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What's Hot and What's Not
Elmhurst
Posts: 777 ✭✭✭
I'd like to ask the forum for their opinions on what countries or areas of collecting are increasing in value and/or popularity, and which are going down. Not asking for anyone's favorites, just an objective opinion on the world coin market.
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Edited to remove most of my comments because I have reason to believe that my analysis is based on too limited of an exposure.
But, I stand behind this:
The truly special pieces in most areas will always be hot.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Basically this
Latin American Collection
There's a bit of speculation about Cuba that's driving the prices up a bit. It's a long game, though, but if I had extra cash - I would at least try to pick-up a gem ABC peso.
8 Reales Madness Collection
EVP - I argue that every category you have mentioned as well as ancients has bifurcated to choice pieces fetching moon money while replaceable pieces (now more in slabs) softening. The collector base in the US is limited as it is, and with a stronger dollar, some of these are no longer attractive for foreign buyers. Gradeflation with less of a premium on mid-grade. The D. Moore sale illustrates the difference in price points for quality,
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
I've got an NGC MS65 1935 I believe it's a top pop with 4 graded as such! Can't list it on ebay so it's sitting waiting for a new home!
As a Latin American collector, I see very strong prices for outstanding top material very similar to other series. Top material in all series is doing quite well.
Latin American Collection
Yep, from Latin America to gem elusive Swiss pieces and from Greece to Great Britain, it's the same mantra all over. Exceptional stuff brings exceptional money. For more modest choices, there's big varieties from countries to countries and within the same country.
myEbay
DPOTD 3
I personally,after thinking about it for awhile, think the slowest market is the German Empire 1Pfg - I Mark pieces. Can't even get the "give me for free" lowball offers on ebay!
Quality sells
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I would add that the collected countries have seen growth in the general population reports, reaching some level of saturation, while less sought after pieces have a very thin base for slab/grade drive pricing. I would imagine the Mexican pop reports being massive and crackout regarding dynamics making them even bigger. There is, in my view, a shortfall in the grading system in reflecting eye appeal. No two coins are alike and technical grading fails to adequately capture eye appeal with certain collectors simply pricing based on slab #.
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Ancient Custom Set
Quality-value differentiation is a bit of a tangent to the OP question, but maybe we need a true CAC-like service for certified non-US?
Of course, there is no chance I'll get my precious Anglo-Saxon pieces certified. I don't even like my less ancient coins certified but that is almost always how they are sold these days and I choose to tolerate the plastic entombments for them.
Back on topic: I think the non-US market doldrums are equivalent to that experienced on the US side and is due to a confluence of events the two primary (IMHO) are the still recovering economy of well paying jobs and the ongoing TPG penetration.
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
1) Aging/dying collector base
2) Fewer collectors entering the market to replace, millennials not as much into ownership/history
3) Larger collections sold in recent years
4) Higher emphasis on technical grading to substantiate value
5) Sluggish economy, stronger dollar, doesn't help
6) Limited liquidity for coins, hurts prices, as it limits overall purchasing capacities. For collectors, other than auction house path, there is little to do as dealers are reluctant to build a meaningful inventory, and Ebay has become a terrible place.
7) Positive factors:
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
I could spend hours on this thread, but I only have a few minutes to spare right now. So to get started, I'll address Z's #6. Coins of are actually extraordinarily liquid, with two major exceptions: overgraded coins and auction retreads. Or to put it another way, a fresh deal of almost anything will sell quickly as long as it's graded and priced at realistic levels.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Interesting insight...
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Andy - I beg to differ perhaps as I am speaking from the collector standpoint. Of course that unique, exceptional, material will be sought after, yet that is not the market I am referring to. That market has a clear path to the auction or brokered through private treaty.
Liquidity should be measured for the entire market not the exception. Of course a dealer would love to buy a coin or collection unique and cheap enough to quickly turn for a profit rather than tie up capital. I refer to liquidity as the ability to sell, at will, getting paid within a reasonable timeframe. Dealers at the NY Show were very much sales oriented, hesitant to even consider buying, more so the Europeans. Ebay is probably the only immediate venue, as dealers will ONLY take on coins they have a ready buyer for or on consignment, regardless of price that is offered to them. Why? liquidity, no different than us collectors.
