Coin Market vs. Other Collectible/Antique Markets Over Last 3 Years
C0inCollect0r
Posts: 374 ✭✭
Hi folks,
I was just curious to hear your opinions on how the general state of the coin market over the past 3 years has compared to other comparable collectibles/hard asset markets (antiques, art, jewelry, vintage cars, etc).
It seems that the coin market has generally been in significant overall decline over this period according to the PCGS 3000, auction results, etc (of course this is a generalization - obviously some coins have increased in price but I am referring to the overall trend).
I am not familiar with how other similar hard asset markets have been performing - Have they seen comparable price declines or have they instead seen general price increases over this period?
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For space memorabilia the more generic items (pieces of flown kapton foil, film, flight patches, Fliteline and Robbins medallions etc.) have held stable to slightly upward, while the tougher "Types" (flown checklists, flown hardware etc.) have been on a significant uptrend.
U.S. Type Set
Classic cars have been making a come back. I have noticed over the decades that the classic car market generally follows the real estate market. Can't say about antiques but notice items a bit pricey when I follow the Wifey into those places. I look for US coins but they are usually priced above retail. The coin market has a huge supply and is thinly traded. BUT, there are parts that are red hot. Carson City coins for example. A spike in bullion should improve interest. other will chime in. Cheers.
100% Positive BST transactions
I think all collectibles markets under pressure from the internet. The ability to easily research auction prices eliminates those islands of ignorance that many professionals in the collectibles business profited from. Collectibles markets more akin to the stock market now (at least those that have multiple versions of same item, art being different of course). Stocks use to trade at different prices in different markets too but technology has eliminated that. Same with collectibles. My top two reasons for the decline in the coin market would be the internet for the reason mentioned above and the flood of new issues outstripping demand. I love the classic coins but had to have slabbed 70 2017-S Silver Eagle and the 2017-S SP set. That's money that didn't go into wheats, mercs and Morgans. I'm a collector for life and don't really obsess on the price trends. If a 67+ comes up I need for a registry set happy to buy cheap and take a loss on the 67 I already own.
Younger folks these days have little interest in antique furniture and silver serving flatware/silverware. That stuff's clogging the market.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
For your top two reasons (a) internet and (b) flood of new issues outstripping demand, at least the latter is contributing to purchases in the the hobby. In your example, although you did not buy wheats, mercs or Morgans, you still purchased coins!
Wholesale or retail? Many other collectible areas have retail markups that are MUCH higher than those seen in the coin market. I recall an antique dealer I knew about 40 years ago saying that he bought with a 20 year turn in mind!
Rush towards true rarity, quality (market preferred) and age appropriate patina. It has sent the blue chips soaring and the normal meat and potatoes wallowing
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
I can tell you the firearms market has slowed - that is sales - but the prices have not decreased. Even in the used market the prices are holding, and in certain sectors, have appreciated. Cheers, RickO
It’s been a hobby most of my life. As a market goes, it’s more like a racket.
Today’s youth do not want collectibles, they are in a throw away mode set. Buy it from Ikea and throw it away when your tired of it. I read some 30,000 older family’s a day are downsizing and all are getting rid of their things “antique furniture, Lladros, silver flatware, etc”, and nobody wants it. Check Ebay and other sites, tons of stuff. Chicago used to have 3 or 4 major antique shows at the Rosemont convention site where the ANA show were held, with long waiting lists for booths. Slowly they dwindled down and now for several years there are NONE. Many collectibles that used to be “RARE” can be found on the Bay by the dozens or hundreds. It a whole ew world out there.
Most people I know are busy buying BS on Zuckerberg’s site.
Me and my sibs have been trying to liquidate my Dad's estate for about four years. My Dad was very successful and, in material terms, he kinda tried to live like his well-off maternal grandparents - nice upper middle class furniture from the era 1875-1925, and lots of nice porcelain dishes, plates, etc. Dad inherited a bit of his grandparents stuff, but he put a fair amount of his own money into all this additional antique-y stuff. I know that my Dad thought he was leaving all of us some quite financially valuable stuff.
Over the last four years, my sibs and I have found all this nice stuff to be virtually unsalable, not even bringing ten cents in the dollar compared to what Dad paid in the 1970s and 1980s. I have tried to keep what I could, but I have space issues too.
