What do you think of this Doug Winter blog about methods of collecting gold coins?

Longacre

I was reading through the latest Doug Winter blog, which I posted below. Some observations:

(1) Do you think the current madness with the Registry will ever spill over to 19th century gold? The Registry seems to promote very high grade pieces, which are not always available in 19th century gold, even though the prices might be less. Can anyone in his or her right mind get excited over a Registry set of extremely rare 19th century gold in the pedestrian grade of AU-55? One would be laughed off of the Registry posting a coin in that grade.

(2) Do any of the sets mentioned below carry any completion premium, or will the rare coins in the series always be rare, and the common coins will always be common?

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December 1, 2006

Let’s say you want to assemble a set of Liberty Head eagles. You’ve got a daunting task ahead of you. This design lasted from 1838 through 1907 and it features over 180 issues including numerous rarities which are very expensive and/or extremely rare in higher grades. Unless you have a large coin budget, you are going to be priced out, right? Maybe you just need to look at gold collecting differently.

Another great feature of a year set is that you can avoid having to buy prohibitively rare and expensive issues like the 1875. The year set collector can fill his 1875 hole with a far more affordable 1875-S or 1875-CC.v

The two most intimidating things about assembling a date set of Liberty Head eagles are the length and the cost. As I just pointed out, a year set reduces both of these immeasurably. It also allows the condition-oriented collector the chance to pursue higher grade coins.

Take, for instance, the eagles struck in the year 1849. There are two: the Philadelphia and the New Orleans issues. The former is relatively affordable in comparatively high grades (the collector should be able to find an MS60 to MS61 coin for around $5,000) while the latter is not only expensive in higher grades (an MS60 if available would sell for $30,000+) but it is incredibly rare.

Even the collector on a relatively tight budget can participate in the Liberty Head eagle series. How about a 20th century Liberty Head eagle set? This would consist of 21 coins, produced from 1900 to 1907. The beauty of this set is that every single date can be purchased in MS60 or better and most of these dates can be found in reasonably high grades for under $1,000.

What if you only buy Gem coins and can’t “deign” to own anything below MS65? How about a year set of 20th century Liberty Head eagles? This consists of just eight issues and every one can be found in MS65 (or in some cases better).

It’s about time that the popularity of Set Registry collecting which has fueled the market for 20th century gold coinage starts to take hold with the far rarer but less popular issues from the 19th century. How many collectors who pay $50,000+ for a St. Gaudens double eagle with an in-grade population of, say, ten or more (plus others in higher grades) would reassess their collections if they know that they could buy far rarer Liberty Head eagles for a fraction of the price?

Are date sets of Liberty Head eagles going to suddenly replace St. Gaudens double eagles as the hot new trend in gold collecting? Probably not. But what if set collecting of Liberty Head eagles were better marketed? What if more (and better) categories for these existed in the PCGS and NGC Set Registries? Could this change in the next few years? I contend that this is a possibility. After all, who would have ever thought that collectors would pay $10,000++ for high grade modern coins?


Doug Winter
12/1/06
www.raregoldcoins.com
For more information about United States gold coinage please contact me at dwn@ont.com

tcmitssr

I have a gold typeset in AU 50 to MS 63 of U.S. gold from 1800 on, with 90 percent of it in AU 50-55. Everything is in NGC holders because the first five pieces I bought were NGC and I wanted the set to be uniform.

I defined the set myself so as to get one of everythng at a reasonable price. It's a history of US gold coinage but not a set based on rarity or high grade, unlike my classic commem typeset.

TheRaven

I don't think that these type of collectors will go back in time to the 19th century because there are simply to many coins to nab and they only want mint state quality coins.....

Does anybody collect circulated double eagles in the 20th century? Could save some money over a MS65 coin.....

Eagles will always be less popular then Double Eagles as well

TahoeDale

Great way to go about this very challenging series. And AU 50 is always an acceptable grade for a rare coin.

Collecting by date only( no mint marks or varieties) is the only way to go for many early series, where there are prohibitive costs in the ultra rarities.

The demand for early and bust coinage has gotton so high that a date set with an average grade of AU 50 to 58 is totally registry acceptable. And a complete date sale would be very rewarding to the owner these days.

Same for the gold series that Doug is recommending.

MrEureka

Personally, I don't like the one-of-each-date method. When you're done with the project, you still have an incomplete set.

If I liked a series and couldn't afford to do a complete set, I'd define a subset and collect it comprehensively. For example, I might collect only the issues of 1849. If I liked $10 Libs, I might do exactly what DW suggests and collect all the 20th issues. Or maybe I'd shift to a different series completely. Classic quarter eagles come to mind, and I'd do those by die variety.

But to each his own.