As I drove home last night, I saw that the local gasoline stations had dropped their price during the day by 10 cents a gallon to $3.399. I felt good.

It is sort of amazing. At a time the world’s financial markets seem so disordered, a little thing can stand out.

The inflationary fever does seem to have broken. It is not just the price of oil that is dropping, but the prices of other things that we collectors pay attention to.

I checked the Coinflation Web site (www.coinflation.com)this morning and I see that the copper and nickel in the American five-cent coin has fallen in value to just under 4 cents. That’s a far cry from its nearly 10 cents peak in 2007. The price of nickel alone has fallen by almost three-quarters.

The copper-coated zinc cent has metallic value of right about four-tenths of one cent. The Mint might even be making a profit on them again.

Losses on cent and nickel production were offset by the profits on the other denominations, especially the Presidential dollars. Perhaps we should ask the Treasury to deliver its bank bailout funds in the form of Presidential dollars.

People who fear bankruptcy might not even complain about getting them.

The Mint has given up trying to maintain supplies of all of its bullion coins. It will focus primarily now on the one-ounce American Eagle gold and silver coins. The memo below outlines what the Mint plans to do.

October 6, 2008
 
MEMORANDUM TO ALL AMERICAN EAGLE AND AMERICAN BUFFALO AUTHORIZED PURCHASERS
 
SUBJECT:     2008-Dated Bullion Products
 
Due to the extreme fluctuating market conditions for 2008, as well as current market conditions, gold and silver demand is unprecedented and the demand for platinum is unusually high.
 
The United States Mint has worked diligently to attempt to meet demand, however, blank supplies are very limited and it is necessary for the United States Mint to focus remaining  bullion production primarily on American Eagle Gold One Ounce and Silver One Ounce Coins.  
 
For the remainder of 2008 bullion inventory, the following will apply:
 
American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins
 
One Ounce Coins will remain on allocation each week.  Allocation amounts are based on available quality blanks each week.
 
One Half Ounce Coins: Inventory was depleted last week. No more coins will be produced for 2008.
 
One Quarter Ounce Coins: Inventory was depleted last week. No more coins will be produced for 2008.
 
One Tenth Ounce Coins: Inventory was depleted last week. More coins will be produced based on current blank supplies, however, once that remaining inventory is depleted, no more coins will be produced for 2008. You will be notified when these are available for sale.
 
 
American Buffalo One Ounce Bullion Coins
 
Inventory was depleted and sales were suspended in late September. More coins will be produced based on current blank supplies, however, once that remaining inventory is depleted, no more coins will be produced for 2008. You will be notified when these are available for sale.
 
American Eagle Silver Once Ounce Bullion Coins
 
American Eagle Silver One Ounce Coins will remain on allocation each week.  Allocation amounts are based on available quality blanks each week.
 
American Eagle Platinum Bullion Coins
 
All denominations were depleted last week. More coins will be produced based on current blank supplies, however, once that remaining inventory is depleted, no more coins will be produced for 2008. You will be notified when these are available for sale.
 
We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.  
 

I checked precious metals prices first thing after I came in this morning. It is a habit acquired in recent months due to the wild fluctuations.

In the present environment thinking about where prices might be in a month is almost like long-term planning. However, I was temporarily brought back to the existence of the real long term by a short note hand written on a sheet from a legal pad.

The writer of the note sent to me by snail mail wanted to know what the price of gold and silver would be in 15 years – not an investment forecast, you understand – just an estimate of what I think.

I laughed after I had read it.

Yes, I know that the 15-year period will pass and gold and silver will be trading at some future price, but there is no way I can know the rest.

I thought of John Kamin, editor of the Forecaster investment newsletter. He was interviewed by colleague Debbie Bradley this week.

He has made a career of forecasting the future, but his methodology is straightforward enough. He extrapolates on trends to the far distant future.

It is one thing to know that inflation is running four percent or five percent a year. It another thing to say this is the price of a house in the year 2050 at that rate of inflation.

It is one thing to say that there are 300 million Americans. It is another to extend the growth trend to 2050 to find that there will be 450 million of us.

Obviously, with more people to chase precious metals and inflation continuing through future years, the bias to prices is always upwards.

However, this bias does not prevent falling into holes now and again. Gold was $835 a troy ounce as I write this. If I use Jan. 21, 1980, as the base, I can truthfully write that gold is lower after almost 29 years. If I move the base to just a couple of months later, I can truthfully write that gold has doubled in that span.

Or, I can look at the bottom in 2001 and truthfully write that gold has more than tripled from the $255 low in just seven years.

Which point do I use to extend this 15 years?

If I am trying to sell you gold, I know which one I would pick. If I am trying to caution against a headstrong investment plunge, I would pick another.

Either way, the facts I use will be true, but what is the true picture?

Will it be business as usual for the coin market in the wake of the stock market losses of yesterday?

For the Mint it certainly was. It announced it is raising its premium on one-ounce American silver Eagles Oct. 14 by 15 cents to $1.40 per coin from $1.25.

That actions seems small potatoes compared to the action on the New York Stock Exchange. The losses were large.

There is no way of knowing if numismatists as a group are less subject to making bad investments and receiving margin calls as the population as a whole.

We have no way of knowing that coin dealers as a group fund their operations with borrowed money to any greater extent than businesses of other kinds.

What we do know is they are all human and are subject to the same anxieties and fears as everybody else. They are asking themselves how the coin market is holding up.

Does the coin collector who saw his IRA or 401(k) retirement account fall seven percent or so yesterday go the next coin show or auction he was planning to go to? Will he bid as often or as aggressively online on eBay?

The odds are we collectors are as intertwined in the current financial crisis as anybody else. While collectors are probably less likely to have their mortgage interest rates reset to levels beyond their ability to pay, they may own small businesses that cannot get a credit line extended in the same amount or even at all. Here is hoping that coin dealers have bullet-proof financial arrangements. If they are forced to liquidate inventory to pay back these credit lines, prices will fall.

Numismatists will face things one day at a time just like everybody else. We always have. When I was just starting out as  a collector in 1963, there were no numismatic firms selling hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of coins in a single year. There was no firm that was publicly traded on the stock exchange. It was just me and my Whitman album doing what hundreds of thousands of others were doing.

Financial crisis I later learned meant that proof set orders for the 1958 set fell because of the recession during the order period. And that in the typical numismatic scarcity judgment made that set a better one compared to the year before or after. In short, the hobby always seems to make lemonade out of lemons. Silver dollars continued to rise after the stock market crash of 1987 right into 1989.

For good or ill, I was part of that 1963 collecting herd. I am part of that herd now. What happens today I don’t know, but the hobby will always be here for me. It will stay interesting, it will have its ups and downs and I will continue to go with it and perhaps complain a little about the Mint increasing the cost of the silver Eagle.

See? The collector in me never leaves.