A Compare Of 2004 $100 Plat. MS69 vs. The 1995(w) Silver Eagle PR69DCAM - with a question

wondercoin

Compare:

1. BOTH COINS ARE BULLION "EAGLES" (although technically, the Platinum coin is called a "Statue of Liberty"). So, please, no discussion of one or the other being a bullion coin explaining why no one cares about it - they are BOTH bullion coins.

2. The 2004 $100 Plat MS69 has a mintage of 7,009 coins and contains around $900 of platinum base metal. The 1995(w) Silver Eagle has a mintage of 30,125 and contains around $7 of silver base metal.

3. The 2004 $100 plat MS69 sells for roughly $1,100, while the 1995(w) PR69DC sells for roughly $5,000+

4. They are both incredibly beautiful coins.

Question - So, why does the platinum MS69 coin sell for a scant $200 (or less) over melt, while the Silver coin sell for roughly $5,000 over melt with more than 4x the mintage of the Plat coin (and leaving "melt" aside, why does the "rare" silver Eagle with the 4x mintage sell for nearly 5x the price?

Wondercoin

P.S. I have spent WAY more money buying 95(w) Silver Eagles this year than 04 MS69 Plats, so by no means am I attacking 95(w) Silver Eagle pricing.

TahoeDale

Mitch,

Why does the 1919-D Walker, with pop of over 160 coins in MS(PCGS) sell for between 2000 and 100,000, and the 1807 bust half, small stars, with 4 mint state coins, sell for(few sales) 5000 to 50,000?

Demand? Apparent rarity? Beauty? No. Only 4 collectors can own a MS 1807 half of this variety. And probably only 6 want it in MS.

How many want a MS 1919-D half? Several thousand? maybe.

Why is the overdate Buffalo nickel in MS more dear than the 1880 shield in MS? It sure isn't as rare.

While hard to explain, sometimes, collector interest can spell doom or boom. It doesn't have to make sense.

wondercoin

Dale: The answers to your questions - 20th century rarities vs. 19th century rarities - plain and simple.

And, perhaps 20th century vs. 21st century is the answer to my question as well - but, I seem to doubt it as I could have used numerous 20th century platinum or gold comps as well to compare with the 95(w).

Wondercoin

TahoeDale

Mitch

What is plain and simple? A 20th century rarity(or modern) is more desirable than either a 19th century raritiy or a 21st century modern?

Explain.

Dabigkahuna

Mitch,

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Proof 2004-W Platinum Eagles have an even lower mintage than the MS Plats?

In either case, I haven't figured out why there is such a price difference. I get a lot of request for the 2004-W proof Plats but nobody seems to want to pay the price for having missed them when they were available from the mint. It may just be a case of "sour grapes?" No?



Larry
Dabigkahuna

wondercoin

Larry: You are correct. But, I wanted to compare the 95w Silver Eagle with the MS69 2004 Plat, because the MS69 2004 Plats are READILY AVAILABLE at the roughly $1,100 level (as are 95(w) PR69DC Silver eagles at $5,000+/coin). But, yes, there are other Plat coins with even lower pops.

Dale: I stand by my comment, but to get into it deeper with you at this point would only derail my thread dealing with these bullion coins. I would like to try to remained focused on my question here. But, I am saving your question for another thread on another day.

Wondercoin

zkcoins

Mitch,
If I had to guess.... I would say that the silver eagles are much more sought after. There are hundreds of silver eagle collectors. When the silver eagles were released they were very cheap and collectible sort of like a poor man's gold. Until the 1995 W, there was very little challenge to finish this set. With the addition, this set became more complex but still easy to collect. Looking at the registry sets I see over 200 proof silver eagle collections listed at PCGS alone. More than 157 of them are an amazing 65-100% complete.

On the other hand, we see platinum. In 1997 when the mint released plat coins, plat was $400 per ounce. A little higher priced than silver but still relatively affordable to obtain. I personally began collecting them. When plat went to over $800 per oz, collecting these coins was no longer an option for me and I suspect many others as well. I am just finishing up school myself and have to keep my coin purchases at $10k or less per year. For me to collect plat would consume more than half of my budget just for these coins. I personally get more satisfaction by collecting in other areas.

Then when I scan the registry sets for $100 plat coins. I see only 18 sets registered with only 14 of them at 60% or higher completion. I suspect that spending $1100 per coin on eight coins for a total of around $9k is not as much fun as spending we’ll say around $7k for a silver eagle proof set.

Now back to the 2004 proof $100 eagle. I suspect that most people have just not caught on to the fact of how rare this coin really is. There is a small risk of the price of plat dropping which would make the price of the coin cheaper (although I think the opposite would happen). Many people probably believe that they would lose money. I disagree, if plat goes down this would bring more people into the plat coin market and thus increase demand. We might see the price of this coin in particular triple to its rightful price. However I do not see this coin getting the respect it deserves until more people jump on the platinum bandwagon.

I know that in two or three years, I will be getting on this bullion bandwagon. Lets hope prices stay where they are for now.

Just my thoughts
Zach

RegistryCoin

I agree with zkcoins. Well said.