What stimulates new coin booms?
dpoole
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Coins and other collectibles wax and wane in popularity.
This is a good time for coin collectors, who are able to acquire erstwhile moderate and common issues for bargain prices.
But as true with most collectibles, coins episodically come to the attention of a broader public, and demand/prices surge.
General economic downturns (such as 2008) compromise discretionary income, and deflationary pressures encourage people to hold on to their cash and lose interest in collectible assets.
But those who know and have lived through some of the history of waxing and waning in coin collecting, what in your view have been the factors that have reignited boom periods in the hobby?
This is a good time for coin collectors, who are able to acquire erstwhile moderate and common issues for bargain prices.
But as true with most collectibles, coins episodically come to the attention of a broader public, and demand/prices surge.
General economic downturns (such as 2008) compromise discretionary income, and deflationary pressures encourage people to hold on to their cash and lose interest in collectible assets.
But those who know and have lived through some of the history of waxing and waning in coin collecting, what in your view have been the factors that have reignited boom periods in the hobby?
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Coins and other collectibles wax and wane in popularity.
This is a good time for coin collectors, who are able to acquire erstwhile moderate and common issues for bargain prices.
But as true with most collectibles, coins episodically come to the attention of a broader public, and demand/prices surge.
General economic downturns (such as 2008) compromise discretionary income, and deflationary pressures encourage people to hold on to their cash and lose interest in collectible assets.
But those who know and have lived through some of the history of waxing and waning in coin collecting, what in your view have been the factors that have reignited boom periods in the hobby?
I don't believe it's a wax and wane in popularity. To me it's all how much money I have that I can spend on coins.
I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this.
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.2) changes in market dynamics. Slabs, Internet, trading markets, COINFACTS.
3) speculation
4) large influx of collectors.
5) strict non-changing grading standards.
That's what got me started back in 2007.
Looking back at my coin collecting history, I was most active buying in the late 1970's, 2007/8, and 2011/12 when I could convert precious metals to coins at a favorable rate. 1980 to 2004 was a long slumber for my coin collecting habit
I am probably an odd duck compared to most other collectors but I just can't seem to separate precious metals from coin collecting.
I also think the bourse floor, coin shops and even the local coin club meetings have way more excitement and people when precious metal prices are rising rapidly. People get excited and are drawn to the hobby indirectly. It is amazing how many more people were active in 2011 locally than now. If the price of silver went to $50 our coin club meetings would be standing room only again and the local coin shop would have people waiting in line to buy and sell.
I can't pin point why 1964 was the perfect watershed year for a coin market mania to peak, especially in better date circ sets like Lincolns, Buffs, BU rolls, etc. But if you look at 16-18 year silver/copper/commodity cycles there might be some truth to that. The stock market would peak in 1966 and then meander back and forth for the next 16 years...possibly close enough to the 1964 coin mania peak....which just happened to coincide with the retirement of 90% silver coinage. Silver prices exceeded $1.00/oz in 1962, the first time since 1920. That barrier may have generated some interest. Silver reached $2.50/oz in 1968. Gold prices rallied a little bit from 1967 to 1969 ($35 to $44/oz). The actions of the London Gold Pool (G-7 nations) dumping 3,000 tonnes of gold on the market from 1961-1968 kept gold's price at bay. There was no such effort placed on containing the price of silver. Still, just the thought that the LGP came into existence in 1961 indicated something was brewing in the metal, commodity, and tangible asset markets that they wanted to keep a lid on.
Historical silver prices
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The price of silver and gold impacts my coin collecting. I get more excited about coins when my precious metal stack is worth a lot more. I inevitably end up selling/trading precious metals and buying coins. Then the price of precious metals goes down and I end up selling/trading a lot of my coins to buy precious metals or just hold my coins and accumulate metals at lower prices..
Looking back at my coin collecting history, I was most active buying in the late 1970's, 2007/8, and 2011/12 when I could convert precious metals to coins at a favorable rate. 1980 to 2004 was a long slumber for my coin collecting habit
I am probably an odd duck compared to most other collectors but I just can't seem to separate precious metals from coin collecting.
I also think the bourse floor, coin shops and even the local coin club meetings have way more excitement and people when precious metal prices are rising rapidly. People get excited and are drawn to the hobby indirectly. It is amazing how many more people were active in 2011 locally than now. If the price of silver went to $50 our coin club meetings would be standing room only again and the local coin shop would have people waiting in line to buy and sell.
Good answer, that's my perception and experience as well, high precious metals prices is the strongest/fastest factor, with changes in coin design and composition also contributing (sometimes these are related, as with the ending of circulating gold, then later silver, then still later, the zinc cent, etc.
I think the state quarters and boom in the minting of novelty PM items will result, someday, in greater interest in rare old coins that actually circulated.
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Me selling something good out of my collection. It's sure to take off shortly thereafter.
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This is a very interesting question that probably does not have a simple answer. Take the late-1950s - early 1960s coin boom. There has never been anything like it since. Very large numbers of the general public became interested in coins as word got around that money could be made by finding coins in circulation or by buying BU rolls of newly issued coins. When this market collapsed in May of 1964 there was a mass exodus from the coin collecting field. The market came back slowly over a period of years as some of the participants who had left the field returned, often again chasing those illusory "big profits". The "investment" market boomed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Grading abuses and wild overclaiming by coin investment hawkers brought about the decline of this market. (I have some great stories about this but won't tell them here in order to protect the guilty.) The advent of slabbing in the mid-1980s, the improvement of the economy after the early 1980s recession (a rather severe one), and the rise of the group investment companies brought renewed interest with, again, profit potential being the draw. The market came crashing down circa 1990 and it was a very hard fall. It took quite some time for recovery to begin and some areas never really did recover to the lofty levels of the late 1980s.
I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this.
There was probably a direct correlation between the booms of the 50s and 60s and coin collecting; the nation was ripping with money that was percolating at most levels. Now what I see in terms of the big money is it is generally going to safe secure certifieds promoted by the leading experts and numismatists at the big auction companies and the smaller operations that move a lot of material on a monthly basis. They have real PR skills and push their collector/investors toward safe, near condition census or registry material, and usually toward very liquid assets which CAC has promoted. The coin shops I know as well as most of the clubs represent the lower end bullion-based material which lower income collector/investors have learned to choose over esoteric rarities.
For me the glossy brochures put out by Blanchard, Jefferson and Co., Ellesmere and the like promoted a vision of great aesthetic coinage with interesting arguments toward their acquisition. Coin World and most of the other numismatic publications have lost most of their subscribers, though certain publications attract serious interest and foster collector/investor interest.