Hypothetical Key Date Coin Question

erwindoc

Lets say that a wealthy individual or someone that hits the lottery wanted to get into coin collecting or investing in rare coins and decided to only buy the key dates of a particular series to make their own hoard. How quickly would prices appreciate for the remaining coins as the supply dried up? Would such a thing even be possible?

Unknown

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Bubblehead

Jeez... Now that's sure something to ponder some over, huh?
Me, if the Lottery was worth 10 Mil or better, I'd go after the
'09-S (VDB) bunch. All red ones, of course.

Then, after about 5-6 years, a guy might find 'em scarce...

What else?

Type2

He would need to pay more and more for the price to go up so it could be fast all it takes is some one to pay moon $$ at auction then every one thinks that is the price. So i would buy all i can 1st not from auctin then after i have my fill buy them up at auction paying the higher prices, That's if i hit the lottery. But when he sell them it will go back down in less he sell them off a little bit at a time to keep the price up. That is what i think.

howards

Most of the coins considered key dates are available at most any coin show. I'm talking about coins like 93S dollars, 09SVDB cents. One collector, if he bought quietly, should have little to no effect on prices.

If you're talking about mega-rarities, where a coin shows up for sale once in a generation, then yes, your single collector could have a big effect on the price.

LindeDad

Since I think most of them are in the hands of coin dealers, and there are more than enough for everyone that collects, I think he will make a lot of dealers happy is all.

Mowgli

I knew a coin dealer in Tucson, AZ (now deceased) who was trying to corner a market on the 1909-s vdb. He told me that after he had acquired on 6 (six) coins the Greysheet had moved up. I have no idea if he was doing this silently or not, only that he was shocked since there are a lot of those coins out there.

keyman64

If you buy something that is in high demand and that high demand sticks around for 10-20+ years, you will be just fine. Applying this to old key date coins should work just fine. Just check the auction records....or pick up a Red Book from 10-20 years ago and pick up the most recent Red Book. It becomes pretty obvious. Although historical events do not ALWAYS show you the future...so diversify your key dates.

I also would not go after Red Copper for one reason...if it turns over the time that you own it for some crazy reason you will be out a lot of cash. Why take that risk?

SoCalBigMark

I doubled the price of the 1951 MS 66 Red by buying 13 of the supposed 300.

Walkerguy21D

<< <i>I knew a coin dealer in Tucson, AZ (now deceased) who was trying to corner a market on the 1909-s vdb. He told me that after he had acquired on 6 (six) coins the Greysheet had moved up. I have no idea if he was doing this silently or not, only that he was shocked since there are a lot of those coins out there. >>


Probably more of a coincidence, or someone doing a little manipulation. I was at Larry Lee's table a couple years ago when he acquired his
50th specimen, giving him a full roll.....and I don't recall the price going anywhere before or after this.

Back to the OP's question - I think if prices rise substantially, many collectors (like me) would just do without. Obviously there aren't enough of the truly rare coins around to hoard - and many of these are already in strong hands, so there would be few becoming available for said hoarder to acquire.

What I would like to understand, is how something not rare, like a common Sheldon variety wreath cent in rough condition, keeps rising on the Greysheet and in dealer's listings, and yet there seem to be plenty available. Seems like there's an effort to drive up the price WITHOUT actually someone hoarding them?

MidLifeCrisis

I don't know the answer to the OP's question.

But I do know that I would really like to assemble a hoard of Higley Coppers!

LeeBone

I'd like to be "responsible" for driving up the trend for a key date.
93-S especially

BryceM

A person with a few million to play with could easily affect prices for a certain key date. At any given time there are maybe a half-dozen 1934-S Peace dollars at MS-65 and better in dealers' inventory or at auction. If that individual bought every one that he could and sustained the effort for a decade or so, the price would certainly jump as people who "just had to have one" bid higher and higher in the attempt. A few would still change hands, but at the new inflated prices. Perceived rarity would be artificially high, but the market would not "know" that.

There are about 300 coins in the pop reports. With crackout duplicates and un-slabbed coins figured in, say there are maybe 300 extant. Even at an inflated average price of $15k each, it would take around $2.2 million to own half of them. How cool would it be to have seven rolls of gem BU 34-S coins?

There are some coins with very few dealers and active players. I'm sure that people have tried to manipulate the market at various times for various reasons. Even in moderately common series, the bid price of a single dealer can have a significant impact on greysheet values.

roadrunner

I contemplated doing this in 1987 when the 2nd finest known (to me) unc 1867-s quarter appeared at auction. I already owned the finest known. I could have easily bought that coin for very little money rather than letting a fellow collector have it for less than what I was willing to bid for it. The other several uncs were all available during that same period. Buying 4 or 5 of them wouldn't have altered the price structure once bit. Nor would anyone have known that I had all of them. When the Eliasberg MS64 showed up in 1997 that would have been a condition census coin as well and the 2nd finest. And I could have bought that for well under what I felt it was worth....in essence cornering the market on all the decent unc 67-s quarters. A similar thing could have been done with other better date seated quarters during the 1985-1998 time frame when almost no one was paying attention. I was in the process of doing that with unc 1858-0 quarters as well. It would be 100X harder to hoard all the 09-s VDB's w/o someone catching on very early and raising the bid price. I sort of regret not hoarding those dates in unc as it would have been interesting to see how it all turned out. One has to wonder if other key dates in unc are being kept off the market by long term key date hoarders as their prices in unc continue to get bid upwards. These coins would have been taken off the market in the 1973-1998 years and generally not shown up in pop reports. For the 67-s quarter I could have done that drill for around $25,000. The value of those coins today is probably around $150,000....and likely would have been a lot higher if 2/3 of them didn't show up in pop reports.

2Old2GrowUp

I believe it is absolutly possible for a lottery winner to drive up the prices by hoarding key dates and also believe you dont need to win the lottery to do so.
on a smaller scale hoarding certain coins absolutly influences prices.
I remember reading in a thread awhile back someone owning many examples of the 1901-s quarter.

So i guess if someone won the lottery and did it on a larger scale, one would think it would only hurt the hobby and the ROI for the lottery winner.

sniocsu

In essence it all breaks down to supply and demand. If you hoard all of a certain key date in a series that no one is collecting save a few, then it would not be difficult (it probably would not be very profitable in the short run either). But a popular series with a key date of which very few are believed to exist would be an excellent candidate for hoarding. As far as the more popular series with "scarce" key dates such as the 09 S VDB, there are far too many of them in any grade to hoard.

Coinstudy

I buy special mint set coins 1965, 1966, 1967 ungraded.looking at 15-20 years out.there already tough dates.