To what extent does variety collecting cause an inflation in pricing across an entire series?

Longacre

Does anyone have any thoughts on the question in the OP? To what extent does variety collecting cause an inflation of prices across an entire series? Or does it have no effect? Let's take early copper as an example, which is frequently collected by variety. Can a certain percentage of the pricing (or a rise in prices over a period of time) be attributed to the increased collecting activity in this series because of the interest in finding any number of varieties among the series?

MrEureka

Artificial?

Longacre

<< <i>Artificial? >>




You're right. I need to change that word.

291fifth

Large cents, and especially the 1793-1814 issues, are clearly affected by this. Capped bust halves are also being very much affected.

Variety collecting leads to what is essentially hoarding. Think of how many EAC members own hundreds of large cent varieties. These coins are off the market, effectively reducing the available supply and raising prices as a result.

Coxe

For VAMs, it is hard to say as Morgans have always moved a bit. If any date has been affected, it would be 1878. Potential other dates would be 1878-S, 1888-O, 1921 and 1921-D. (Peace dollars could be separately discussed but I don't see any date influence in that direction.)

Large cents are quite different in the they are collectible for every variety while I only know of a couple other guys who are even halfway serious about trying to do a complete (or nearly so to the extent of picking up common VAMs just because they don't have an example of them) set. Would be interesting to see, in average available grade, what a full large cent collection would cost compared to a full Morgan set, with full meaning all listed varieties.

Gemineye

There is probably no coin series that has not a variety coin or coins in it that would not increase the pricing of the series.To say one coin series has no variety coin in it would probaly make it realy .......

Cladiator

Damn variety collectors!

Gemineye

<< <i>Damn variety collectors! >>

RichieURich

I know that, for example, 1794 large cents are scarcer than they would otherwise be, because the variety collectors have to get so many of them for their sets. There are 56 Sheldon numbered varieties and 11 NC's for the year 1794!

ziggy29

I'd tend to agree that early copper (especially 1793-1814 large cents) and bust halves are among the most commonly seen examples of this phenomenon. Variety collectors may have to acquire 20 different examples of the same date instead of one.

Lakesammman

My limited experience has been that people like to cherry pick varieties rather than pay for them, so there is little correlation.

Nysoto

With popular series variety collecting has an impact, but variety collectors will only pay so much for a coin. With 1794 half dollars, the first year collectors have driven out the variety collectors, as R-6 rarities may not sell for premium. There too popular, nobody collects them any more. The same can be said for 1797 half dollars, which are R-4 by date, the type collectors have priced out the variety collectors. With these examples, type and date have much stronger influence on price than variety collectors.

mirabela

<< <i>My limited experience has been that people like to cherry pick varieties rather than pay for them, so there is little correlation. >>



That doesn't make any sense. They may like to buy their scarce varieties for the price of a common example, but the fact that they are hoarding -- buying hundreds of coins of a given type, as opposed to one for a type coin or a few dozen for a date set, say -- still depletes the pool of available material, driving up the base price of a common example.

streeter

<<My limited experience has been that people like to cherry pick varieties rather than pay for them, so there is little correlation.>>



ykes.


1955 1c ddo?


Variety collectors in the next 20 years will do for coins what mint mark collectors did for coins after people became more interested in coins other than collecting by date.

Just as BU people who took advantage of their grading skills over the last 50 years have ended up w/ gem vs 61-62 stuff.

JMHO

cladking

For the main part it will raise prices only to the degree
that there are "extra" coins in collections. Instead of
having 40 pieces of a complete collection by date some
collectors will have 50 or 250 because of their varieties.
For most series this demand is not significant but it cer-
tainly can be for something like early large cents.

It can also have a more subtle effect since varieties can
cluster around a specific grade.

Aegis3

I think there is less influence than you might think. While variety collectors may want more coins of a date than do date collectors, there are also typically a good deal smaller number of variety collectors than there are date collectors. Common varieties will not increase in price much, because there are more than enough of them around. Rare varieties will be expensive enough so that only the variety collectors will go after them, so date collectors will stick with the common varieties, and thus are not really affected.

In fact, sometimes, I think that it is the date collectors who should be blamed for high prices. The 1802 C-2 and 1808 C-2 half cents are not rare varieties, and if only variety collectors wanted them, the prices would be much less than they are. It's the date collectors who want an 1802 and 1808/7 half cents who cause the prices to be high.