas Paine
<< <i>It's even carrying over into the "bullion" market. When you can buy $20 gold pieces in XF for 450 or so during $400 gold, paying $7.66 for silver eagles with $6.10 silver is just plain nuts. >>
Who wants to screw with making a lousy quarter a coin on ASE's? I couldn't even lift the number of coins I would have to move at that profit margin to even make my effen house payment!!
But who knows: silver may run up again!
From what I remember the buyers that got hurt the most were non-collectors who didn't realize where the real market was and couldn't get out when it peaked ... and then the new collectors who thought they were getting a great deal sometime after the peak but before the continued slide really set in.
Very similar to the recent bubble in the stock market we all lived through.
Personally I don't collect the top grade stuff ... and I'm not chasing prices in my series and grade range ... although if the right piece comes along, I am still buying; and usually paying a little more for it than I would have two years ago, and possibly a little more than I will two years from now. At least they'll be safely with me.
I guess in that respect I am similar to someone in another thread about valuations going up/down; said he/she was "dollar cost averaging".
I have no tolerance or simpathy for greed ... let 'em shoot it out and we'll pick up the pieces again afterward ... unfortunately we'll lose a whole lot of potential long-term collectors who will get burned in the process ... many already are IMHO ... they just don't know it yet. Hopefully we can educate enough of them to keep some more around. I am always grateful to those who helped teach me, especially since I entered the hobby as an adult buyer as the late 80's bubble was forming and might have really got burned otherwise.
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
what more can one ask for
I SAY BRING IT ON WALL STREET....WOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Go BIG or GO HOME. ©Bill