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 Monday, April 05, 2010
Join the ANA family
Posted by Dave
The weekend was family time for many Americans, myself included. Conversations went one way and then another. There was the new baby coming in October. Kids are going back to school today after time off. There was the talk of tickets to a baseball game in Milwaukee today and the Boston-Cleveland basketball game that was playing in the background.
None of these conversational topics would or even should make headlines. What makes them important is that they all are part of family news.
This morning I was thinking of this and a comment Tom Post, the show general chairman of the American Numismatic Association convention in Fort Worth, Texas. made to me a week ago.
Tom did a superb job. If there were any glitches, I didn’t see them or hear of them.
But in a quiet moment Tom and I were just chit-chatting. He said that before 2009 he had never been to an ANA convention. That startled me a bit.
He was no stranger to coin shows generally, so it is not like he had to take a crash course in numismatics.
I’m a regular at ANA events. It is my job. Other regulars have to pay their own tabs and yet I see them show after show, year after year.
There are many conversations that occur at ANA conventions that don’t make the headlines. They are the numismatic version of family gatherings.
These conversations tie many people together in many small ways much as a family is tied together. That’s what makes attendance at these events so important. Certainly not everyone has the free time or money to attend every convention, but every collector should consider going to an ANA at least once to see what the experience is like.
You never know, it might lead you to become a regular, too. You might just find you have a numismatic family there.
Monday, April 05, 2010 2:17:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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Friday, April 02, 2010
Glorious past, bright future?
Posted by Dave
I see silver is approaching $18 an ounce again. I have lost track of the number of times this has happened.
About this time in 2008 silver was almost $24. It backed off hard and then recovered.
The $18 mark one dealer last year characterized as a wall. Antsy silver owners who were lured in when silver seemed unstoppable two years ago bail out at the $18 mark.
If you read online accounts of accusations of silver market manipulation, it makes you think that it must be time for another slam downwards to keep the $18 wall intact.
Whether it happens or not, we’ll see.
What I do know is interest in coins and, tangentially, precious metals is growing. A colleague in the antiques division of F & W Media wanted some material to do a story about coins.
Coins certainly do have an appeal. They are familiar. The are portable. And those made of precious metal tend to rise in value overtime underpinning the collectible values attached.
Perhaps antiques dealers are just looking for another source of cash flow. In this environment, many businesses are casting about for opportunities.
Coin collecting has been around in one form or another since the Italian Renaissance. Numismatic literature stretches back 500 years. The British Conder token issues of the late 18th century followed a path similar to new issue collecting today.
Date and mintmark collecting of U.S. coins goes back more than a century.
That’s a permanence that few areas can boast.
Check back on Pez dispensers in 50 years. Where will they be?
Friday, April 02, 2010 2:08:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
Golden opportunity might be in paper money
Posted by Dave
What will the unveiling of the new U.S. $100 bill April 21 mean for the numismatic hobby? Will it mean anything?
The denomination was the first of the “Big Head” notes and after it arrived in 1996, there was a spate of stories about the lack of need for a change in design and how it looked like Monopoly money.
I remember running a story that showed the $100 with a Monopoly version and asked where the similarity was.
Nowadays, 14 years later, the basic idea that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing needs to stay ahead of the counterfeiters, both the casual color copier fakers and the North Korean super note fakers, is not questioned.
In consequence, we’ve seen designs changed for everything but the $1 and $2 since 1996.
For the hobby, changing the designs of the circulating paper money sparked a surge of interest in the older notes. Collectors multiplied. They bid up prices for paper money and this corner of the hobby boomed.
We’ve come down off the 2008 highs and perhaps this next change to the $100 will mark the next wave of changes for all denominations and the next wave of growth for paper money collecting.
If that in fact happens, collectors will look back on 2010 as a time they should have been aggressively buying collectible paper money.
What comes after the Big Head $100 might just be opportunity.
Thursday, April 01, 2010 1:29:21 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sellout in the making?
Posted by Dave
The new Boy Scout commemorative silver dollar has been available only since March 23, but already the total sales exceed those of the American Veterans Disabled for Life silver dollars.
As of March 28, the Boy Scouts dollar numbers showed the proof version at 144,732 coins and the uncirculated version at 68,941.
Combining the two numbers gives us 214,673 cons. The maximum possible sales is 350,000.
Sellout, anyone?
It sure looks that way.
Looking less and less like a sellout is the Disabled Veterans dollar.
At first glance, sales of these don’t look all that different.
