Key events in coin collecting?
blackwood
Posts: 7
Happy Holidays!
My question: What are some of the key events that helped transform the world of coin collecting into what it is today?
As a coin newbie, I see scenarios where circulation figures are similar for two years, but one is dirt cheap and the other is expensive; or, one year has proportional prices all the way through the MS grades, and the other one skyrockets at MS-65. It would be interesting to know the events or history that triggered the collectability (or non-collectability) of the various issues. Key hoards? Melts? Government initiatives? Personalities?
For example, as a long-time comic book collector, World War II was a key event. In the early 40's, comics had monthly print runs in the hundreds of thousands (i.e. a LOT), but due to the war effort the overwhelming majority were dumped in the recycle bin and destroyed. The rest were curled up, bent, torn etc. in kids' and GIs' pockets. Thus many of these comics are scarce today, much less in high grade - making them highly collectible. Then a related event happened in the late 70's - the discovery of the Edgar Church collection, a hoard of incredibly well-preserved comics from the 40's stored for decades in Denver's cool, dry environment - most still had white pages and newsstand smell. These so-called "Mile Highs" are now the Holy Grails of comic collectors.
I know coin collecting has been around a lot longer than comic collecting, so there are probably tons of events that could be considered. I'm interested in the really "key" ones that turned it on its head and really had a transformative effect.
My question: What are some of the key events that helped transform the world of coin collecting into what it is today?
As a coin newbie, I see scenarios where circulation figures are similar for two years, but one is dirt cheap and the other is expensive; or, one year has proportional prices all the way through the MS grades, and the other one skyrockets at MS-65. It would be interesting to know the events or history that triggered the collectability (or non-collectability) of the various issues. Key hoards? Melts? Government initiatives? Personalities?
For example, as a long-time comic book collector, World War II was a key event. In the early 40's, comics had monthly print runs in the hundreds of thousands (i.e. a LOT), but due to the war effort the overwhelming majority were dumped in the recycle bin and destroyed. The rest were curled up, bent, torn etc. in kids' and GIs' pockets. Thus many of these comics are scarce today, much less in high grade - making them highly collectible. Then a related event happened in the late 70's - the discovery of the Edgar Church collection, a hoard of incredibly well-preserved comics from the 40's stored for decades in Denver's cool, dry environment - most still had white pages and newsstand smell. These so-called "Mile Highs" are now the Holy Grails of comic collectors.
I know coin collecting has been around a lot longer than comic collecting, so there are probably tons of events that could be considered. I'm interested in the really "key" ones that turned it on its head and really had a transformative effect.
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Comments
Russ, NCNE
Hard question to answer really.
Different events are key to different people.
If you made a 1964 Pr68 D/C Accented Hair, 04/08/2003 is a major event.
State quarters certainly woke a lot of collectors up.
The change from silver to clad in 1965 broke a 170 year tradition.
Being allowed to collect gold opened up a whole new area.
The list goes on and on.
Joe
scholarly. There weren't coin dealers and most collectors had to trade or buy coins
from other collectors. Coins would appear in non-traditional venues also but just as
now the rarities were seldom seen.
There was probably no single event which caused the growth in collecting and espec-
ially in the growth of collecting US coins. Probably it was largely just he result of the
industrial revolution and the tremendous growth in the total wealth along with the tre-
mendous growth in the middle class which facilitated it.
The first event which transformed the hobby was the introduction of the penny board.
People had a great deal of time on their hands during the depression and many could
afford to collect sets of the fairly new Lincoln cent. B Max Mehl was offering the princely
sum of $50 for 1913 V nickels and people were paying attention to the coins in their poc-
kets. This transformed the hobby into a mass market for the first time. Companies mak-
ing supplies for collectors and dealers sprang up.
The second event was the cessation of silver and introduction of clad oinage in 1965.
The baby boom generation had been scouring circulating coins for years seeking coins
to sell at a premium or coins needed for their collections. Many people saw this and came
to believe that all these young collectors would eventually desire to own uncirculated ex-
amples of all the current coinage and that one could grow wealthy from saving rolls and
bags of brand new coins. Investors, hoarders, and collectors scrambled to get new coins
and to find rolls of the older coins which were no longer available. The belief that the coins
would be valuable became a self-fullfilling prophesy as the prices on coins only a few years
old were run-up to incredible new valuations. '50-D nickels actually traded at prices up to
$125,000 per bag. (over half a million in today's dollars). More importantly huge numbers
of coins were being intercepted from circulation for investment during a time that a severe
coin shortage caused by increased use of vending machines was taking hold.
Inflation and the scarcity of silver were forcing a change to a new material for coins. When
this change came it had a devastating impact on the coin hobby and the market for "modern"
coins imploded. There was virtually no interest in the new coins and the few who bothered
to save them for investment or future collectors very soon learned that there would be no
premium. Even today some of these coins like a '70-D quarter roll has a bid price of $12. Not
that it matters so much what this price is since there were virtually none saved and they are
virtually unavailable as original rolls.
Over the next several decades there were very few new collectors added. There would often
be people who had collected before 1965 rejoin the collecting ranks and then drop out again
but there was no new wave of collectors just the few the hobby picked up here and there
over the years.
It's too early to say if the introduction of the states coins will be another truly transforming
event in coin collecting. Certainly in some sense it is since these are the collectors who will
make-up the hobby in twenty years and there are people looking at change again. How
these collectors develop and expand their interests will determine just what effect they have
on the hobby and how much "transformation" occurs.
* 1893 -- Heaton writes his treatise on mint marks and helps spur a form of collecting that had almost completely been ignored previously.
* 1933 -- Gold coinage is stopped and shortly thereafter much "bullion" type coin ownership is outlawed
* 1960s -- Silver is removed from coinage, causing a rush to "look at your change" and make sure Gresham's Law holds true, and huge quantities of Morgan dollars are discovered and released from Treasury vaults (which was a horrible thing if you owned an '03-O).
* 1970s -- Repeal of ban on private gold ownership is completed
* 1980s -- advent of third-party grading facilitates more sight-unseen coin transactions.
* late 1990s -- the rise of the Internet allows creation of venues where collectors can easily sell directly to other collectors and bypass the "middleman." Said technology also increases potential for defrauding less knowledgeable collectors. Also, the State Quarters program is announced which will have many new collectors looking through their change again