Its a great time to start a collection of....
Boosibri
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While Latin American crowns are racing to new heights, there are always markets which are unexpectedly soft, new supply has become available or saturated the market. Some of these are value traps which go on being soft forever. Others recover, and the market expands as the influx of coins brings in new collectors.
Are there any series today which appear to be offering great opportunities to those aware? Are there others which seem like value traps?
I'd offer the Chilean Colonial minor series which has had a wave of new supply in an otherwise scarce series. The Val y Mexia and Richard August collections added a massive amount of supply. While I don't think these coins will race to new heights, I do think they offer tremendous value right now given the over-supply.
Any others come to mind?
Comments
The Bruun collection has created a great opportunity to start collecting Danish and Norwegian coins.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Great question and I would provide an answer which would take the discussion in a different direction... I would look at countries with a rising middle class with an interesting history. While supply and demand issues are important, so is the art, history and design behind the series. There might be some value in India. I thought I made a previous reference to Sweden- I have serious doubts about the quality of whatever the surviving population might be. Also, one must contemplate rarity and condition rarity and developing an appreciation for the difference and even how they intersect. If one turns the clock back 10-12 years, I doubt many would have predicted Bulgaria to rise as it has. Seems possible that Romania could follow.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
My completely knee jerk reaction with zero supporting evidence/data/“market signals”……
-Scarcer Independence/partition era coins from the Indian subcontinent.
-Central/Eastern European post WWI/independence era stuff (Baltics/Czech/Eastern bloc former ottoman countries
Anything Japanese. A better time would have been a couple of years ago but with strong American interest in Japan, a favorable exchange rate (for USD buyers), and continued pop culture attention, I still think there is good growth opportunity.
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
I can give you many reasons why not to collect Japanese, cheap or not. I collected them for 10+ years after the big Dr. Norman Jacobs sale, and thankfully I am now mostly out of it. Luckily I got out mostly unscathed because I chose my coins well.
India itself, I agree with, but not sure about other countries on the subcontinent. Though India's history (and therefore, its coinage) is extremely complicated, it is worth getting to know it and collect it. And, unlike Japan, you don't need to buy the coins from India since there is a worldwide collector/dealer base (in fact, like Mexico, I would argue that the best Indian coins are not in India).
I would add, and I realize that @MrEureka has said this too, that there are pockets of US that are cyclically low right now and represent good value. But since disposable incomes in the US are continuing to decline with no end in sight, I'm not confident the US market as a whole will improve.
It's very merely: if coins' mother-land is becoming richer the coins are becoming more expensive. I guess the southern America (all Latin) still has potential, either USA, China, India. African countries have potential but not while our living and talking about coins they have no enough coins, history of it. Maybe Russian coins after some possible changes. Islamic countries' coins perhaps have big potential but they have big problems too. And I don't wait a lot of European coins. Antique coins have some stability and potential to grow, I think.
Sic semper tyrannis.
1903 Rupia- Portuguese India
I really wonder about the surviving population for a coin such as this and what the ultimate collector interest might be
The 1882 is not as tough as the 1903 & 1904... However, same questions still apply
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Mexico Libertads, CACG now slabbing them.
I do not think rocket science is a requirement for grading these… doubtful that who grades these really makes a difference in terms of collectability and/or investment status.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
For the past several years, Canada decimal varieties have slowly and steadily gained steam.
They initially became popular when pioneers like Zoell, Griffin, and Haxby published from the 60s to the early 90s. After about 1993, they went dormant and very few collectors cared.
Starting about 15 or 20 years ago, myself, Haxby, the Charlton catalogue, and several other folks began publishing detailed research and literature on varieties of all five Canadian denominations. Those efforts continue.
The result has been steadily increasing prices for popular and scarce varieties. Starting 4 or 5 years ago, catalogues like Charlton and Trends in Canadian Coin World have published prices for them but usually lag the market as the popularity of varieties increase.
Will this upward trend continue? Who knows? The Canadian market, particularly for varieties, has always been thinly traded when compared to the U.S., British, and perhaps the Latin American markets. I am cautiously optimistic, but it will depend on new collectors signing on to keep the demand rising. Conversely, the variety enthusiasm could die like it did in the 1990s, but I suspect it will not. Roll the dice, and time will tell.
http://www.victoriancent.com
That is a facinating thing and I had to look it up. It is somewhat like the Teyler coin collection which IS intact and part of the Teyler museum in Haarlem. I don't know if that is a place to start collecting, though
You never know when you are going to run into something truly unexpected and facinating. This was etched by the King himself ... and 3 centuries later the Danish royal family saved most of their Jews from the Holocaust.
Look at this boat!!
Yeah, great stuff in the last three posts, but not the sort of things we humble, working-class collectors can afford… 🙄
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Obstacle I see financially with this type of series is that most of these coins aren't even nice for the grade as opposed to early US federal silver coinage, as finding presentable coins down to AG-3 isn't that difficult. Chile is scarcer or much scarcer relatively vs. Lima and Potosi I collect but the same thing exists in these two mints. The low supply of collector acceptable material limits the collector base. I don't think very many collectors have interest in paying "strong" prices for most coins where it's either not available or not in their minimum quality.
Part of it also depends upon the collecting format. Increase in type collecting will make a big difference vs. attempts to complete the full series which ranges from somewhat challenging to very difficult depending upon the series.
Do you see any connection to the more limited variety within Canadian coinage vs. the other examples you listed?
Die variety collecting in US coinage is highly concentrated. There doesn't seem to be that much interest in US circulating coinage demonstrated in the price other than those listed in references. It's my inference that the number looking to cherry pick outnumbers those willing to pay "market" by a lopsided proportion. I also suspect it's more prevalent vs, most other series since it's otherwise so easy complete. This could be a driver for Canadian coinage too.
In the pillar coinage I collect, there are the relatively recent Yonaka books for Mexico and all other mints. It's probably had more impact on Mexico since the collector base is larger and the coins are mostly more common or at least available.
of what you like. That's the answer. An art dealer told me in the beginning of my collecting to "buy what you like" Put it on the wall and enjoy it. If you make money then that's great but if you don't that's great too because you enjoyed it for many years. We are all renting the coins we have, someone else will own them for a short period of time. Enjoy them. If you make money on them so be it. Buy the coin that strikes you as beautiful. I collect Italian but I truely look for the beautiful ones, not a coin that I need to fill a hole in the blue folder, although I like doing that too.
There’s a ton of affordable stuff in the Bruun sales. But yes, the ones shown above could cause some pain.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
This. In spades.
@WCC - The people trying to cherry pick are also prevalent in the Canadian variety market, but the scarce varieties still go for premium prices. Many of those listed in the reference works have been added to Charlton and it seems to me that quite a few collectors do attempt sets including the listed varieties.
The limited market in Canada (less collectors and demand in general) tends to keep prices in check for the more common stuff, including the more common varieties.
Some of the demand for really hard to find varieties is driven by registry sets. For example, there are twenty PCGS sets in various states of completion currently listed under the Canadian large cents with varieties (1858 to 1920). IMO this has caused several recent cases where rare Canadian varietal pieces have gone for very high prices at auction because two or three people butt heads to buy them.
http://www.victoriancent.com
"Buy the coin that strikes you as beautiful."
For me, it's "Buy the coin that strikes you as interesting." Beauty is nice, but not necessary.