Government Mintage figures, TPGS Pop reports, Price Guides..................and So-Called Dollars.
keets
Posts: 25,351 ✭✭✭✭✭
You'd have to have been living in a cave the past few years to not know that I collect So-Called Dollars, what I consider one of the more interesting side-roads that Numismatics has led me down. A big problem for anyone who's ever considered entering this Exonumic-paradise is what to pay and what's really rare/scarce/common and how to determine any of those things. I've found that much of the answer is simple.......................there's really no way to really know aside from wading in and following your instincts, flying by the seat of your pants, if you will!!! It helps, certainly, to do the same things you'd be doing for mainstream coin collecting, things like going to shows, checking dealer stock, reading what you can find, locating like-minded collectors/joining a club, visiting auctions, searching online/eBay, etc., etc., etc. The fly in the ointment is that there is typically no reliable source for anything substantive in the way of numbers, and I'm a numbers guy!!!!
For comparison, let's look at coins. There are known final mintages for just about every official United Staes issue archived somewhere, most are printed and readily available. There are documented auction sales for years and years to establish a pricing structure for most every coin in most every grade and more price guides than you-can-shake-a-stick-at as a result. Thanks to the advent of Third Party Grading, their is an argueably reliable way to judge how many coins for a given issue are available and in what grades they can expected to be found. All these things combined go a long way in helping ease the purchasing process. I mean, really, pick out the coin you're interested in, do a little research and then start looking till you find the point where your "wallet meets the coin" and Voila, it can be yours. A complicated process made much easier for us today, perhaps over-simplified by me here, but you should be able to catch my drift.
Now we come to SC$'s and the only question should be "Where do I start!!"
There are really no reliable Mintages for almost every issue. It would appear that these medals were struck on an "as needed" basis at the events they celebrated and were distributed from. To be sure, some have absolute populations and reliable figures, but those are few and far between. Add to this the fact that noone bothered to do any research in print until the early 1950's so the best we can expect are hugely unreliable numbers, guesses that are referred to as estimates. Without the known Mintages it's difficult to know what to pay for an item even if all of what was struck still exist somewhere. Auction data is scant to help on an ongoing basis of repeat sales and collectors are small enough in numbers that nobody knows who any of the major collectors are; secrecy seems to abound and I don't sense that anyone is eager to share the who's/what's/where's/how much-es concerning their collections. This can make things frustrating and exciting at the same time, some edge of the seat collecting where rare ca turn out to be common and cheap sometimes ends up as a windfall profit.
So what's the end point of this long winded diatribe?? Simple, really, I just noticed that NGC has finally posted a Pop Report for So-Called Dollars which includes both Mint State and Proof numbers!!!! A quick check reveals some errors in the initial numbers but it's a start. It also tells me that I've made more "right" purchases than mistakes since I seem to have quite a few highest graded and even some only graded examples. Most telling with what's showing is what's missing; there are quite a number of issues which show no graded examples. Realistically this isn't surprising as the low numbers overall aren't surprising. Many collectors choose to keep their collections raw as a number of my medals are still raw, but it's a start. Coupled with and upcoming reference and an attempt to document sales/pricing it should nake the chasing of SC$'s a bit more enticing at the entry level and a bit less stressful at the auction level!!!
Al H.
For comparison, let's look at coins. There are known final mintages for just about every official United Staes issue archived somewhere, most are printed and readily available. There are documented auction sales for years and years to establish a pricing structure for most every coin in most every grade and more price guides than you-can-shake-a-stick-at as a result. Thanks to the advent of Third Party Grading, their is an argueably reliable way to judge how many coins for a given issue are available and in what grades they can expected to be found. All these things combined go a long way in helping ease the purchasing process. I mean, really, pick out the coin you're interested in, do a little research and then start looking till you find the point where your "wallet meets the coin" and Voila, it can be yours. A complicated process made much easier for us today, perhaps over-simplified by me here, but you should be able to catch my drift.