I know lots and lots of people around sixty years of age who are in the same boat. They have inherited nice things, especially old furniture, and they can hardly give the stuff away.
My Dad's large silver dollar collection (mostly Morgans) was one of the few things that was easy to sell - after I chose a couple of hundred coins that were worth keeping (and paid my Sibs their shares too).
I'm not seeking condolences, just want to relate my experience.
You may be confusing Messrs. Zuckerberg and Bezos. The former is FB and the latter is Amazon.
I'm in a similar situation with a hoarders estate of electronics, books, guns, and tools. Nothing goes for what would seem to be a fair price.
I have touched on this before on this site. What BillDugan has stated is a reality that has become the norm. I have been involved with doing estate sales for sometime now and it has changed drastically. Same for eBay, mark it down pennies to the dollar and offer free shipping and you might sell it. I'm not a doom and gloom guy, that is just the way it is.
In my area many smaller older homes are being torn down and replaced by "bigfoot" homes that maximize the square footage possible on that lot. My own observation is that many/most of the buyers of these new homes don't need the additional square footage.
Are the buyers of these homes buying "old stuff" to fill the space. Not from what I can see. What hey appear to buy is "new stuff" and not enough of that to fill the house.
I am hearing from many dealers that they can buy numismatics at reasonable prices but buyers are becoming scarcer. I wouldn't want to have money tied up in risky antiques, classic cars or other hard to value items. If anything those are doing less good than numismatics.
I'm convinced there are many others out there whether baby boomers, elderly or younger professionals who like to diversify into safe easily stored collectibles with the economic storms of the last 20 years. Tradition, beauty, precious metals, etc. sell. I wouldn't want to be tied up in investments that everyone else is grouped up on or in some dinosaur house or property in the right zip code. Everything goes through cycles, never put your eggs in limited baskets or fall in love with your possessions. Always be ready to sell, give a reasonable share to charity, and reconsider one's holdings. Flexibility.
What Dennis says rings true ("brown furniture" has been dead a long time.) If you're in need of a table or chairs or what have you, such things can be found very cheaply; it's not to a lot of people's tastes any more, but it can often be repurposed, modified and painted, and be right in style, and cheaply! And if it's factory-produced brown furniture a century old or less, you're not ruining anything worthwhile in its original form. As to coins, I'm not sure what the next 50 years will hold exactly, but I like the idea, if collecting anything, to emphasize precious metal content. Not that I don't love minor coinage too, but at least with quantities of common silver and gold, I know that the relative worth will always be easy to calculate, easy to convert to cash as needed. Probably have become a bit of a metals bug in that sense.
The King Of Hobbies endures ....
I didn't mean purchasing anything, BillD. I was referring to " believing what they read."
@TwoSides2aCoin
I see. I use FB a lot to keep up with friends and family, I don't read the news feed unless I have just taken my high blood pressure meds.
Facebook makes me want to drink.
There are several components to this... 1. Demographics is problematic for antiques and certain collectibles in that younger people just simply have no connection to the art and design from earlier decades; 2. Disposable income is more problematic than Everyone realizes; and 3. Rarity is a wild card... Certain collectibles cannot be promoted unless there are enough examples to promote. Think about the 1882-1884 cc Morgan Dollars... These can be promoted whereas other Coins that are truly rare cannot be easily promoted because there are simply not enough to go around.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Speaking AS one of the probable soon-to-be-extinct collector/accumulator/student/dealer/appreciateur of old and neat "stuff" I am at loggerheads even TRYING to figure out what to do with my "stuff."
My kids are in their fifties and my grandkids are in their twenties and I can state categorically that their COMBINED interest in any antiquities or historic artifacts is so close to nil that I doubt it could be measured.
I constructed my trust to leave bullion to the grandkids and collectible stuff to ...kids.
And am now wondering why.
The money will be about the only thing that I think will even be memorable after I'm incinerated.
I have a slight quandary in my present state.
I am still buying stuff that ..... I .....consider "neat." If only to justify my working my butt off to be ABLE to buy stuff I like......with the cognizance now that it ONLY matters to me.
But I must do what I enjoy or the whole game was a waste.
