Classic Commems on the rise?
ironmanl63
Posts: 1,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
Watching the auction at Heritage tonight and from my view they sure look to be.
2
ironmanl63
Posts: 1,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
Are you telling me there IS a bottom? Hallelujah!
I would love to start collecting them but I don’t have the funds
Many of them aren’t very expensive.
What range are you looking in?
I can afford coins that are 10-20 dollars lol! I am not a millionaire like most of the people on here I’m young and just starting out.
Instead of buying ten $20 coins, buy one $200 coin with the same money. Quality over quantity will win out in the end.
My eBay Store | My Registry Profile
Or, instead of one $200. coin purchased every few weeks, wait 50 years, and spend $25,000.00 on a single coin.
Crap I completely forgot. Was watching about a dozen 😖
Looking for a nice Delaware in an OGH.
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.
Good point but I’d rather have 4 ms63 common date Morgan’s than one 200 dollar coin
Tastes and budgets evolve. No telling what you'll be interested in and capable of buying 5 years from now.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Most of the commems in the HA auction were very attractive and went for strong money. One in particular-that I got blown out on-hammered for over twice what it hammered for less than one year ago. I mistakenly thought with the so-called weak market I might score it for the same money it sold for in 2020. Nice for the grade commems have been fairly strong all along.
I sell a lot of commems. They do seem to have been stronger during the last year. But I'm not sure that has anything to do with commems as collectibles in general have been on a tear during the pandemic. I would hesitate to draw any conclusions about coins or sports cards or anything else right now.
Old green holders and rattlers are easy to sell for decent money if the coin has "original" surfaces or a sticker or a little attractive toning.
The monster color coins are still commanding large premiums.
Commems and Early Type
When I first started collecting many (many) years ago, 20 bucks was about tops for me too for coin purchasing. And for commems, my first one, probably like many young collectors, was a circulated Colombian half. And you can still pick up one of those and several other common issues in circulated condition for 20 bucks or so. Those first few circulated commemorative purchases I made—a Columbian, a Stone Mountain, a Monroe, and a BTW—sparked a life-long interest in these coins. Don’t worry about starting small!
I still hate to pay more than $50 for any coin that I'm going to keep.
One of the reasons, maybe the main reason that I started dealing part-time was so that I could buy 4 figure coins but not have to keep them. I still rarely buy 5 figure coins.
Like most collectors I feel a compulsion to buy/accumulate/hoard but then I end up with a safe full of stuff that I rarely look at. As a "dealer", by the time I'm bored looking at it it's gone and I don't have piles of expensive stuff locked in the safe.
I followed/bid on only two lots, and the prices were STRONG. When there's a coin I want, I generally bid strong. As a result, I am the high bidder on about 85% or so of the lots I place bids on. The results of my costs are normally "fair" prices, occasionally a bargain, and sometimes "overpaying", but I'm ok with that, since I never bid moon money.
Last night I got just one of the two lots, with the high bid on the lot I did not obtain a bit more than 25% higher than my max bid. I was not the underbidder, and no one but the high bidder knows the max bid that bidder placed.
For those that followed that auction, your thoughts on the final pricing of lots? Naturally, due to there being over 1,000 lots, I'm sure there was variability. If indeed the "eye appealing' lots mainly had strong bids, that's terrific for this often overlooked series by others in our hobby, as others seem to "poo -poo" Classic Silver Commems due to so called continually dropping prices and low collector demand. To me, pricing seems to have been steady and even slightly increasing over the past couple of years, especially for coins with nice eye appeal and CAC's.
Your thoughts?
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
What was the auction?
Last night Heritage had a single subject auction of over 1,000 Classic Commems
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
Commems are driven largely by plastic and a sticker. When there is a return to what matters which is the look, history and design, there should be a reason to acknowledge that there is a bottom for commems worth owning
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I don’t think commems are anymore likely to be driven by plastic and stickers than other categories of coins. When they’re “driven”, far more times than not, it’s due to color. In the case of this particular auction, there were a lot of coins that were conservatively graded - some by more than a point. That accounted for many of the high prices.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Not seeing the coins in hand is a bummer. I bought quite a few coins last night. Some I loved and maybe stretched a little. I got blown out of the water on more than a few! And a couple I bought because I thought that the coin was under graded or a really fair price for the coin. When I receive the coins I will post how they look in hand and if I did OK.
I am relatively new to collecting commems. I thought the final pricing was very strong. I am not a dealer and have been collecting them a short time so my opinion may not align with others.
On that note -- you don't necessarily have to approach classic commemoratives in a way that requires all of them, or the most expensive ones. Are there eight or ten of them that strongly appeal to you because of design, personal connection to the subject, geography, or any other reason? Make that your set. There are lots of them where $300 or less will get you a really nice looking example. Not a millionaire here either, mid-career public school teacher, but if you plan and keep your powder dry waiting for the items you're really after, you can get some of them.