Now we come to SC$'s and the only question should be "Where do I start!!"
There are really no reliable Mintages for almost every issue. It would appear that these medals were struck on an "as needed" basis at the events they celebrated and were distributed from. To be sure, some have absolute populations and reliable figures, but those are few and far between. Add to this the fact that noone bothered to do any research in print until the early 1950's so the best we can expect are hugely unreliable numbers, guesses that are referred to as estimates. Without the known Mintages it's difficult to know what to pay for an item even if all of what was struck still exist somewhere. Auction data is scant to help on an ongoing basis of repeat sales and collectors are small enough in numbers that nobody knows who any of the major collectors are; secrecy seems to abound and I don't sense that anyone is eager to share the who's/what's/where's/how much-es concerning their collections. This can make things frustrating and exciting at the same time, some edge of the seat collecting where rare ca turn out to be common and cheap sometimes ends up as a windfall profit.
So what's the end point of this long winded diatribe?? Simple, really, I just noticed that NGC has finally posted a Pop Report for So-Called Dollars which includes both Mint State and Proof numbers!!!! A quick check reveals some errors in the initial numbers but it's a start. It also tells me that I've made more "right" purchases than mistakes since I seem to have quite a few highest graded and even some only graded examples. Most telling with what's showing is what's missing; there are quite a number of issues which show no graded examples. Realistically this isn't surprising as the low numbers overall aren't surprising. Many collectors choose to keep their collections raw as a number of my medals are still raw, but it's a start. Coupled with and upcoming reference and an attempt to document sales/pricing it should nake the chasing of SC$'s a bit more enticing at the entry level and a bit less stressful at the auction level!!!
Al H.
0
Comments
important will be one of the most difficult to see but this is survivability. Some issues
made in larger numbers will be more difficult then issues made in small numbers. Some
of these were sold to children or were sold to people who bought on a whim. Some are
substantial or were sold in presentation boxes. Some inspire owners to take care of
them and some don't. Some issues appear typically well preserved and some don't.
They'll also show, over time, how widely dispersed these are. Unlike rare coins which are
mostly in the hands of coin collectors, these are everywhere. Many different types of col-
lectors have an interest in some of these.
Sam, you raise some interesting points. i assume that many medals were purchased and relegated almost immediately to pocket piece status and thus gone from realistic collectibility. many more suffered from the effect of time and poor storage. while there may indeed be choice examples of some of the more scarce/rare pieces still lingering they will, in the end, prove to be quite low in number and probably surfacing by accident. the key may be simply the luck of being in the right place at the right time when they surface. as a whole the series is almost unknown and attribution is difficult for the uninitiatedsince the references are harder to locate than some of the medals.
what i've found typical would seem to hold your assumption of wide dispersal suspect: for the most part, the medals still seem to be found easiest near where the events they celebrated were held. this makes metropolitan areas like Chicago, Philadelphia, St.Louis, San Francisco, Buffalo and other venues veritable hotbeds for certain issues. some examples tend to show up dependant on who the medal was issued by/for----Century of Progress Dollars which were intended for that exhibition and may have been expected to congregate in Chicago never made it to the fair, so they are often found in Colorado and/or western states.
an example of an issue which would seem to defy all logic are the Pike's Peak Centennial medals from 1906, HK's 335 through 338. these were authorized by Congress and designed by Charles Barber with known Mintages, at least known ordered mintages. the bulk of the medals were delivered too late to be sold at the exhibition and were placed in storage, only to have 4000 pieces found 49 years later in the basement of a bank which was being demolished. to the chagrin of a collector who might want an unlooped medal, the new owners attached loops to most of them. my gray-oxidized silver HK-336 is an NGC MS65 and unlooped. i feel fortunate to have it. through all the intervening years and screw ups, the medals appear often enough to be considered only scarce, but they aren't easy to locate in gem grades
That same collector would also get a flavor of what grades and condition are most common and how these medals are generally located.
