Has anyone destroyed coins to up the rarity of their collection?
Coinstartled
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Not among the forum elite of course, but in the annals of numismatics.
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Seems like any gain in the value of retained coins would never be matched by the value lost in the destroyed ones. Unless you count the U.S. government rounding up all those stray 1933 Double Eagles and melting them, and then eventually taking their hefty cut at the 2002 sale.
Value might not be the issue. Some collectors are rarity freaks.
Instead, secretly buy all that is available and become a "market maker" for any others that show up.
Slowly sell what you have over a long period of time. Tell no one of your stash or plans.
I once counter stamped 100 unc. 1978 cents with my initials so hopefully somebody saved a few of the 3.7 billion philly made that year
Successful trades.... MichaelDixon,
Naw, what people do instead of destroying them is hoard them.. This creates a false sense of rarity sometimes..
How's this for mating the "hoarding" angle with the "destruction" angle:
Actually when platinum hit $2,000/oz in 2008 I sold 50K+ of 2006-w 2007-w 1/2 and 1 oz. SP ans PR for spot.
All sold with no box, papers and small scratch on edges.
P.S. I've wondered if I might have sold a frosted freedom 2007-W PR........................they were not recognized at the time and I was in a hurry.............Probably not as all of mine came from 4 coin sets.
Why?
Money.
30-50% gain in 4-16 months.
I agree.
A bit off topic, but I seem to remember a TV episode from the late 1960s or early 1970s ... maybe a MacMillan and Wife or Columbo or some such thing ... in which a man acquires each of two known examples of a certain stamp issue, then burns one so that his remaining stamp is unique. Can anyone refresh my memory on this?
That's 2 minutes I will never get back!
The thought has probably crossed the mind of the guy with the 1909 VDB proof hoard.
Anyone hear anything on what happened to those coins?
I haven't been following auction pricing, has it been effected in the last few years?
Was thinking about the Library of Congress bimetal business strikes. Under 7300 minted and available at $1100 or so. Melt is about half that so a significant amount of the investment would be recovered.
Of course acquiring large quantities would drive up the price.
Scrooge McDuck had a million dollar plan and acquired all of the Balbonian Nickels. He dumped all but one of them into the ocean and when he tried to sell it, he was told that it was so rare that no one on earth could afford it except for Scrooge McDuck!!!
Entirely possible... I was bartending and the owner ran out of drink chips, He ordered more but told me it would be a couple weeks so I stamped these up just for the regulars in place of them... I still have some of the ones that came back in trade.. I'm sure a few just ended up in peoples change (kinda what I was banking on).
Successful trades.... MichaelDixon,
I was doing that with 1964-D 5 cent coins, until the price of copper collapsed.
In many cases, I'd guess you'd lose more money destroying one coin than the gain on the remaining coins.
The Hunt Brothers tried something similar with silver and some people lost a lot of money during that fiasco... though they were not destroying any... just cornering the market... or trying to. With coins, it could work, if all the angles were properly addressed. Cheers, RickO
Consider the 1913 Liberty Nickel. Col Green I recall, owned all 5. Market was probably $1000 each. Green was a multi millionaire and could have created a single piece by deep sixing the other four. The value of the remaining coin may not have quintupled instantly, but the relative cost to him would have been minimal.
Rather spend the extra time and thought processes doing the wheel bearings and brake pads on my car. (which , since I'm a DIYer.... will do soon)
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Never a bad time to buy, at these levels. (note to collector)
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
not destruction, but former member Russ wanted to be buried with a significant grade rarity.
The 1885 trade dollar (5 made) has usually sold for more than double the price of the 1884 (10 made). They are usually kept as a pair by the 1885 owners. Can you imagine owning all the 1884's and destroying six of them so as to create competition amongst the 1885 owners for the coin? The price would triple
yes, why and why spend that type of money to do that?
Looking at the PCGS Price Guide, they list 8 different grades/prices:
450k
525k
550k
585k
700k
750k
900k
1250k
To get to 10, let's assume the other two are the least valuable at 450k.
Destroying the bottom six would cost 3.01M
Assuming the other 4 tripled in price, the increase would be 7.2M
The profit would be 4.19M
Damn you, Coinstartled!!!
This will all be on YOU, you know......
And imagine the Youtube pay per view revenue on the day of the event!
Some of the things I've done have had that effect even though it was never my intention.
I used to get rolls and bags at the bank as well as acquire them from the market. One of my favorite coins was always the '82-P quarter and I'd spot check various sources by acquiring a roll. When the coins were garbage they'd just go into circulation while I kept the superior examples. If all those I put into circulation were still around the '82-P wouldn't be quite as tough to find in BU. It raised the cost basis of the couple hundred I saved quite bit but in those days it was far too expensive to hold onto huge amounts of junk when no one knew if even the nice examples would ever have any demand. Interest rates and inflation was high and just ate up the value of any coins you wanted to save and safety deposit boxes are expensive.