I'm appalled by the apparent inability of the millennial generation (IN GENERAL) to even have ...awareness... of history. Hell, I run into several a day that mystify me how they retain their jobs.
Excuse the rant, but I do think about this quite more than I should.
I doubt there is any ...way... to inculcate interest in historic stuff when faced with the competition of explosive superhero movies without plots or message.
I ....kinda... pity these folks, but can't help thinking that I knew it was coming.
Ah well..................
Don't feel too bad about it topstuf. Some things aren't in our power to change. I still appreciate history, though I am but a Gen Xer. Too old to be a millennial. Congrats on your '48 CAL. piece.
What if this were 1955, you were the age then that you are now, would you still have worries about the kids of that day being more interested in Elvis than something "truly historical"? Maybe it's always been thus.
I come from a midwestern agricultural township/village that was a cohesive little community forty or fifty years ago. Today, it will realistically decently support only about one-quarter of the people that it did forty years ago. The farming is more mechanized (fewer people needed), and the factories at the nearby County seat have almost all closed. Facebook is a good tool to keep in contact with/ keep up with the some decent people who are spread all over the USA now. Most of us are doing okay, but we couldn't have been nearly as prosperous had we stayed at home. Keeping in touch - that's what us oldsters use FB for.
I also use FB to see the posts from the Royal Numismatic Society and Coin World.
I am super wary of FB owner's politics. But I don't drink because of FB - I drink to get a good buzz.
No, originalisbest, I would not be worried in 1955.
I can remember 1955 vividly and the knowledge that the US was the UNASSAILABLE leader of the world.
It's what happened between now and then and yes, I wasted breath trying to warn of impending disaster on many fronts. Mostly economic, as that's what enables lifestyles to be whatever they are.
I got a 1940 proof set for a birthday gift in 1955.
Still have it. It was in a Capital plastic holder when I got it.
My main concern is the basic manufacturing that has left our shores as that's what I consider to be the basis for progress of young folks who may NOT be qualified for more technical (and obsolescence prone) work.
I clipped this cartoon a few days ago as it so neatly coincides with my old fears and warnings.
I may have well saved my breath, as so few want to even take the time to "project" what consequences are for different paths.
....Ah well... (again).....
I hear what you're saying, topstuf. Perhaps the reason many don't want to dwell on why and how things were different and better in '55 (for example) is because wishing won't make it so, no more than I expect to be able to pay under a buck a gallon for gas ever again, or buy a house in a good California coast area for $55K. All I can do is the best I can with the world as it is in front of me.
BTW, pretty '40 proof set!
@topstuf
Germany lost two big wars in the twentieth century and it totally went through the economic/financial wringer twice. Today, seventy years after the last financial purge, it is the leading country in Europe.
England won two big wars in the twentieth century, and that nation is comfortable but it has been knocked down the economic ladder a couple of rungs.
Life goes on, for most people, up to their normal lifespans.
Methinks that you cannot do much more than train your children how to handle money/wealth and perhaps you can leave them some form of productive real estate (maybe in a trust with a smart trustee).
Financial assets and valuable personal property have a way of going "poof" from time-to-time. No need to excessively fear what you can't control.
Bill, I didn't say I drank. It's just that dealing coins and FB steer me in that direction. LOL
I'll admit it - I drink beer and wine. I have done so for forty years (when I started college, the legal drinking age in Urbana was 18). I've told my GP about it, and she thoroughly documents it in my medical records. I'm certain it will be used against me someday, to deny me some treatment. I see no good reason to alter my poor judgements.
But I can't swallow or swill as much as I used to. So I have upped the quality of the ale and also the ABV percentage.
You gotta stay off of eBay if you have had too much. Lots of nice coins on eBay, especially when you are loosened up a little bit. I have never owned a Siberian copper coin, I need one really bad. The urge gets worse about ale #5.
However I don't tell my GP about the OxyContin and all the Snickers bars.
I despise spellchecker.
Well said. Nonetheless, most novice collectors won't know this. Why in the world a dealer would promote something that he/she did not have enough quantity in hand?
It will be valuable again someday but we may not be here to see it.
In the 50's-60's antiques were going to the dump. They regained popularity again in the 70's and 80's.
I'm just going to enjoy my stuff while I can.