After doing so, that collector seeks only those medals that entertain him the most- the ones that are also eye catching in presentation and appeal, I think he'll do alright by himself.
Next step is checking medals offered on Teletrade and also his local shows.
It's all about time; loyalty and patience, keeping the blinders on- focused on the prize. Parting thought, thank goodness NGC is finally compiling stats on these little treasures. It won't be useful right away, but down the road should turn out to be valuable information.
peacockcoins
on these So Called Dollars?
Camelot
No doubt the availability of the NGC census numbers will have an impact on pricing. Pop reports have always had an impact. It does "lift the curtain" a bit on the murky SCD market. The timing of this, so near to the formation of a club for SCD collectors, means we will never know if the club would have done something to document availability of these pieces. That would be a moot point now, probably.
I'm sure most serious SCD collectors were (as you said) quiet about what they knew about the pieces. Knowledge is power. That probably kept prices down in the big picture. A lot of people won't collect things if there's no reasonably reliable reference/pricing data, especially if they aren't cheap. People generally want some reassurance they aren't wildly overpaying for esoteric items.
Books do tend to generate interest in things, and if the new book is a couple years out I suspect you'll see more interest in them today due to the NGC census data, and a bigger surge when the book comes out.
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
I'm thrilled to see the pop report posted, but as keets alludes, the numbers in the report are very flaky. It's easy to go through current auctions on eBay, archives at Heritage, and even NGC's own Signature Sets to find slabbed examples that unquestionably are missing from the report. (By "unquestionably", I mean that there are no examples listed in the report in the grade shown on the slab, or no examples listed for that HK number at all).
I posted a message on the NGC discussion boards asking about those discrepancies, and they suggested to check back by the end of the month. To give them credit, there have already been a lot of changes just in the last week, but I'm still leery of reading too much into the numbers at this stage.
There are a few types of information that I am willing to take from the report:
1) Which types are truly common? If I count right, there are only 8 types with 30 or more specimens slabbed:
HK-154 World's Columbian Expo
HK-289 Pan-American Expo
HK-449 Wilson Dollar
HK-509 Louisiana Purchase Sesqui
HK-542 Rush to the Rockies
HK-583 Pony Express Centennial
HK-589 Pony Express Termination
HK-870 Century of Progress
Those HK numbers more or less match what I would have come up with on my own as the most common, so it's easy for me to believe in things that agree with me. It's interesting that the Wilson Dollar is on the list, since HK listed it as "Rare". With 42 specimens slabbed, I think it's pretty safely in the "not rare" category. Given how much this piece usually brings, that's a useful piece of information -- If I have the choice of buying one of those or spending my money on something else, it might be smarter to go for "something else".
2) For any given type with more than a handful of specimens slabbed, what is the distribution of grades? I think it's fairly safe to assume that people are more likely to grade high-end pieces than circulated ones, so I don't pay much attention to the low end of the grade range. But taking just a quick glance at the high end reveals trends for each piece. The Wilson Dollar, for example, seems to form a bell curve centered around 63 or so. HK-289 is centered around 64/65, while HK-HK-589 is centered around 65/66. That suggests that if I have a Wilson Dollar that I though would grade 64 and an example of HK-509 that I thought would also grade 64, it would be a really good idea to submit the first and a really silly idea to submit the second. In other words, the populations give some idea about the typical grades of surviving pieces, at least at the high end.
3) The HK numbers with 5 or fewer pieces reported in the populations basically mean nothing to me. I haven't been collecting So-Called Dollars for long, and I have at least 15 types that have no specimens listed on the population reports. I didn't bother counting how many "pop 1" pieces I have. There simply haven't been enough grading events yet to show which pieces are truly rare.