Very few dealers hold a broad inventory - the only one with such inventory these days is Atlas. Otherwise, any worthwhile material seems to be immediately consigned to the auctions, and in many cases, multiple auctions. The show floor at the NYINC had very little to look at for that reason.
Solve the liquidity issues for collectors and dealers alike in the broader collecting universe, you make the market far more robust.
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Ancient Custom Set
Again, I can't address it all right now, but a few more thoughts.
Try buying the best of the best at a major auction and reselling it to a dealer anytime in the next year. You'll find that most dealers are completely uninterested, and those that are will most likely not be interested unless there is a significant discount to the auction price. It's not because there's anything wrong with the coin, but because the auction price record will get in the way of them reselling the coin for a profit.
As for selling less-than-stellar material, it's easy. You just have to know how to price it - which is often less than you might think - and where to sell it. And if you've been paying too much for mediocre coins and finding it difficult to find takers, I can see how you might think that it's a sign of market weakness, and not a sign that you paid too much. That's human nature.
Finally, understand that when a dealer shows no interest in buying your coins, it's usually not because he does not want to buy your coins. More often, it's because he's summed up the situation and decided that it's very unlikely that you'll sell at a level that would work for him. Dealers don't want to waste their time, they don't want to waste your time, and they don't want to do anything that might discourage you from offering them something more interesting in the future.
FWIW, I will buy almost anything. I don't even try on 99% of the coins I see at a coin show, but In more promising situations I will try to buy it all.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Hmmm, interesting points but Andy I think as you say, coins can be liquid but as with the non-stellar (but even quite good coins) I think collectors such as us are not talking firesale prices at mere fractions of what is deemed a fair purchase price.
Well, just Love coins, period.
It's easy to pay too much for a coin, and even easier to find someone who wants to pay too little. That doesn't make the market illiquid, just inefficient.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Andy, how is it that I see materials purchased on auction by a dealer immediately posted for resale at 30-100% markup and sold. The freshness argument doesn't seem to hold as I can pretty much trace every coin to the recent auction it was purchased on.
I agree with 7Jaguars that no one wants to firesale good coins to a dealer as they are better off running it through auction. I believe the issue is the discount one will be willing to accept for immediate cash, which currently is way to steep. Inefficiency of a market is an understatement.
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Ancient Custom Set
If it truly sold , I think a lot of them just appear to have sold .
The matter of inefficiency vs illiquidity seems a bit like splitting hairs to me.
However, if the dealers are too often complaining about cash flow issues, then is it really worth differentiating inefficiency, illiquidity and their causal directionality?
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
I see inefficiency as the difficulty of of finding a buyer in the vicinity of "current levels". Illiquidity indicates that there are no buyers to be found in the vicinity of "current levels". A big difference, as far as I'm concerned.
If a dealer is having cash flow problems, it's because he's doing something wrong. (This I know from extensive first-hand experience.) But there are always dealers out there with plenty of capital, and they (as a group) will buy absolutely anything that makes sense .
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
@MrEureka (Andy),
Please forgive me for being dense, but I do not clearly see the difference between "difficulty of finding a buyer in the vicinity of current levels" and "no buyers to be found in the vicinity of current levels".
Let's construct a scenario with actual numbers: a 1794 dollar, PCGS F12 with nondescript eye appeal and no CAC sticker, priced at $200K. Can you fill in some more elucidating details for both "inefficiency" and "illiquidity" based on my scenario outline?
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
No he can not, this is the darkside!
I seriously like this thread!
Or, an 1486 AG Guldiner, NGC VF20 with nondescript eye appeal and no WINGS sticker, priced at $20K.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Andy and the marvelous EVP - dealers migrate to what their client base wants at a given point of time. They don't buy what they cant foresee selling. This by definition limits their scope and appetite for coins. Auction houses are market neutral as their sole investment is overhead in putting the catalog together, where incremental cost is reduced with volume. This is why we have seen catalogs continue to inflate in size. Not too far back, Ebay resolved the need for liquidation, yet behavioral and structural elements in the platform have diminished its value. No other venue exists to access liquidity against coins - banks do not lend against them. A quick scan of dealer inventories (except Atlas) shows a real thin offering and hold time.
