When does a Classic collector/ Dealer switch to Moderns?
Boom
Posts: 10,165 ✭
At what point does a collector/ Dealer switch from Classics to Moderns to support himself?
When Gem BU 50-60-70+ year old coins are considered "Not good enough" and no one wants them and you cannot even "get out" for more than you have in them....when 66s (4 pts from perfection) go for next to nothing and make submitting no longer worth the risk as there is simply no room for error and profit margins do not make the risk of lower grades worthwhile... At what point must or should he (or she) decide to play the Modern Game to earn a living?
With that, bearing costs in mind and that Modern collectors want Top Pops and turn their noses up to 68s and 67s, when is it no longer practical to submit at all?
Thoughts/ opinions welcomed.
When Gem BU 50-60-70+ year old coins are considered "Not good enough" and no one wants them and you cannot even "get out" for more than you have in them....when 66s (4 pts from perfection) go for next to nothing and make submitting no longer worth the risk as there is simply no room for error and profit margins do not make the risk of lower grades worthwhile... At what point must or should he (or she) decide to play the Modern Game to earn a living?
With that, bearing costs in mind and that Modern collectors want Top Pops and turn their noses up to 68s and 67s, when is it no longer practical to submit at all?
Thoughts/ opinions welcomed.
0
Comments
mostly moderns. It was 1996 and the government had announced that the states
quarters would be coming out in a couple years. I had already been collecting these
for nearly a quarter century at that time and had set aside examples in my collection
and additional pieces as they were available for trade and speculation. All of my other
collections were suddenly put on the back burner as most effort was put into working
with these coins.
It was an announcement in 1972 that the mint and fed were switching to FIFO ac-
counting and would begin rotating their stock that had originally gotten me started.
When Congress OK'ed the states program I started collections from circulation and
these are pretty nice in their own right now. Most of the coins are nice AU and most
of the common varieties are included as well as a few of the tougher pieces.
I would not encourage anyone to invest in coins and, frankly, wouldn't do it myself
in a "do over". But, these coins are very fascinating and can provide a huge challenge
at any level. They are almost the "perfect storm" for a collectible and constitute a great
collection by themselves or a great adjunct to nearly any sort of collection.
As a collector, I do not buy any coin to support myself, though I do purchase with the thought of eventual profit.
I try to buy "right" , in series that have potential (undervalued) and at a grade that has some chance to be desired at a later date by many collectors.
I'm sure that some collectors have "switched" to Moderns, as the need to collect may drive them into areas that are less expensive than today's prices for rare coins. But I am really uncertain there is a potential for growth in value in these more recent mintages, though the coins are almost "perfect".
This Classic collector has no reason to switch, but if I did, I would seek out the series where the mintages are small, and the coins are artful in appearance, and the metal is not "clad".
<< <i>I wouldn't even consider buying a clad coin, nor do I desire to own mass produced perfection. >>
This is exactly the viewpoint that the overwhelming majority of collectors used to have and is the reason that
a mass produced coin like an 1854 quarter can be easier to find nice than a 1971 quarter with about nine times the mintage. Certainly it would be foolish to collect the clad coin if your interest lies elsewhere but some people are not satisfied with merely not collecting the clad. They find it necessary to lambast the coins, the collectors, the graders, the dealers and the horses they rode in on. (try to end that sentence without a preposition).
So, will many classic collectors switch to modern? Frankly I have been surprised by the level of hostility that most old time collectors feel for moderns (and ultra-moderns). I never expected them to embrace the coins but it seemed after initial resistence that many collectors would gravitate to them. This was based largely on my own experience. I was the biggest modern basher in the world starting in about 1964 and it just got worse as time went on and the coinage was cleaned, gutted, and hung out to dry. In 1966 there was still a lot of speculative interest in the new coins so in addition to the many horrors already experienced it looked as though we'd have to deal with the cheap crap trading in the marketplace too. Over the years things changed but at this late date it seems unlikely too many more old-timers will. There will be a few more and, of course, a lot more dealers will have to at least buy some for stock but most of the demand (if it ever materializes) will come from the newbies.
As long as these coins are a lot of fun to collect it is likely that demand will continue to grow. Until the prices start to approach the prices of the classics it seems unlikely they can be terribly overextended. At the current time it appears that these coins comprise well less than 5% of the total value of the market even if they are approaching nearly a third of the actual coins sold. As long as rare coins are available in pocket change and as long as raw moderns are available in the mint and proof sets cheaply then it's probably a safe bet that these markets will grow and more collectors will be attracted to them.
> TDN: I wouldn't even consider buying a clad coin
That' great. Bruce, we don't want you to jack-up pop top Ike dollar prices. They are too difficult to locate
I've since sold the vast majority of all this off, BEFORE eBay, mostly by word of mouth, some traded at Coin Shows. Some were sold by the placement of ads such as in CW, etc! I STILL have enough coinage around here to keep me busy till the day I die. Man ! Sometimes it really makes me wonder.
He switched from proof Morgans to crappy moderns.
and they're cold.
I don't want nobody to shoot me in the foxhole."
Mary
Best Franklin Website
Not I ..... to each their own. The only time I jump on that bandwagon is when reality leaves the building - ie: $40k is paid for a perfect label insert attached to a spotted POS. But that instance is not isolated to the modern arena.
<< <i>The largest spreads I've seen between what a dealer sells the coins for and what they pay (if they buy them at all) is on 50 or less year old coins that are common as coins go (hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions extant) but are in high grade and sold accompanied by pieces of paper and plastic. >>
Louis Eliasberg was a collector of modern coins. Ok, he did not get crazy with the grades but no one did in the 60's and 70's.
Here is one of his post 1964 moderns.
<<<<Eliasburg--actually Clapp--sure picked up some nice moderns before TPG grading didn't he?>>>>
Clapp buying moderns??? .......................Huh????
Clapp would have been close to 110 years old in 1965 or something like that?
I believe his point is that the coins Clapp ordered directly from the mints were moderns at the time he ordered them.
Oh!