4) In contrast, it looks like there have been enough grading events to disprove some rarity assumptions. Some of the HK numbers have surprisingly high populations. The Wilson Dollar mentioned above is perhaps the most dramatic example. The Denver Mint Opening piece (HK-876) is another good example. HK list that as "extremely rare", the highest rarity they assign. Yet there are 5 pieces in the pop reports already. ANR has one of these pieces in their upcoming auction that had a starting bid of $750 and is already bid up to $2000. I was curious if it would go for much over $750. Given the current population, there's no way I would consider paying $2000. given how many other much-rarer pieces have sold for much less even within the last few months (There was an HK-1030 -- "Three specimens known" according to HK, pop 0 according to NGC -- that sold in last month's Goldberg auction for $1300 or so.)
I look forward to watching how these numbers change over time, but I'm definitely not trusting them for much -- yet.
jonathan
there are numbers assigned by Hibler-Kappen which make no sense if judged by what i routinely see, on both sides of the fence. some of my favorite designs which are listed as scarce hardly ever show up and some listed as extremely rare are apparently not, being offered for sale with surprising frequency. the new pop numbers should take time to sort out actual availability and expected grade as you point out, so i would think good advice is to tread lightly and do some homework.
the ANR medal you referenced, HK-876/Opening of the Denver Mint, seems absurd at the current level. when i first saw it my thoughts were perhaps $150-$200, so at the opening bid of $750 it was easy to dismiss. the trouble with issues like that one, the Wilson Dollars, Lesher Dollars, Bryan Dollars, etc. is that they are sought by mainstream collectors with no interest in the overall series. considering grade and extant pops the prices make no sense to me and i'm quickly priced out of the game, choosing to "invest" my money in more interesting items.
to the point of grade distribution with regard to the current pop numbers it's important to assume that all medals fall into two categories; those bought and set aside and those bought and carried as pocket pieces. circulated is a misnomer since most MS/AU medals have low grades either due to weak strike or cabinet friction and not actual circulation while i've actually pulled coins from my pocket which have subsequently graded as high as MS64 by the fine folks at PCGS/NGC. with that in mind i rarely give meadls which are circulated much more than a passing glance.
overall, it makes sense that with more exposure more medals will be offered for sale and actual numbers and grade distribution will start to sort themselves out. market run-ups and top-outs will tend to do that. i'm also of the opinion that anyone who ammassed a collection after the initial HK reference appeared in the early '60's will be giving serious thought to "divesting" that collection. heck, at 30 years old in 1961 that collector would now be 75. the next five years should answer quite a few questions and offer as many surprises.
I've got a mule, Her name is Sal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
She's a good old worker And a good old pal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal and hay
And ev'ry inch of the way I know
From Albany to Buffalo.
Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,
For it's Low Bridge, We're coming to a town!
You can always tell your neighbor,
You can always tell your pal,
If you've ever navigated On the Erie Canal.
We better get along On our way, old gal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
Cause you bet your life I'd never part with Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
Git up there, mule, here comes a lock,
We'll make Rome 'bout six o'clock.
One more trip and back we'll go
Right back home to Buffalo.
Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,
For it's Low Bridge, We're coming to a town!
You can always tell your neighbor,
You can always tell your pal,
If you've ever navigated On the Erie Canal.
<< <i>
...to the point of grade distribution with regard to the current pop numbers it's important to assume that all medals fall into two categories; those bought and set aside and those bought and carried as pocket pieces. circulated is a misnomer since most MS/AU medals have low grades either due to weak strike or cabinet friction and not actual circulation while i've actually pulled coins from my pocket which have subsequently graded as high as MS64 by the fine folks at PCGS/NGC. with that in mind i rarely give meadls which are circulated much more than a passing glance.
overall, it makes sense that with more exposure more medals will be offered for sale and actual numbers and grade distribution will start to sort themselves out. market run-ups and top-outs will tend to do that. i'm also of the opinion that anyone who ammassed a collection after the initial HK reference appeared in the early '60's will be giving serious thought to "divesting" that collection. heck, at 30 years old in 1961 that collector would now be 75. the next five years should answer quite a few questions and offer as many surprises.