Collectors have purchased 126,421 proofs and 54,631 uncirculated coins.
The combined total is 181,052. The maximum mintage is also 350,000.
The key difference is that the Disabled Veterans dollar has been available since Feb. 25.
Time after time it has been shown that collectors act quickly. There is an initial surge of interest and then that is pretty well it for the rest of the program.
Sure sales continue, but the rate of sales falls off dramatically.
The paradox of coin collecting is that numbers matter over time. If the Boy Scout coin sells out and the Vets dollar does not, then if the Vet mintage totals are significantly lower, the long-term value of the coin could then be higher than the equivalent Boy Scout coin.
Will it happen this way? As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over, ’til it's over.” That's what makes it so fascinating to watch.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 1:59:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Finally, evidence of actual 2009 cent collecting
Posted by Dave
I received a letter yesterday from a reader who wrote to tell me that he had found more than 130 of the 2009 Lincoln cents marking the 200th anniversary of the 16th President’s birth.
What makes the letter remarkable is that this is the first proof I have had that somewhere in the country (New York State) the 2009 cents are actually circulating.
Usually I get letters asking where the coins are and when will they circulate. Or, I get letters where the writer found a bank that had rolls and then bought some.
Actually finding the cents and collecting them one at a time, which in ordinary times many collectors would willingly do, is as rare as a hen’s tooth.
With the financial incentive to grab uncirculated rolls when they are found and then sell them on eBay, even collectors who might help spread them around find themselves contributing to the sense many people have that they are scarce.
Collectors can do this because the face value of every single example made totals just $23.54 million.
With the incentive to hoard and to trade being what it is, hobbyists have had no problem keeping many of the coins out of circulation.
When you look at the number another way to say that in 2009 2.354 billion cents were struck, you wonder how long collectors will feel that they need more than the eight coins necessary to have a full set.
That day will eventually come. The question is when. Now I routinely find Delaware quarters in change. In the months after the release of the first state quarter in 1999, there was a sense of scarcity. It has taken 11 years to dispel it.
So I guess in 2020 we can look forward to getting the 2009 cents in change.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 2:01:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, March 29, 2010
Fort Worth show now history
Posted by Dave
It is always great to get home after an American Numismatic Association convention, especially when flights are on time as mine were yesterday.
The Fort Worth event was a well-run show with seamless logistics. The local volunteers and national volunteers can take a bow for that.
What of the market? It was mediocre.
Floor activity was reasonably good on Wednesday set-up and Thursday, but by Friday things died off. Saturday saw a rebound in numbers of people on the floor as more than 200 Boy and Girl Scouts swelled the registration numbers to over 1,800 for the day.
Dealers are somewhat cautious, buying material that they know they have clients for.
True collector coins are doing OK, but the high-end stuff has become just stuff. Having the second or third or fourth best known of some coins just isn’t the inducement it once was to make a purchase.
Buying coins to put in a future auction to get the top money seems not to be as rewarding as it was at the market activity peak in 2008.
Paper money dealers feel the market has bottomed out. The absolute top was the Central States Heritage auction in the spring of 2008. Dealers who are pricing at today’s levels are doing business.
Boy Scout commemoratives were being sold at the Mint booth for full retail. A supply was set aside to make sure there were plenty on Saturday when Scouts and their families arrived. As of Saturday morning 200,000 of a possible 350,000 coins had been sold.
Next ANA stop is Boston in August.
Monday, March 29, 2010 1:51:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, March 26, 2010
Thanks for the barbecue
Posted by Dave
With all the waiting this week for big announcements, it wasn’t until today that I could take a breath and comment on a special event. It wasn’t a big event. It was a nice event. It was an event that makes me think I am glad I am a collector.
The American Numismatic Association arranged a Texas-Sized BBQ at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s Western Currency Facility on Wednesday night. The one thing they couldn’t control was the weather. We all got a little wet in a downpour.
Nevertheless, it was a great time, because it was a very relaxed and social occasion for convention attendees who ordered tickets. It was a perfect opportunity to look the place over.
Despite all the attention we gave this BEP facility when it was built (starting in 1987), there are probably many noncollectors who don’t even know it exists.
That’s not surprising since many of them still think the Mint prints paper money.
But operations began in Fort Worth in 1990. It was built to diversify the production of paper money away from the single site in Washington, D.C., that was nearly hit by an airplane (by accident) before it crashed into the Potomac River.