I argue that dealers have taken the path of safety - buy what you can move to your client base, with the residual unsold inventory consigned to the auction house after a few months. A dealer is as good as his client base and most dealers do little marketing, other than a few shows a year, have a very basic website or outreach. Shows have seen collectors attendance drop, as many prefer spending the funds remotely via auction rather than travel. Certain dealers are truly LAZY or perhaps complacent. The ones that work very hard, earn the business, and acquire the long term clients as in most businesses. The collectors, however, upon selling, have less leverage via auction house in terms of fees/advances and as important, placement and/or reserve in catalog. What both dealers and auction houses fail to see, is that this market inefficiency reduces overall support for auction bidding and overall price points - the current model weakens liquidity for the market as a whole, putting pricing pressure on offered supply, especially given catalogs being MUCH bigger - a real liquidity trap, no different than any other market. I anticipate that the result of the above is/will lead to a pushback by consignors and/or insistence on reserves which will reset supply/demand balance.
If you can't move coins within a reasonable timeframe, you cant buy new ones unless you have infinite funds, which I assume Andy's clients have. Most of us mortals do not have unlimited funding, which is the focus of this discussion. This decision is no different than reallocating a stock portfolio (maximum liquidity), real estate investing (more liquid and income producing) and coins (illiquid and non income producing). The day that Amazon (or someone that has the trust and fulfillment function) builds a true collectibles business, this will be resolved, which is what Ebay should have continued doing. If you add a layer of consistency, security and fulfillment, it will change the market. Not sure our little market is currently on anyone's radar, however, other markets as art, real estate, vintage cars and others are being disrupted where the name of the game is to facilitate liquidity for product which is being sold on one side, and aggregate global demand on the other.
To sum up - When EVP tells me "I am broke" and can not buy a certain coins, what he truly means is that he has no access to readily available funds to spend as he can not raise cash fast enough to support his buying.
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Ancient Custom Set
I am an IT person in real life, so I get paid handsomely to play with computers for a living. @Zohar is a generalist business person and @MrEureka (Andy) is a coin business person. As @marcmoish said, this is a good thread. Bring out the popcorn.
Since I am a foil in Zohar's analysis, I should point out that his comment referencing me is largely accurate. But, in Andy's defense, I am not a dealer. Maybe this analysis can be further parsed into a professional side and a collector side.
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Sure. At 200K, it won't sell anywhere. Not to a dealer at NYINC, not to a dealer at Long Beach, and probably not even at auction. But if you approach the hundred most likely buyers at NYINC, you'll get half a dozen offers, probably ranging from 100-125K. At Long Beach, the hundred discussions will get you a dozen or more offers, probably ranging from 100-135K. And at auction, you'll do no work, hundreds of serious buyers will at least consider bidding, and the coin will probably bring 150-160K total. (You would net less, of course.)
The bottom line is that offering coins to one person at a time is typically an inefficient way to market a coin, unless you really know most of the players.
As for liquidity, the buyers making the offers can probably all afford to back them up with a good check. Same goes for the bidders at auction. Plenty of money in this world. The only thing that is likely to prevent a sale is your unwillingness to sell.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Zohar - You're right that dealers now sell more through auctions, but that's because the auctions have become so much more efficient in both cost and reach. And because internet-enabled auctions have such reach, the size of the market has increased, and prices are substantially higher than they were a decade ago. Yes, the market for many coins has backed off in the past couple of years, but I'd attribute that more to the market's learning curve than to anything else. (We're quickly learning that a lot of coins aren't as special as we thought.) As for the future, you're right that further increases in market efficiency and liquidity would tend to drive prices higher. But as I've tried to explain, increasing efficiency is already the trend.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
BTW, when it comes to third-party grading and 21st Century coin collecting, the world coin market is probably about a decade behind the US coin market. Those who have closely followed the US market should have some great insight into what the future holds for the world coin market.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Interesting thread. I would suggest that the World market is further than 10 years behind the US market. And the real change is yet to come given that the World has become far smaller and interdependent. There is still much to learn and appreciate with World coins whereas the US market is mature with far fewer mysteries.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Andy,
1) Dealers selling through auctions (longer sales cycle) = reduced liquidity for all, yet dealers probably benefit from advances at affordable rates and maxing of the bid/ask spread (gains). The price you pay is a a longer sales cycle which hopefully materializes in positive outcomes in auction.
