|
Market Healthy, Overpromotion a Problem
 | By Harry Miller, Coins Magazine
August 21, 2009 |
There is no doubt we are in economic trouble, but is the coin market? I think not. Coin collectors are generally a pretty financially conservative group. The exceptions are the high fliers and those who feed outside the traditional marketplace, such as TV and fancy ad promos in flight magazines, credit card stuffers and general media.
An inside view shows a mixed bag of signals, but the underlying collector base is strong. There are few real collectors that I know who are financially troubled.
They are worried because of what they see in the media, but remember with 10 percent unemployment, you still have 90 percent employment and many in that 10 percent have income under the radar screen.
There are many weak signs but all are pretty understandable in today's climate. There is a dealer who purportedly consigned over a million dollars in rare coins to a recent auction with reasonable reserves and only sold about 10 percent of them.
This does not surprise me since these were old inventory that was offered to many clients and numerous other dealers. You need new collectors or investors to siphon off these recycled items and this economy is not the appropriate time.
There are many offerings of semi-key and key-date dollars. This is not surprising since over the last 10 years many dates have been overpromoted, much of it for TV, etc. Those dates are now showing up in dealer wholesale boxes (and have for over a year) and are generally off quality, such as cleaned, scratched or bumps and dings. They are the 1888-S, 1889-CC, 1892-CC, 1893-O, 1893-S, 1893-CC, 1894, 1894-O, 1895-O and 1895-S.
Common General Services Administration Carson City issues are weak, as is the 1928 Peace dollar.
Overexuberant dealers overstocked 1932-D and -S quarters.
Sounds like a weak market, but not if you try to find nice type coins, or dated Barber, Seated and Bust coins. These are strong. Even in this economy they are quickly purchased when properly graded.
Virtually all copper issues are strong, although down the road I would not hold any extra 1909-dated issuesagain promotional demand. Gold issues are in strong demand both as nice type coins and also better date issues.
So there is plenty of strength out there but not if you have the wrong stuff and need to raise cash, but even then there are ready buyers at the right price.
E-mail harrymkrause@optonline.net.
Add to: del.icio.us digg
With this article: Email to friend Print
Something to add? Notice an error? Comment on this article. | |