I remember the accident that occurred as we were gathering at that year’s Florida United Numismatists convention and it was the talk of the day. I had to look up the date, though. It was Jan. 13, 1982.
It is nice to trump a memory of a tragedy with something pleasant and that’s what makes it worth commenting on.
Thanks, ANA, for making it possible.
Friday, March 26, 2010 1:04:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Thursday, March 25, 2010
What will it be?
Posted by Dave
Today David Hall of Collector’s Universe will let us know what the “Big One” is at 10:30 a.m. at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
He has called it “the most important announcement Professional Coin Grading Service has made since we opened in 1986.” He also calls it a “revolutionary new PCGS service.”
Like ancient Gaul, there are supposed to be three parts to the “Big One.”
I will be present. As long as line drawings are not involved, I will be delighted.
The announcement is taking place at the opening of the American Numismatic Association National Money Show, so we will have plenty of time for reactions to percolate through the crowds of collectors and dealers as the day goes along.
What will it be?
Check out the Web site at www.pcgs.com.
Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:01:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Five quarter designs revealed
Posted by Dave
 I have been asking the Mint for the new America the Beautiful quarter designs at least since last November, only to be put off until today. It has been a long wait.
There is probably something deeply ironic that after such a long time that what we get shown to us are line drawings at a special ceremony at noon Eastern time at the “Newseum,” which calls itself “Washington, D.C.’s Most Interactive Museum.” Yes, line drawings at an interactive museum.
We have to wait until the actual first quarter release April 19 to see an image of a coin.
Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios is slated to be there for line drawings.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will be there for line drawings.
Ed Moy, director of the Mint, will be present for line drawings.
Dayton Duncan, who wrote and co-produced the six-part PBS series, National Parks: America’s Best Idea, will also be there.
There might even be another dignitary or two.
I feel like the kid who blurts out to his parents on Christmas morning that whatever it was I received, I wanted something else.
But can you blame me?
We’ve waited a long time. Now, doggone it, we have to wait another month.
The program at the Newseum will feature videos of the five sites that will be honored in 2010.
We will see Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Yosemite National Park in California, Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and Mount Hood National Park in Oregon.
With 56 designs stretched over more than 11 years, few collectors will likely remember that our first look at the new designs in the first year were line drawings.
What’s another month between now and the conclusion of the set in early 2021?
Maybe I am in training to be the new Maytag repairman.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 12:57:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Finish the set and earn the reward
Posted by Dave
I was working on new price charts for the 2011 edition of North American Coins and Prices.
They were created 20 years ago for the first edition and now with almost 40 years of data reflected by the movement of the graphs, they tell an interesting story.
Coin collecting by no means is the royal road to riches. Average collectors can expect that overall values keep up with inflation or stay just ahead of it.
The coins that make the headlines for record prices do not reflect what average collectors would be buying over time and so cannot be taken as a proxy measurement for the overall success of average collectors. One lesson that might be drawn is the bulk of the value of sets is in the key coins and it is the price appreciation of the key and semi-key coins that keep collectors ahead of the game.
A 1914-D Lincoln cent in F-12 has gone from a retail price of just under $50 to just under $400.
A 1921-S Buffalo nickel in F-12 went from about $30 to $190 in the same time period while a 1923-S half dollar in XF-40 rose from just under $50 to approximately $300.
These are coins that average collectors were buying in 1972. They don’t depend on scarcity of high grades to propel values. Besides, who in 1972 would have been able to buy what turns out to be an MS-66 or MS-67 today before that grading scale was applied to all U.S. coins? Certainly not the average collector.
Some average coins haven’t done well. An MS-60 1921 Morgan dollar has never recovered from its $40 1980-1981 high. It is now just over $25, though that is about double the 1972 price.
Not too many average collectors had a budget for gold in 1972, but those who bought a 1908-D Saint-Gaudens $20 without motto in 1972 paid a bit under $100 for it in uncirculated (MS-60). It shot up to over $1,000 in 1980, but then backed off and only in the last couple of years has exceeded that level, reaching over $1,500. That’s a nice return on investment if you held it all 38 years, but if you stampeded into the market in the gold rush of 1979-1980, the return is far lower.
What does that tell us?
Well, the key issue is to collect full sets, because you cannot know which coins in it will turn out to be the top winners.
Putting a set together without the scarce dates might be all you can afford, but doing so takes much of the financial gain out of it.
So rather than do multiple incomplete sets, zero in on one and do it to the finish. The odds then favor your achieving an ultimate financial reward.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 1:07:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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