Does the proliferation of modern commems help or hurt the market for classic commems?

PerryHall

Your thoughts, please.

OPA

<< <i>Your thoughts, please. >>



Proliferation? I don't agree with your choice of words. I don't consider 2 commems per year, proliferation. The classic commems were never very popular with a relative small collector base, even before the moderns began. If anything, it made more collectors aware of the classics. My guess, it helped the classics.

2manycoins2fewfunds

While it may draw in new collectors and while some will migrate to classics it also acts to drain a portion of disposable income.

One of my big knocks against the UHR coins was the simple fact that it sucked $150,000,000 from collectors pockets with at least $30,000,000 going to US Mint

OPA

<< <i>While it may draw in new collectors and while some will migrate to classics it also acts to drain a portion of disposable income.

One of my big knocks against the UHR coins was the simple fact that it sucked $150,000,000 from collectors pockets with at least $30,000,000 going to US Mint >>



With all due respect, I have a choice, and I've been collecting for over 40 years, and I preferred the UHR over anything within that price range out there. In my book, anyone who purchased a UHR, was money well spend. I can't say the same about any of the classic commems selling in that price range.

sbeverly

I would think that anything new thats added to an area of interest/hobby only helps whats already there.

I think back on other hobbies/interests and If I felt passion for the subject I bought every book/mag, joined every club etc.

I think that in much the same way that Statehood Quarters brought New Blood to the hobby in general
I believe that someone purchasing Modern Commems are likely to make the transition to the Classics.

Ironically, I was talking to a young guy last Sunday who described himself as a Modern Commem Collector.
He has an interest (not the $) to collect the Classics.

He said he most likely wouldn't have known about the Classics without his initial involvement in the Moderns.

HalfStrike

The commemorative market overall is a huge hodgepodge of years, mint marks and designs that only Albert Einstein could follow, thus the low collector demand. With low collector demand the earliest coins to see any help would in theory be the lowest mintage coins, and since those have been stagnant the prognosis is the patient is not well.

mozin

I would think there are modern collectors that would collect classic commems, if moderns were not so cheap. Most all collectors have a dollar limit they can use for their coin purchases. The fact that classic commems have not changed prices much, in fifteen years, should be a good reason to start collecting classics. It would take only a small number of new classic collectors to force prices up.

messydesk

When you look at the number of issues per year, I wouldn't exactly call it a proliferation, just a predictable annual issuing. Proliferation can be used to describe the sheer number of distinct mint products available year after year.

That said, the casual modern commem buyer whose coin budget is limited to the annual clad and silver offerings isn't likely to migrate to classics due to cost. I would posit, however, that most habitual buyers of modern commems could be shown a handful of classics and be convinced that the modern pale in comparison, artistically. They could be further convinced that since the mintages of many of the classics are a mere 1% of some of the moderns, it might feel more rewarding to stop throwing money at the mint's offerings and spend a little more money and effort looking for really nice examples of the classics.

Bear

No, It is like comparing apples and pears. The Classic Commems have been

abused for many years. An increasing number of them have become condition

rare, but have not been recognized as such by the market place. When their

popularity returns and this rarity becomes apparent, then the market price

will explode for these long depressed issues. I do not say that this will happen

tomorrow, or in the near future, but it will happen eventually.

Artist

I don't think one series has much to do with the other.

The classic commems, though they did command a premium in their day, were compositionally & denominationally identical to their circulating contemporaries. In my mind, this makes them "Real Coins."

The modern commems are more like fantasy pieces - they are coins only because the government has sanctioned them as such, but in reality no one is ever going to spend them.

Personally, I do not think the mindset of collecting one applies to the other.

A better analogy might be classic commems and SHQs. The SHQ program has brought many new & hibernating numismatists back into the coin collecting fold, and I think that some of this interest can not help but spill into the area of classic commems. Even more specifically, since the SHQ are each short-lived specialty designs not unlike the classic commems, that perhaps some collectors who begin with SHQ might find some resonance with the classic commems as their interests mature... but if prices for classic commems in the corresponding years of the SHQ can be any indication, this really has not happened en masse.

yellowkid

Anything that gets people looking at coins can only help the classic market.

johnny9434

I prefer the classics over the modern stuff although some modern does have an appeal to it. i wouldnt go any further then that. As stated in above post it there an interest in modern then the rest will take care of itself

johnperk747

When I first started collecting coins, my first set was the ASE coins.
(I still keep up three sets of the uncirculated but sold my proof)
I now collect Modern Commems because at least each year, I get a different design, not the same year after year!
That being said, I can not say I like the two designs that I will be getting this year


(sorry it's a little off topic)

TwoSides2aCoin

We know that moderns do not hurt classics, just the same as we know classics don't hurt moderns. These are two sectors of the hobby that typically draw different type of collectors. One new, one old.

TheRaven

I think they are independent sections of the market.

They have some overlap, but they are seperate.....