The Death of Fresh Coins
Coinosaurus
Posts: 9,645 ✭✭✭✭✭
In the last 20 years we've had Eliasberg, Bass, Newman, Gardner, Pogue, and a bunch of others I've forgotton.
Are there still a pile of cool, fresh coins in the woodwork, or is just gonna be same old, same old for the next generation?
One of the fun things about collecting is a constant stream of "new" discoveries, and the release of these monster collections makes me wonder how much is left.
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Blue Moon
Does it really matter where coins come from......as long as you can find the ones you need/want for you collection??
Blue Horseshoe
Likes
If you're patient; you'll be quite surprised, as to what turns up, even in newer slabs.
Plus, I think that there are still many slabbed coins out there that have been in strong hands for years......decades----I know this is true.
It's anyone's guess, when they'll come to market. Could be a year......could be ten years or longer.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Not worried about it. Every Sunday morning before the west coast is awake I get out my CDN, CW Trends, IPhone on AS, coffee, waffles, and start looking for pickoffs.......
I enjoy finding cool coins in the wild in Europe. Heading to Berlin today for the World Money show and then London for the coin fair there on Saturday. Lots of cool coins, especially gold still waiting to be found here I think.
Latin American Collection
I agree with DIMEMAN. In fact, I really, really, really, agree with DIMEMAN. Thanks DIMEMAN.
Those great collectors had their fair share of coins, no doubt. Despite the fact that the collections have been broken up, the majority of those coins will continue to show up with some regularity over the years. Even the most tightly held pieces trade hands eventually.
Great coins tend to migrate toward alert collectors and disappear from view. Junk tends to linger and be ever-present.
Coins will continue to come to market either through normal channels or dealer/collector attrition. There have been many complaints about the 'greying' of the hobby.. well.. to take a somewhat macabre view... it just means that coins - many held quietly for decades - will become available soon... that is what happens... coins outlive us all....
Cheers, RickO
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blew hand-grenade
In a sense, if they are new to you; they are fresh.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Apparently yes....when it comes to some dealers who have decided that if anything has been on the market inside the past 10 years, it's not worthy to them. Frankly, I'd rather have a superior coin that has been off the market for only 4 yrs....rather than a lower quality coin in the same grade that has been away for 11 years.
PCGS CAC + "poppin' fresh" sure does limit what's available to buy from such dealers. If the FF (freshness factor) is that important to them and costs more, some type of certificate of freshness (COF) should be provided to the customer.
Goldberg is having an auction in February that includes 4 or 5 different really nice Large Cent collections and the selections are quite abundant. I think that now is a fairly opportune time to be a serious collector, except maybe for the expense.
I knew it would happen.
RR you are a hoot!
Totally agree with this. I know a dealer that in the last 2 years has released coins he has held for up to 30 years.
Ken
Hmmmmm, if you compile all the "collections" together you get 200,000 coins? Out of the hundreds of millions made I suspect there will be much more to come. Many collectors that have a lifetime of collecting on the QT are now approaching the end of their days. That stuff is on it's way to you ,,,,, just be patient!.
My neighbor, an ex business owner, is now in his 80's and the health is not so great. He has been collecting for probably 70 years. His collection is well into 7 figures. It will be slowing coming onto the market. He's starting with the common newer stuff first (1950's and 1960's). He had a personal passion and says that he's never even been in a coin club. They are out there for sure.
bob
afford and AUandAG - You are both correct and it couldn't have been said better. Coins are coins...they are what they are. They haven't been "fresh" since the day they were minted! Why does it matter how long they have or have not been available! Some people just seen to want to make coin collecting way more complicated than it is.
I think that there must be a lot of attractive, properly graded coins that are "in strong hands." There sure isn't much to buy at the major shows. Some dealers have a same dead stock show after show. They are "C coins" that are over graded and unattractive, and yet the prices seem to remain the same, at least on the pieces I've examimed.
The trouble with auctions like Pogue is that most all of the material is out of my league. I'm mostly an AU and lower end Unc. collector. Pogue has or has had more than a few condition census coins that simply don't fit in with my budget.
Things seem drier now than they ever have been from what I can see. People say that prices are coming down. You hear it all of the place, and yet every item upon which I place a bid goes crazy. The last one was an 1835 quarter eagle (a fairly common date) in PCGS AU-55. The coin had been lightly cleaned and was not super choice. It was in the Heritage mail bid section of the FUN show catalog. I bid the "Coin Facts" retail bid and still didn't get it.