The commem market is difficult to compare to other series because as a starter, they were made primarily for a different purpose than general circulation. Most were saved... some were not well cared for which reduced the quality of the population that survived. Then from that population, there are ones that scream with what captures the attention of collectors which is further enhanced by plastic and stickers in the search for the finest.
My point is simple... there are very attractive examples that are not in the MS67 and 68 range that still capture what is important and are worth owning.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Good to know. Heritage has this one which is ending in 5 days.
Wonder how it will do compared to previous sale by Legend. At PCGS SP67+, this is a POP 15(4)/1
Funny, I just started doing this myself. After sort of buying a commem here and there over the years with no plan, I realized assembling a full set in the quality I like is probably beyond my budget. So I decided recently to focus on a short set for now, which I call the Civil War short set consisting of the Lincoln, Grant, Stone Mountain, Gettysburg and Antietam. Once I complete this “set” in the grade quality and look I like, I may make up other ‘short sets’ like all the states commems. Breaking things up like this makes it more achievable and interesting.
I bet they will rise dramatically - I just sold most of mine!
My current "Box of 20"
Are you referring to the MS67 Boone? I had some interest in that lot but ended up deciding to sit this one out. Sold for $780 in March 2020 and $1680 in this auction. I suppose coins were not at the forefront of people's minds last March when everything was starting to get crazy.
There was an Oregon, not sure of the date with great color, went for 9K.
Wow, here it is. Nice coin but that is quite a price. It is the 5th highest of the date and type ever sold at Heritage behind 3 PCGS MS68s and an NGC MS68* and ahead of a few other MS68s.
Classic commems are definitely not on the rise. The ‘special’ ones sold for strong money like all special coins in any type/series do. But the market for the majority non-special commems is weak as always.
They are definitely undervalued.
I don’t think so. I’ve been on this forum for almost 18 years. Every one of those years there are always a couple of threads, “are classic commems finally making a comeback?” ...... (yawn) (eye roll)
Nope.
Negative.
Zero chance.
Better off investing in circulated Ike’s !
🤓😈
The nice pieces are definitely under valued, and I am glad that so many don't think so... yet. Still time to get them before they get too hot. I bought a {CGS MS66 Connecticut on HA a year or so ago for $360 all in, then got an offer from someone on their website for $500. Thanks, but no.
They were overvalued in the 1980s and the market for them crashed. They aren't undervalued as they've been in a decades long decline.
I'm surprised that classic commemorative coins aren't more popular than they are.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
a single auction of a specific group of coins doesn't represent the market for the entire series.
It is a snapshot at a point time that reflects what collectors are willing to pay. And coins at the high end of the grading spectrum are also not representative of an entire series... just merely a segment of the surviving population.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I will reiterate the two points I made previously:
Because I have only been watching them for about 5 years that is basically the time frame I am dealing with. Reading all the posts of how they have been falling forever does not jive with what I have seen. Over the short time period my feeling is they have been level to rising. Not just the best of the best but the series in general. This auction (and not only this 1 auction) only solidifies my feelings on the series. I am hopeful the trend continues.
I totally get that this is a small window and others are sour on the series. In ten years I may feel the same way. For now I am enjoying learning the series and finding great pieces.
Do any of you long term collectors of the series feel the trend I am seeing will continue?
Undervalued doesn't mean at the bottom. When you compare mintages, survivor quantities and conditions, the commem series is definitely underpriced. Everything goes in cycles. When people start to realize how few there are, they will be the fastest rising series in the U.S. coins.
Money is getting cheaper so prices going up isn’t always the same as prices rising
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
Inflation is running about 1% to 2%, so I don't think that comes into play for the past couple of years.
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
The coins in the auction weren't exactly ordinary commems. It's not a surprise to me that they did well.
Perhaps they were not "ordinary" because they had nice eye appeal? I bought a "common" 1935-S San Diego commem graded just MS66 by PCGS w/CAC. Blast white, NO toning. My max bid was very strong ($220 hammer) and i was surprised that's what it actually took for me to get that coin ($264 with b.p.). I lost out on a Lynchburg PCGS MS66+ w/CAC, also mostly blast white, that sold for $552 with the bp. Other than "nice" eye appeal, both of these sold for a lot more than other recent auctions in the same grade, also with CAC's. These two coins that I tracked were not exceptions, in my opinion. My sense is most of the lots with nice eye appeal had strong prices realized.
My collecting “Pride & Joy” is my PCGS Registry Dansco 7070 Set:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/type-sets/design-type-sets/complete-dansco-7070-modified-type-set-1796-date/publishedset/213996
How specific is a group of over 1000 coins? How would you define this group and was there sub groups?