High grade early Lincolns just... gone...

renomedphys

Has anybody taken a look at the auction house stocks and eBay lately? Plenty of 11-s and 12-s in low to mid circ? 09-VDBs in 63RB? Crazy! Either nobody's selling or... well, nobody's selling. Pickins are mighty slim lately, and I for one am sure happy to only be missing 5-6 moderately easy dates from my set. I sure feel sorry for anybody trying to start a high grade set these days.

LeeG

Got that right! Low grade stuff out the woodworks and nice stuff is big $$$$$$$$$$'s.

cohodk

There should be close to 70 nice XF/AU/MS early mint marked Lincolns listed on Ebay in about 7 weeks.

jacktheknife

I'm not sure if there is anything different about a lack of high grade early mint marked Lincolns. They are always very scarce. If you are talking about MS63RD and the like, then that may be the case. But MS65RD and better are just down right rare.
When they do come around, people with crazy money snap them up.

Jack

pennyannie

Why a 7 week wait? Impatient coin collectors hate to wait.

cohodk

<< <i>Why a 7 week wait? Impatient coin collectors hate to wait. >>



A week to get to PCGS, then 3-4 weeks to grade, then another week back to me. Then a week to get photos and listed. I wonder if it is even worth the trouble.

pennyannie

probably only triple the amount they will bring. I have been shut out of most lincoln cent auctions recently and i bid high.

renomedphys

About 3 months ago I bought a 1927-s in 65RB. I figured the $1750 list was off on that pop 6/0 coin, and I wasn't about to buy a 65RD for 18K, so I bid high... real high. Got it for $2500 and change. Long story short, you really have to bid high these days. Either that, or find sellers with high start bids and make offers right away.

I guess what I'm noticing is that in the past three months you've been seeing an emergence of mid-grade Lincolns in PCGS and other plastic coming out of the woodworks. It seemed to have started with the 1924-d runup in price. I'm not just talking about eBay either. All the auction houses are filling their stores with low to mid grade stuff. And yeah, the high end stuff has been scarce for maybe the past 18 months, so it's starting to feel normal. But what really drives the high-end shortage home is this seeming abandonment of the high-end by replacement with the low-end. To be honest, it looks like people are starting to just settle... pay higher than normal prices for what they could normally buy raw... and give up on the notion of ever completing a real nice set. That's probably a good thing for the market overall. I guess??

pennyannie

I used to buy a lot of raw coins, but it has turned into such a hassle if you sell them. It is already bad enough selling the plastic coated coins. I always hear that dealers claim to buy strong on slabbed coins. Read it here on these forums all the time. Well if 30 back of bid is strong, i would hate to see the other way. I do not even try to sell to dealers at shows anymore. I do have 2 dealers that i am able to deal with on a 2 way street and that makes all the difference in the world

lkeigwin

It's a jungle out there. Shoot, a few years back cherry picking MS early Lincolns wasn't too hard. Today coins I wouldn't have looked at twice are selling for FMV and the truly nice Lincolns -- the ones not just highly graded but with detail and eye appeal -- are way over FMV listings. IF you can find them at all.

My registry set is complete but never done. And finding those special upgrades is far harder than I thought and much dearer. I've walked away so many times I think I'm walking backwards.