Do a million Americans own at least one slabbed coin?
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
The number seems reasonable as there are what, about 60,000,000 slabbed coins on the market.
0
Comments
Hmmm, idk sounds reasonable or maybe a little high if I had to venture guess. Current pop being 325 mil.
eBay ID-bruceshort978
Successful BST:here and ATS, bumanchu, wdrob, hashtag, KeeNoooo, mikej61, Yonico, Meltdown, BAJJERFAN, Excaliber, lordmarcovan, cucamongacoin, robkool, bradyc, tonedcointrader, mumu, Windycity, astrotrain, tizofthe, overdate, rwyarmch, mkman123, Timbuk3,GBurger717, airplanenut, coinkid855 ,illini420, michaeldixon, Weiss, Morpheus, Deepcoin, Collectorcoins, AUandAG, D.Schwager.
Naw, after thinking a few more minutes. I don't think anybody owns 1 slabbed coin. I don't think there are a million coin collectors in the US, that would take one collector out of 125 house holds.
eBay ID-bruceshort978
Successful BST:here and ATS, bumanchu, wdrob, hashtag, KeeNoooo, mikej61, Yonico, Meltdown, BAJJERFAN, Excaliber, lordmarcovan, cucamongacoin, robkool, bradyc, tonedcointrader, mumu, Windycity, astrotrain, tizofthe, overdate, rwyarmch, mkman123, Timbuk3,GBurger717, airplanenut, coinkid855 ,illini420, michaeldixon, Weiss, Morpheus, Deepcoin, Collectorcoins, AUandAG, D.Schwager.
My guess would be no, way too high. I'm thinking more like 250,000.
I am going to go with yes. I don't really know but I think there are a lot more non-collectors out there than people realize. Go to local auctions that have just a few coins and people buy them for crazy prices. I have seen some slabbed coins at a local auction and probably 10 people bought slabbed coins. If they did any research at all they would know how much they overpaid.
There are also a decent percentage of collectors who regrade the coins for value. And the "Coins' Right" activists who like to set the coins free of their plastic cages. lol
I think the number is correct. Plenty of cheap> @cecropiamoth said:
So 60,000,000 slabs divided by 250,000 collectors is 240 per.
That is a lot of boxes of twenty.
Somebody must buy those modern coins in slabs that are hawked on TV late night..
There must also be mountains of slabbed coins sitting in wholesaler inventories and investment caches.
I dunno about a million Americans but it could be close to that number. I think if you consider worldwide ownership of slabbed coins, then your number is probably low.
No, I doubt that one million people in USA own a slabbed coin.
I'm guessing that 50% of all stabbed coins have been broken out, gone.
I doubt that even 250,000 living Americans have ever paid a significant premium for a numismatic coin, but am not including people who buy directly from the U.S. Mint.
If either of the two leading grading services could get into an exclusive relationship with the U.S. Mint, they would blast the other grading service out of the water in less than one year.
seems way too high.
A million sounds high unless a lot of them are casual slab collectors, similar to SHQ and US Mint collectors. For casual collectors, one thing that would help is the companies giving taking out NGC certified BU ASE ads in non-coin magazines like Popular Mechanics and Newsweek.
The number would be a lot higher if the US Mint sold slabbed coins.
I'd guess 100,000 or fewer.
i would say 50,000 to 100,000 or so
My Coin Blog
My Toned Lincoln Registry Set
Do a million Americans own at least one slabbed coin?
only in some drug induced dream you might be having.
I would say yes
1 Million seems high to me. But I could easily see a half million. It would need to be that many just to support all the TV guys hawking all the ASEs and mint releases. And all the gold sellers are now pushing plastic to investors. And lets face it, now a days these guys represent the bulk of the TPGs business, not dealers and collectors.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
I doubt it. Unless they got one for free, I could not see a million people in America paying for a coin in plastic.
first, a disclaimer --- these numbers are approximate and may be way, way off.
the bulk of collectors in the US tends to be White men over the age of 35. if we agree that those outside of that demographic are so miniscule that they won't affect the dynamic, we can proceed. let's assume that there are 310,000,000 people in the US right now.
under the age of 35 --- approx. 45% = 139,500,000, leaving 170,500,000.
women over 35 --- approx. 51% of that remaining population = 86,955,000.
pop. under 35 + women over 35 = 226,455,000.
subtracted from the overall pop. = 83,545,000.
non-Hispanic whites represent approx. 62% = 51,979,900 potential coin collectors in the US.
I doubt that there are even 100K who collect and would potentially own an encapsulated coin. I am a small-time collector and probably have several hundred of those coins. I feel confident that there are several thousand collectors out there like me. when you start adding up the dealers who have several thousand slabs things start to focus.
Al, here's the other side of your analysis. Let's say that out of the 60,000,000 coins slabbed by the top two TPGs only half remain. With all the Modern coins slabbed where the crackout game is minimal I think that is plausible. And there are many other TPGs too. So lets say 35,000,000 remain slabbed. With only 100,000 collectors that would mean the average collector has 350 slabbed coins. That is highly unlikely IMO.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
Ha ha
Cut out the bullion and moderns, there are probably 5 million/100,000 = 50 per collector
I have 14 siblings, 97 nieces/ nephews , 2 daughters and five grandchildren, to go along with over 125 great nieces and nephews and another dozen or so great greats....I believe I am the only one in my family with a slabbed coin. And pretty certain the only one in this hobby. So my short answer is "no".
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
I want to know who owns the roughly 60,000 slabbed 1938-D buff nickels or the 125,000 slabbed 1904 double eagles.
There's probably an awful lot of slabbed bullion sitting out there in huge hoards too. Not everyone who collects does it like your average forumite here.
