Exonumia and the so called dollar
Whitby
Posts: 1,341
ALL HAIL KEETS
0
Whitby
Posts: 1,341
Comments
Your intelligent opinions and experiences are valuable to all
collectors. Your point to invest in education before you invest your money
is well taken.
Camelot
with that said, i wouldn't classify your post as garbage, but i would say that some parts of it smell a bit rank.
Must have been a tough day at work.
Camelot
I had the opportunity to look at an H and K catalog for so called dollars and I own an Edkins coal scrip catalog. I have noticed that there are very similiar things going on within Coal scrip and so called dollars as far as populations and rarities are concerned.
the OP has made the entire post based on a first look at the standard reference for SC$'s.
1)Unless you have researched the event or person, DO NOT trust the designations in these catalogs as to rarity and population. There is very rarely a reality check and I can name several pieces of coal scriop that are designated as super rare (less than 10 pieces) and yet , I have seen drawer fulls of the same said pieces. Usually, this is not intentional........and it is by and large an error
making a comparison like this is ludicrous.
2)Unlisted pieces. The assignment of the rarity to an unlisted piece should be handled with extreme caution.While an unlisted piece may have some great collectable qualities, it does not mean that the thing is super rare and hence you should pay more than usual money for it. Been there, done that and have the T shirt. WHY, because once it is listed, it will usually JUST SO HAPPEN to be that this is a very comm,on piece. Newer catalogs and newer collectables just seem to love this.
finally, something reasonable!!! as new discoveries are made, the numbers(rarity) can start to shape up...........................but, this may be a thought which is based on experience with coal scrip but isn't necessarily true about SC$'s. as new discoveries are made they are usually the result of mis-attribution or actual rarity and follow the general numbers for other items related to a specific event or issuer.
3)Collect the events you like and those things that speak to you as a person. There are in the So called dollars world a big population of worlds fair tokens. IMO, Iwill avoid these things. WHY? Public events like a worlds fair have gargantuan attendances and sooner or later the hoard will be found.
pure speculation. strangely, the OP tries to tell us that he'll avoid certain medals/events while in a fruedian slip, he warns us that many of the items are woefully under-estimated in terms of extant populations. this is where the stench begins to rise.
i would ask Whitby what the deal is?? are you trying to promote coal scrip within threads for SC$'s, or is it just an accident??
1893 World's Columbian Exposition: 27+ million, about half the U.S. population
1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition: 18 million
1933 Century of Progress World's Fair: 22.5 million
1934 Century of Progress World's Fair: 16.3 million
May not have any effect on the number of SCDs out there but it sure sounds like interesting times.
s left and right and prices seem to be rising faster than anyone can update them....coal pieces...I dont know the first thing about....
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Fighting the Fight for 11 Years with the big "C" - Never Ever Give Up!
Member PCGS Open Forum board 2002 - 2006 (closed end of 2006) Current board since 2006 Successful trades with many members, over the past two decades, never a bad deal.
The OP has talked about rarity and the drawer-fulls just aren't on the market. Isn't that rarity? If you can't get them, they are rare! That doesn't mean that the population isnt there. Also, many of the WCE pieces are aluminum which doesn't survive well. Corrosion has ruined many many pieces. Add to that that the metal is soft and was bent, scratched and worn down easily. In most cases, they didn't survive in high grade.
On top of all that, when silver prices skyrocketed in the 70's, many of the medals that were made in silver were likely melted.
I agree with keets that although coal scrip and SCDs are related, the trends of the market and the published rarities cannot be compared in generalities.
<< <i>I wonder if this is still good?
This might be an example of the risk in these areas. This piece is a fantasy that
was made back in the 1970's or possibly '60's. In fact, it's likely that all the bro-
thel tokens are fantasies or counterfeits. I suspect these were made by LA Stamp
and Coin but none of this extensive series is marked. They're fun to collect if
you enjoy such things and are certainly conversation pieces but were never more.