I've got examples of nice coins from ten or twelve different die pairs from about eight different sources. Incredibly three were from a single bag. By the way I'd call the best which is in my collection a "near Gem". This best one is head and shoulders nicer than the second best. While the services call the junk that comes out of souvenir sets "MS-67" in some cases. There are a few clean coins in souvenir sets but no good strikes from good dies.
I have tried to control the market on a few modern items. Two examples are as follows as I have distributed my hoard.
Years ago you could buy huge lots BU off center cents. Not so much anymore. I got into one wholesale seller where I bought thousands of BU off center cents. About half way though my purchases from this seller, I notice that one of the off center year 2000 cent was indeed a variety, the Type 2, Wide AM, Proof reverse. I quickly started checking my other off center cents and other error cents dated 2000 and found many examples. This turned a $4 coin into a $100 coin. I then proceeded to buy and bid on all the off center lots this seller had, until they ran out, many years ago. I told no one of the hoard and distributed it very slowly into the market. I still have the best examples for myself. I have double struck, huge broadstruck, off center with indent, and way off centers.
Another is when I bought wholesale lots of Sacagawea dollars waffled canceled by the US Mint. I also bought up all the ongoing auctions of that coin to be a market maker of that coin. At the same time a ran one coin and only one coin a week for a couple of years until my hoard ran out.
I've got my coins in my lunchbox and am headed to the railroad track like when I was a kid.
Where do I go to subscribe to the "Sneaky Devil Gazette?"
Its called running a profitable business.
Just don't melt any of the pennies or nickels!
_do hobo coins count
_
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
When Canada removed the penny from circulation in 2012, there was ( still is) a wealthy buyer out of Toronto buying up hoards of Canadian common date pennies, in an effort to corner the market..... on Pennies....
if anyone has his contact info I have a bridge made of pennies I would like to sell him.
all around collector of many fine things
Didn't we just have a for a member return about 17 National Parks gold $5 coins so they would be the new key? It actually worked.
Ahhhh.... I knew there was a catch.
I remember a dealer from Stockton, CA who ......a very long time ago..... tried to corner 20c pieces.
nope.
I once dissolved a clad quarter in nitric acid.
That might cover it.
@TwoSides2aCoin
Online a NGC MS69 is selling for 28.
I remember watching that, but can't recall which show it was. I think I can rule out McMillan and Wife though, since I hated that show and never watched it.
Coin Rarities Online
When the supply was constrained, did you notice any appreciable uptick in price? I would imagine that at least you kept from flooding the market during your selloff.
Does anyone have an 1860 Clark Gruber $20 "pyramid" copper die trial they want to sell
Cornering market with a profit..........
The problem is not just the acquiring the coins without driving price up but perhaps more importantly disposing them without driving price down.
I do believe at present the spouse gold would be best bet.
Low mintage with tight spread between 25-50 coins for low mintage king.
Mint production is now limited to runs of around 2500 coins +/- 500 for each issue in PR/MS
Buyers are now used to issues being available for months on end.
Take last issue of calendar year............the closer to new year it comes out the better.
Wait til last couple days of Dec. and buy all remaining inventory from mint.
Numbers published weekly.
Have several high limit credit cards ready with different mailing addresses.
Hit the online site, phone lines, big dealers and U.S. Mint kiosk all in 1 day.
That solves problem of acquiring without driving price up.
Being late Dec. it is too late for mint to strike more..............
Coins going dark will start press and online chatter frenzy.
Wait a few weeks and post a youtube video of you using a hammer to counter punch several hundred of them.
.......in time the counter struck coins might have value beyond bullion
This defacement is key.........destruction/defacement to reduce population must be seen as real.
Rest is market driven.
Need will be to remove 30-50% of mintage leaving a new deep, deep key and a lot of frenzy, message board chatter and free numismatic press.
Could be done with max. $200,000 investment loss against cost of about $800,000 to acquire ~1,000 coins.
The $200,000 max loss represents the difference between bullion value and mint cost.
Absolute max. loss......currently $820 cost for 1/2 oz gold with spot of ~1250........$200/coin
I'm kinda surprised someone hasn't done it yet.
or have they........................
A little icing on deal would be to counter punch or deface only those coins which on inspection you felt would not score PR/MS70.
Hold off on grading the rest until price spiked then have them graded in batches of 5-10 coins so as to not blow out populations.
Unfortunately, the Spouse series has ended. A few modern ones, from Bess Truman on, are still available from the Mint, but a sufficient number have been sold to make cornering the market difficult to impossible. Mintages on some of them are low enough to make price rises possible if demand for the series increases in the future.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
Wow, I'm not the only one who thought of counterpunching first spouse coins! I was thinking of doing a counter punch with a number. Like 1 of 10 or something. Dealers will never give you more than melt anyway for these coins, so why not?