Actually, I want to know who owns the unique 1938-D buff nick in a VF30 holder.
Many collectors have no slabbed coins....I have known several (more than five I can recall) who never owned, nor want, a slabbed coin. If I knew 5+ - well, let's just say 5 - then certainly dealers and other collectors must know of such people. That alone reduces the potential slabbed coin owners. Then when you consider the vast amount of slabbed coins owned by dealers and many collectors, that further reduces the odds of a million owning at least one. I have no idea what the final number would be, however, a million would be way too high. Cheers, RickO
No clue what the real number would be, but slabbed coins do get spread around, even to quite a few non-collectors. Lots of slabbed silver eagles and slabbed proof coins are given out at the holidays and for birthdays, graduations, etc. Even Honey Boo Boo has a PCGS slabbed coin
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
I wonder how many people own that much toilet tissue? I have more coins than rolls of TP!
Nobody ever has enough paper towels. Unless that's toliet paper. If TP, well done.
I think everyone is over-estimating the number of cracked coins. Only the most high end coins are worth cracking, and even then that's a subset of a small group. Millions of slabbed coins are on moderns and bullion. Stuff that you would just sell before cracking.
I also think that collectors that don't have a single slabbed coin are a small portion of the collector population. I've even had a few slabs given to me over time.
IG: DeCourcyCoinsEbay: neilrobertson
"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me
Really....less than 1 in a thousand? Many of my non collecting friends have a morgan or steel cent or proof SAE in a holder.
If you think of it as a ratio 60 to 325, that's 12 : 65, twelve slabs per sixty five population,
I doubt that if you randomly sampled 65 people in the USA that among them 12 slabs would be owned.
I believe that Heritage advertises that they have 800,000 plus registered users. Assume that half are US.
Never given any out for Christmas and birthdays, I have many times.
Standard gift coin is Proof American Silver Eagle in OGP, or perhaps an unc American Silver Eagle in an Air-title.
Every hobbyist in any collectible thinks his or her preferred artifact is both the beginning and end-all desirable thingie, attractive to everyone everywhere. This is never the case, however.
I'd say between 25k and 50k is more likely true.
hey BillDugan, how did you get so smart?? you seem to "know" an awful lot of things with certainty.
I bet most Americans (99%++) think a slab is just protective packaging.
Authentication? Grading? Attribution? No way a million folks understand.
But maybe it's possible a million folks OWN a slabbed coin. My sister has one -- her birth year half-dollar MS65. Nice coin. Stored in a junk drawer.
Successful BST transactions with forum members thebigeng, SPalladino, Zoidmeister, coin22lover, coinsarefun, jwitten, CommemKing.
Authentication? Grading? Attribution? No way a million folks understand.
my experience tells me that while most collectors might not own or have an interest in graded coins they are at least aware of them. it surprises me sometimes when I notice who looks at slabbed coins, typically younger customers and those who aren't really collectors, just "tire kickers" walking through the store. also, when we have customers come in to sell it tends to be the most unlikely guys who have slabbed coins and better material.
one thing that's hard to define --- what is a collector?? there are probably tens of millions of people buying SHQ's and Pres. $'s, are they collectors?? I don't think so. what about people who tend to buy almost exclusively US Mint products or those who appear intrigued by the Hobby and get reeled in by all the TV and print ads. are they collectors??
At the risk of being a know-it-all, perhaps the word you are looking for is "accumulator".
From my travels and conversations, I'd estimate that about one in 500 Americans has spent more than face value for a coin, and maybe one fifth of those, any semi serious money including certified coins.
A related interesting question: what percentage of slabbed coins are currently for sale by dealers?
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
The number of people who own slabbed coins is probably much smaller than one million. Take the number of active collectors and add the number of non-collectors who have received slabbed coins as gifts from those active collectors. After that add in the estimated number of people who have bought slabbed coins from tv home shopping shows. My guess is that the total will be around 250,000.
Wouldn't it be interesting to know just how many slabbed coins actually exist? I suspect the number of crackouts of coins slabbed in the 1980's and 1990's is very high.
Redbook has sold 23 million copies over 70 years. They aren't all stacked up in Morelan's basement!
999,999 as my wife does not own any slabbed coin.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
The issue price of the Red Book did not exceed $5 until 1983, and the books were always available at a discount for those in the know. The peak year was 1965, when 1,200,000 copies were sold at an issue price of $1.75 (which suggests to me that over 10% of all Redbooks were likely sold in the period 1964-1966). Except for my speculation at the end, my source: Mega Red Book 3rd Edition.
Coin collecting used to be a popular hobby in a mass sense.
22.9 million of them have been hoarded by a midwestern billionaire who keeps them in his climate controlled storage facility while awaiting the next big coin boom. But even he has not solved the problem of the inferior bindings used on the 1975 edition.
My thinking too. It's nowhere near a million.
That is prodigious procreation. An average of 7 offspring for each sibling!
My mom gave out $2 bills every Christmas with a card to each grandchild. Her last year I helped her cut that cost in half and gave her Presidential dollars to stuff (tape) onto the cards.
As to coinstartled's question : yes I've given gifts, but typically not slabbed numismatic gifts. ... except for a few. If any of them took an interest in collecting, they might stumble upon why graded coins are held in higher esteem, at least by me and a few of you guys/gals. As to the original question : I still don't think a million people have a slabbed coin.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Coin users alone or does this number account for antiques, real estate, art, etc.?
Many are repeat users. Some belong to book collectors. A lot of those people are dead.
I'll take the under and the points
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
@ianrussell - How many U.S. members do you have? This might be helpful in answering the OP's question since your firm deals mainly with certified coins.