Question, what is the definition of a modern coin? Is the 'cut off 1935, 1950, etc?
I appreciate the answer.
'mint'
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Question: "I was wondering how you deal with collectors and speculators who truly believe that the items they are buying now are going to be worth a lot of money in the future...?"
ANSWER: "The safest approach is to avoid discussing the topic of future collectability with these individuals: first, they know more than anyone else; second, they are deaf to any opinion that does not agree with their own; third, they are misguided optimists, assuming past practice could not possibly apply in their case."
-Harry Rinker; 'The Myth of the Guaranteed Collectible' (originally posted on WorthPoint and Harry Rinker's own website)
Registered: 01/28/02
Posts: 5681
Loc: Western Washington
Pricing compression on classic gold coins is certainly noted. What this portends for the future is not nearly as clear, I hope, lower metal prices and higher classic coin prices. Yikes, talk about destroying more value then you create!
The Grey Sheet bidding system which is widely employed in this industry is too subject to manipulation and is often too thin on the supply side to be believed or validated as authentic. This is true especially on many examples classic gold coins which have low total known populations (including whatever numbers of resubmissions they may have) of maybe 250 or fewer coins in many instances. This behavior is often characterized by seeing bids which reflect a 20% pricing decline based on one or two transactions, probably steeped in personal financial issues such as foreclosure, job loss or divorce.
Someone with a better brain than mine, at present, needs to devise a more encompassing, user friendly, data set pricing model with some integrity of worth-based logic. Some pricing model which does not get dizzy and crash on a couple of incidental sales. I have survived (can't honestly say, really lived well) through several bid system failures of the present system being too unable to function as "a going concern" Bid-Ask market, just since the fiasco of 1989. The volumes required to run a "statistically smoothed and functional bid" market are simply not there.
Large dealers make their rake on sales commissions and fees. They have no direct stake, except a percentage (15%,+5%), of any real market movement. That is why they price their services this way, in order to stay in business! Smaller dealers and direct sales dealers of course are as tied to the bid system as collectors are to a great extent.
I really am not invested in this hobby as any-body's expert and am just a collector (since the 1950's). However most of my profits during good markets and bad markets have come from some small, personal insight based on buying and selling classic gold coins, for whatever they may be worth? Admittedly, the run-up in metals prices has helped recently but recently is not when I sold most of these coins. Bill makes a good point about pricing in the present market.
I used to be a stock trader many years ago (hence my moniker) and the only worthwhile thing that I ever learned from that was: Bulls and bears make money, pigs don't! In other words, pick your arena and don't milk it too far!
#5605488 - 04/16/1208:05 PMRe: investing in modern coins
[Re: mtnstyne]
coinman_23885coinman_23885
FACT if I stop posting, trillions and trillions of transistors would be out of work.
Registered: 11/13/10
Posts: 4869
Originally Posted By: mtnstyne
Originally Posted By: mintcollector
Question, what is the definition of a modern coin? Is the 'cut off 1935, 1950, etc?
I appreciate the answer.
'mint'
Someone else will probably post the textbook answer, but I always think of the end of silver coinage as modern.
I don't think there is any one "textbook answer" and you can ask this question and receive a thousand different potentially valid responses. I think generally most people consider post-WWII coins to be modern coins (and this is the definition that I personally would apply). Some people make the cut-off at the silver to copper-nickel clad transition, and others make the distinction based on series, considering only non circulating type coins to be non-modern. Each approach has its own problems/merits. With regards to TPG submission tiers, both consider 1955-present modern coins.
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-Kenny
Areas of Interest: Original classic gold coins from the Southern mints (New Orleans, Charlotte, and Dahlonega); Carson City minted Morgan Dollars, early copper; high end, quality U.S. type coinage; proof like and deep mirror prooflike coinage; toners including Peace Dollars and classic gold; and cameo and deep/ultra cameo proof coins from 1936-1942.
Question, what is the definition of a modern coin? Is the 'cut off 1935, 1950, etc?
I appreciate the answer.
'mint'
There's a guy on one of the others coin forums who thinks that anything minted after 800 AD is "modern".
The definition is too variable to answer that question. Besides, what's "modern" today will not be considered "modern" 40 years from now. I wonder if when 100 years have passed since the last Ike dollar was minted if people will still call them "modern".
Registered: 06/17/09
Posts: 1062
Loc: The Hotel Yorba
Some have done extremely well on Modern coins. A lot have not. Some have done really well on classic coins, a lot have not. There is no one stop fit all answer. Knowledge coupled with being savvy seems to go a long ways. Just like in most avenues of life. MJ
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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......
Registered: 01/28/02
Posts: 5681
Loc: Western Washington
Actually, I believe that the history of origin on "modern coins" started with an arbitrary 50 year's old. That was in about 2000 when a 1950 was 50 years old. Twelve years have passed now and this target is one, engraved in stone, or two, moving to 1962 now? Rhetorical but fitting, that is if it matters at all?
The article argues that key date moderns should perform as well as key date classic coins...
Really? The logic of the free market argues the opposite. If one takes out the bologna of "plastic grading" the situation is even more heavily sewed against modern coins as "investments."
This sounds like a few claims I have heard for other coins, both here and on the South African coin forum I sometimes post on,
Personally, though I consider the coins vastly overpriced, I believe there is an opportunity for the knowledgeable specialist in niche markets like "conditional rarities", toned coins, mint errors and die varieties. And temporarily in some individual issue that is subject to a speculative frenzy. But most of the others I believe are almost exclusively "dead" money because they are either too common or most collectors would rather buy other coins for the same money,.