The dealers dependency on auctions as their primary distribution at this rate means that the market is really a duopoly at best.
2) Increased efficiency - what has changed to effect more efficiency other than auction house technology and ability to research a coin's price/relative scarcity? There is still no peer-to-peer connectivity between buyer seller (dealer/collector etc)
3) Coin grading impact:
This thread is timely and would make for a great dinner discussion! See you in Baltimore!
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
You may be right about the "10 years" thing. Can't say I tried to be exact. But what I do know is that the next ten years will be a whole lot faster than the last ten years, so we'll probably be catching up faster than anyone expects.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I completely agree Andy... The pace of technology combined with the rise of global auctions will expedite the development for the world coin market.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Zohar you have a way of asking the tough questions... And there seems to be speculative answers at best. Populations for many world coins will increase and I suspect we will develop a further appreciation for condition rarity and the range in value that will emerge. And perhaps one of the biggest questions will be whether price multiples based on condition rarity follow what has transpired in the US Market. I suspect part of the answer will depend on the following a country and series has among collectors.
The other issue is demographics. I remain underwhelmed that there seems to be minimal interest and conviction among younger people with history and collrctibles in general. But in thinking about this, it seems that younger people have their life to think about... Where they are going and what they want to make of it. In some ways perhaps it is something that happens with time and experience. It might be compared to things like classical music, opera or even jazz. I think more people will develop an interest in collecting and that may not happen until later in life. And I think this might explain in part the number of older people that are seen at coin shows, antique shows or even at the symphony or opera.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Main difference in my opinion is that coins are less needed with the expansion of digital payments. Exposure and appreciation for the metal at an early age opens the door to collecting later on. As a father of young girls, I am not familiar with a single kid who is into collecting of any sort. I bet in the 1950s it was mainstream - coins, stamps, baseball cards, comics were quite common as acceptable hobbies. On one hand we have technology, grading and accessibility on a global scale, on the other, reduced interest. My biased concern is that society is growing numb with the abundance of "virtual" interactions, placing the physical aspect of collecting in the less desired or interesting bucket. Maybe this is what prior generations said of us, yet this one feels a bit different.
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Ancient Custom Set
Hot - My desire to collect coins
Not - My desire to worry about price liquidity, millennials, markets, etc.
When you tire of talking about all of this stuff, you should cool off the fingers and just go buy a coin. It will make you feel better.
P.S. I have tons of friends who spend tons of money on other "hobbies" like hunting and fishing, and I can assure you, the mounted deer head and large mouth bass on a plaque don't have much resale value. The key is the other hobbyists really don't care if there is a monetary gain at the end of it all. They are in it for the pleasure it gives them.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
We are having a marketplace dynamics related discussion so no need to explain the obvious, we all love coins.
I guess you have unlimited funds.. then your premise makes absolute sense.
In a world where budgets have meaning liquidity is an issue as tradeoffs are part of any decision.
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Ancient Custom Set
It's pretty simple. I buy coins when I can afford them. My budget would be the antithesis of "unlimited." But, if I thought about all of those things mentioned every time I had the opportunity to buy a coin, I would probably not do this much longer. I have had some duds, but I have had plenty of home runs. I enjoy the learning experience and process and In the end, if I break even, it would be fine. I still have really enjoyed myself and that has to have value, even if it is not monetary.
Also, Zohar, I was not speaking directly to you in my first response (as it might seem), I meant it as a proverbial "you."
You (meaning y'all - people writing their theses in this thread
) should go buy a coin and enjoy it for what it is.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
1) You are implying this issue troubles me every time I buy a coin. You are wrong.
2) You are implying I am looking at a profit of a sort. You are wrong.
3) You are implying that I don't enjoy it for the coins. You are wrong.
Lastly, the thread discussed market and evolved to longer term assumptions. If you found the market related thread not relevant to your collecting rationale, why dismiss it? Some of us find the market evolution/demographics/discussion fascinating as much as the coins themselves.
