Options
What's happening with common/generic $20 Saint prices and Coin World?
ccex
Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭
I've subscribed to Coin World on and off for the last 18 years. I've never put too much faith in the prices published as Coin World Trends, now "Coin Values", but I do enjoy their online price guide, with its ability to track coins in a subscriber's collection.
Tonight I checked in for the first time in a couple of weeks and saw that my "portfolio" of 20 coins I entered there jumped in value by $200. After a minute, I saw that the most expensive coin in my list was the 1924 $20 Saint Gaudens in my type set, which should not be my most valuable coin. My Saint was a Christmas present from my wife 2 1/2 years ago, when gold had just increased to $350/oz. My wife paid $450 for a raw coin a trusted dealer graded MS-61. (I heard the dealer call a friend asking him what was the current bid for "commercial unc. Saints") It's nothing special (as far as $20 Saints go), and may or may not be uncirculated, but it still fills a hole in my type set quite nicely. I call it AU-58 and have no need to upgrade it at present. Coin World Trends called it $500 when my wife bought it and bumped it to $550 a year later. In the middle of last year it rose to $600, but all of a sudden, two weeks ago they declared it an $800 coin, with narrow spreads between each grade from AU-50 to MS-63.
I know that gold bullion hasn't gone crazy, and seriously doubt that collectors are flocking toward common date Saints enough to drive up the price by a third in the last month. I think of an infamous thread on rec.collecting.coins started by a Saint lover who thought Coin World Trends prices for these coins were well above the market in 2001, and titled the thread " Trends Pricing: Shilling for Dealers?"
Does Coin World know of a large promoter hawking common date "commercial unc." $20 Saints, or can someone come up with a better explanation to why these coins are doing so well on paper - at least on Coin World's paper? The PCGS price guide (which is also regularly cited for optimistic retail prices) lists my coin and other common date Saints in similar grades at slightly more than $600, with many nice coins regularly offered for much less.
I'll ignore this blip in a single price guide, but am curious to hear other board members opinions as to why this price guide shows common date Saints increasing in price so dramatically now.
Tonight I checked in for the first time in a couple of weeks and saw that my "portfolio" of 20 coins I entered there jumped in value by $200. After a minute, I saw that the most expensive coin in my list was the 1924 $20 Saint Gaudens in my type set, which should not be my most valuable coin. My Saint was a Christmas present from my wife 2 1/2 years ago, when gold had just increased to $350/oz. My wife paid $450 for a raw coin a trusted dealer graded MS-61. (I heard the dealer call a friend asking him what was the current bid for "commercial unc. Saints") It's nothing special (as far as $20 Saints go), and may or may not be uncirculated, but it still fills a hole in my type set quite nicely. I call it AU-58 and have no need to upgrade it at present. Coin World Trends called it $500 when my wife bought it and bumped it to $550 a year later. In the middle of last year it rose to $600, but all of a sudden, two weeks ago they declared it an $800 coin, with narrow spreads between each grade from AU-50 to MS-63.
I know that gold bullion hasn't gone crazy, and seriously doubt that collectors are flocking toward common date Saints enough to drive up the price by a third in the last month. I think of an infamous thread on rec.collecting.coins started by a Saint lover who thought Coin World Trends prices for these coins were well above the market in 2001, and titled the thread " Trends Pricing: Shilling for Dealers?"
Does Coin World know of a large promoter hawking common date "commercial unc." $20 Saints, or can someone come up with a better explanation to why these coins are doing so well on paper - at least on Coin World's paper? The PCGS price guide (which is also regularly cited for optimistic retail prices) lists my coin and other common date Saints in similar grades at slightly more than $600, with many nice coins regularly offered for much less.
I'll ignore this blip in a single price guide, but am curious to hear other board members opinions as to why this price guide shows common date Saints increasing in price so dramatically now.
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity" - Hanlon's Razor
0
Comments
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
BTW I added a common type II in AU53 PCGS (1876 S) for $446 which I thought was a great deal.
FrederickCoinClub
Maybe some pressure from the masses here can re-align them to reality. One of the nice things about coin collecting has been that price guides, (while not perfect), are fairly reasonable in their quoted prices....unlike some price guides for sports cards or comic books which I'm told have no basis in reality.
Let's not let it get that way!
<< <i>If you look at the fine print, you will see where Coin World gets their prices. A few larger dealers give them their retail selling price lists for coins. For some series, like Franklins, Coin World prices have always been very high. It is more like a dealer's wish list for coin prices. >>
Thanks for the clarification, all who posted here. As I thought, common date Saints are not on fire, but perhaps a couple of dealers advertised them at above market prices, so Coin World had to respond.
$1300-1495 and of course those are "hand selected PQ" specimens.
roadrunner