Another well known dealer had an 1835 quarter eagle graded MS-63 with an obvious rub in the obverse fields. He wanted 25 % more than the Coin Facts price and got it soon after the show.
Where are these lower prices? I have no idea.
How much higher than the retail bid did it go?
You want FRESH? The old Wendy's commercial never fails to pop into my head when I see this:
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
There will be more fresh coins. And then at some point, the fresh become fresh again. Ie. coins being resold from the first Eliasberg sale etc.
Owner/Founder GreatCollections
GreatCollections Coin Auctions - Certified Coin Auctions Every Week - Rare Coins & Coin Values
Maybe it's just me ... but did anyone else read the title as "Dearth" instead of "Death"?
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
I saw a never before graded Chalmers Shilling today in Berlin. That is pretty fresh.
Latin American Collection
.... or an expiration date?
The worm that didn't turn?
We should all crack out, mix up, and pass around our coins.
FRESH, man, FRESH !!!!!!!
The winner got it for the next bid increment it was $117.50 over "Coin Facts."
Yes, I was thinking the same thing.
I know where there's an AU+ seated half set that the last coin was added 30 years ago. I also know where a similar set of MS63 barber quarters. Are they graded accurately, any cleaned in there, etc.? I have no idea... and the guy with the half set is extremely secretive and might shoot me if he knew that I knew about it! Lol, and no I'm not kidding.
A good many of my coins are fresh... Freshly dug!
Off the market for over 1000 years!
Had Eliasberg sold his collection in the early '50s, would it have been seen as just a bunch of Clapp sale retreads? Lack of churn makes coins fresh, and it can take a generation for that freshness to be established. There will be fresh coins as long as people are able to resist the pressure to churn their collections.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Maybe only a couple hundred years, but the March DNW sale has a (holed) Lord Baltimore Shilling that was found in Warwickshire.
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
I'm an optimist, I think there are new treasures to be found! After all, the hunt is the best part!
How much time is necessary before coins from those collections are fresh again?
Many of the Bass, Norweb and Pittman along with Eliasberg coins are in close hands off the market. There are many that if they surfaced for the first time since the late 90's early 2000's I'd consider fresh.
Latin American Collection
I agree with this.
If it is something that I've never seen before and I find it appealing; I don't care how long it's been on or off the market.
Coins are 'made' every day both as new submissions and, yes, even upgrades.
This is yet another source of 'freshness'.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
If one posts a picture of a coin several times on the board, then does it now become "stale"?
"Got a flaming heart, can't get my fill"
There is still plenty out there, though not in the same universe as the 'big name' collections.
I know dealers who when they come across something 'cool and unusual' squirrel it away in their private collections rather than add it to stock and have been doing so for years.
My 7070 collection is all raw AU/BU and I haven't added a coin in ~20 years, with the exception of two large cent upgrades - I guess that may someday be a 'fresh deal' for someone.
And at least a dozen of my large cents in my date/major variety collections are in small white ANACS holders, plus a number of raw ones I bought from estate where the owner stopped collecting in the mid-60's. All these are off the radar, as far as auction and TPG records go. I'm guessing there are many other collections like mine out there.
This is a good question. Is freshness more about opportunity to buy or opportunity to view? The OP mentions new discoveries and certainly, many photos could mean less discovery.
In the past, coins could stay out of the public for years or decades without any or good photos. Now with CoinFacts and online auction archives, coins can have beautiful photos up all the time.
I could read it both ways. Dearth would be general lack of long held material coming online. Death would be that there would be no strong holders in the future to create freshness. There was recently another thread discussing the lack of "big name" collectors to replace the ones that have been leaving the hobby.
Father Time has uninterrupted cycles of causing a lot of "strong hands" to weaken enough to either release their numismatic holdings into commerce once again or to bequeath them to their progeny.
- Jim
the term "Fresh" is one of those stuffy words like "Private Treaty" discussed in that other thread. I work in a small shop near a large metropolitan area and we get "Fresh" stuff all the time, some of it even scarcer or high grade. I believe, depending upon where you live, that there are literally millions of coins stashed away which haven't been seen in a generation and may not surface during our lifetime. currently, with prices flat and not really showing any general increases in a while, there seems less reason to sell than there was 10 years ago.
the best stuff like what we see in the big name collections may slow to a trickle, but it is ignorant to believe that those top tier collections comprise the entirety of "Fresh" coins coming to the market-place.
I think the term "Fresh" used by some dealers are the ones that just want to turn a quick profit selling to other dealers. If it has made the rounds to other dealers it's not "Fresh" to them because it has already been offered to most of their clients!