I think there is some real value in the original post if you don't take it as gospel.
No doubt the So-Called Dollars are better researched and better known than coal
tokens but it should be remembered that there are far more of the medals that
can fit this category than are listed. Obviously, too, rarity estimates were formed
by a collector with great knowledge and the help of other collectors. There are er-
rors.
Like any collectible, it might be wise to learn a little about the subject before jump-
ing in with both feet. This was the apparent point of the thread and one that's diff-
icult to deny even if not wholly appropriate to the topic.
A similar situation applies to good fors and other similar tokens. If you find a cache
of an unlisted token then it's safe to assume you have them all. But if you see an
unlisted token offerred for sale then there might be hundreds of them. This is much
less true for medals because they'll usually all be issued and never recalled. Tokens
tend to circulate and at some point will simply be withdrawn by the issuer and these
tokens become the hoard down the roa.
Sam, this is the assumption which just isn't true. tmot pointed out a few good reasons and perhaps the single biggest reason is because the medals were sold to a public which was ignorant of any sense of care or future collectibility of what they were given or bought. hoards show up, that's a certainty. there's been a seller on eBay who stumbled onto a roll of HK-222's, wrapped in paper and still in the pill boxes. i know a west coast collector who claims to have approximately 20 HK-505's with a supposed struck number of 10-12. the current "up" period will shake things out, but i don't expect any real surprises. the pieces which have an established rarity are holding to form thus far and pieces which are scarce are staying that way in gem grades.
<< <i>i think that you may be judging an area you aren't familiar with by your experience in an area you are familiar with and coming to some conclusions which are reasonable, but by-and-large you are, how shall i say, out of your League. it would be similar to me considering my experience with SC$'s, visiting a Coal Scrip web-page and thinking i had some useful insight for collectors who've been at it for awhile. it's probably a better service to speak from a point of experience than from hypotheticals and bias.
with that said, i wouldn't classify your post as garbage, but i would say that some parts of it smell a bit rank. >>
I thank you for your time.
Bye bye.
Edit: I have never sold scrip or for that matter any other coin related item in a public forum. I have only collected and will continue to do so.
that was good for a discount during the fair. It appears that few were actually
used since they are normally seen in nice AU or better. While this isn't an HK
issue, it is often collected along with the other world's fair memorabilia. There
may be other significant hoards of this same token.
There are also some "remnant hoards" of medals. These would be the unsold
pieces which reverted to the issuer or other individual. These usually will ap-
pear when that individual dies but the hoard can get passed down to a family
member or purchased at auction by someone who just likes to own them.
Such hoards are uncommon for medals and even more uncommon for medals
which were issued more than 75 years ago but there likely are some. The over-
all impact will be as Keets implies quite minimal for the HK medals.
Tokens and medals are a hoot to collect but they have some fundamental differ-
ences and their weaknesses and strenght are different as well. Medals do tend
to segregate much more than tokens because of their higher issue costs and their
different means of distribution. Packaging can be critical to these both at time of
sale and how they are treated later. Medals tend to have much lower mintages as
well as much lower attrition. It's not at all uncommon for every single specimen of
a token to be destroyed. (Indeed it's typical) Medals on the other hand don't nor-
mally circulate except to be sold from one collector to another. Many medals are
issued to a distinct group of people. Something like a civil war encampment for the
first Virginian in 1909 would have all gone to old veterins and most to Virginia. Some
climates are not good for specific medals so a specific Florida medal might be almost
impossible to find pristine. Medals issued to children tend to have a poor survival
rate and if made of a light medal will usually be damaged. Where, when, to whom,
why, how packaged, and at what cost can have dramatic effects on whether the med-
als are apparently scarce even if significant numbers remain in trunks or drawers.
Tokens have poor survivability but what you see is what you get except where a
hoard exists. ...or at least this is true in most cases.
You might want to pay attention to what he has to say, he knows his shtuff about SC$.
Sam, you seem to have summed things up nicely.