>>
Keep in mind that we old school collectors didn't pay much mind to condition on these. Gems
would cost as much as two or three times what an old beat up one sold for so we often went
after the lower grade pieces. This was especially true for issues that didn't interest us as much
or were fairly common in nice shape.
I suspect that many of the sets formed around the HK book were done in the '60's or recently
with few in between. During the the '70's, '80's and '90's most of the new token and medal
collectors formed collections by theme or by type. These collection will contain relatively few
Hibler Kappen medals and those which are included are unlikely to be original or high grade.
With tokens it is still common for collectors to actually prefer lower grade specimens. Many tok-
en collectors prefer a nice lightly worn example to a pristine unc and with many tokens there sim-
ply are no uncs available anyway. Medals are generally appreciated in nice shape but the spreads
historically are much narrower in these than in coins.
The HK-876 at 750.00 opening bid was a steal at that grade. I would have went up to 1250.00 , but was priced out too. Even though listed by HK as ex rare and you see 5 pieces on the pop report, it is a rare piece with a notoriously weak strike. The pop report over time should give a great deal of information as to what is out there. I have some also that aren't reflected there presently, but in time they should start to show up. As far as looking for the best condition example for your collection, I would agree and do pass up many medals that are too beat up, unless it is a true rarity in any condition. Having a Pony Express in MS, doesn't compare to having a Reaper in MS as they were pocket pieces. Anyway having additional data to look at gives a better perspective to whats around.
regards,
dealmakr
I would gladly purchase a high grade Denver piece in the 750-800 range... even though I currently own two. $2000 is on the steep side for me as well..... but I have seen many other so-calleds lately being sold at many times what I personally am willing to pay. That's what helps make collecting so-called so enjoyable..... the thrill of the chase, as much as anything...
I also have many that have been slabbed, but yet do not currently reflect in the Pop Reports. Some of these are from months ago, and not just recently slabbed. I also have many of the (1)'s only slabbed. I tried digging through my items, but found that about 50% of mine are not listed or are not shown in the grade mine is slabbed at. I do praise NGC for getting the Pop Report kicked off, as it grows, so will we all.......and it will help our collecting of so-called dollars grow and mature......
Great thread guys.....
John
Evergreen, Colorado
cadmanco
They have added many more items there now. Of the last 53 that got I slabbed through them, 52 were included, or least appear as if they are.
20 of those were #1, mostly #1 of 1 slabbed, a few tied for first place.. Don't know what happened to the last piece, it was a "listed" so-called.....??
So it does appear they are making some headway in trying to get all of the ones they have slabbed included in their report....
Now I'll have to check on the earlier slabs to see if they have been included now....
John
Evergreen, Colorado
cadmanco
On the other hand, there's a BIG difference between 42 slabbed and 5 slabbed. With 42 slabbed, I might not be able to find a Wilson Dollar "any time I wanted to", but I don't expect I'd have much trouble. The poor picked-on Denver Mint Opening piece, however, really is a lot rarer with 5 pieces slabbed. As it happens, one is on sale right now at ANR, but it's been a year or so since I saw the last one. The Wilson Dollar I see probably at least once a month; it took me about 5 minutes to find one currently for sale, and several that have sold in the last month or two. That's nowhere near as common as any 1909 cent, but still way more common than most other so-calleds.
I stand by my previous comment. If I had $X to spend right now and I had a choice to spend it on a Wilson Dollar or on another so-called that was fairly offered at a similar price, I'd go for the other. There will be plenty more Wilson Dollars available.
jonathan
Production rarity
Condition rarity.
I have found that many gold gilt medals have the gilt pealed
or worn away in an unsightly manner. About all collectors can do
is recognize how often or how rarely a particular SCD or SC Half
comes up for sale and in what condition. This take a substantial
period of time and experience which leaves the novice in a deep
hole. I have a substantial number of SC Halves, that I believe are
both rare and condition rare. If I am right, remains to be seen. These
do not have HK numbers so they are still a mystery, wrapped in a puzzle
enveloped in an enigma.
Camelot