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
Again, as I mentioned, I was not speaking to you directly. I would agree that I do not know anything about you or your thoughts about purchasing coins, which is why when I sensed you were responding directly to my statement, I mentioned that I was not speaking directly to you. Furthermore, how am I dismissing the thread just because I offered something counter to your opinion? I just don't feel like writing a book to explain my side so I "Big Pictured" it. So, in summation, a person can worry about the 30 or so points that you have mentioned when they build their collection, or they can centralize the decision around the simple parts of this process - See coin, Like coin, Afford coin, Buy coin.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
I really don't want to get into the market discussion because the amount of writing it would require is way past my desire to do so, but, if we are talking about the coin market, shouldn't we include the whole market? It seems we are limiting the discussion to the "seen." I can only speak from my perspective and experience and that tells me that at least 75% (some may argue a higher number, but I will be nice) of this market is cash and handshakes.
https://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/collectors-showcase/world-coins/one-coin-per-year-1600-2017/2422
Third party grading has been a big factor. eBay Shops, MA-Shops, CU's Collectors Corner and probably a number of other smaller players provide non-auction peer-to-peer connectivity. And then there are the thousands of dealer websites, all relatively new to the world. But I don't doubt that there is more to be done.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I don't think that you can reasonably assume that all of those coins sold at the full asking price, or even that they sold at all. But obviously enough of them sold for enough of a profit that it's still a viable business model.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
This is an issue on this forum lately , even though your post comes before Zohar's second post it is timestamped later. So I think he was replying to your first post , not your second.
There were a few threads last week in the US coin forum where I replied to a post but my reply slotted in above the post I replied to . Later on though it appeared to have been reordered , I thought I was imagining things at the time.
Edited to add I think I described that in reverse , unless the order of posts flipped as I wrote.
, Anyway one of you didn't see the post that it looked like you replied to.
What's Hot: What I want to buy
What's Not: What I want to sell
I'd say that sums it up very well, Stork!
Isn't that the case!
Well, it is liquid at firesale prices anyway.
Well, just Love coins, period.
I went to my first coin show in years recently.
I used to be extraordinarily fast at scanning coins and one of the things I always did at shows was to scan all the dealers' foreign coins looking for nice modern Gems at any price and unusual BU coins cheap. I'd come home from most shows with 50 or hundred such coins.
Now many of these coins have extremely high catalog values. "Common" Indian aluminum went from 25c each to several hundred dollars (unfortunately I never located the best of them)(of course). Early modern Soviet coins have done the same thing as well as other world moderns like Germany.
At this recent show two things struck me about this market; there are no longer Gem cheap moderns for sale and moderns that went up significantly are hardly in evidence at all and when they are they are priced near catalog.
This suggests to me that not only is my assessment that most modern coins are scarce except those you can buy by the bucket but there is a lot of collecting going on, as well as a sort of low key buying panic.
Of course moderns are far off the radar of traditional collectors but eventually this is going to spread. First to the earlier 20th century base metal coins and then to all 19th and 20th century world coins. Eventually it will even encompass all world coins including ancients. It should be remembered that we now have millions of newbies collecting in this country and worldwide. Newbies generally branch out and collect more diverse areas as they mature. This bodes very well for all aspects of the hobby except common older coins and especially those in circulated or typical condition. Everything else should experience lots of new demand (greater than current demand) as the hobby is transformed by a new generation of collectors over the next decade.
I would agree with Andy that the world coin market can be inefficient (if it were perfectly efficient most dealers couldn't survive).
A few points:
-Despite the proliferation of live bidding systems and high resolution photographs it is still completely different to view a coin online than in person. A photograph cannot adequately capture the surface qualities of a coin. This is one reason that world coins dealers rack up so many air miles.
-Calculating and submitting many auction bids is a time-consuming process. Inevitably not every potential bidder calculates his or her top price on every item. This can result in items selling below optimal levels, especially in large auctions.
-Convenience is a large factor in the liquidity/illiquidity of coins. This is why many dealers are willing to schlep inventory around the world (at considerable expense). Of course the large auction houses all ship overseas but they generally don't schedule lot viewing sessions abroad for domestic (US) sales. This is one reason why Stacks and Heritage now both hold specialized auctions in Hong Kong (even though Hong Kong has no duties on coins and bidders there could easily view the items online and bid remotely).