Vibrant Coin Market Looks Probable for Years To Come!

[VDB Coins]

I read recently where Heritage had sold more than $105 million in one week to get their New Year off with a bang! This included the Platinum Night and FUN auctions along with the incredible Mervis large cents, all the NYINC stuff and Currency, wow what a way to start off the year! The 1787 Brasher doubloon brought more than $4.5 million, the Hawaii Five-O 1913 Liberty nickel brought $3.29 million, and yet another 1927-D that had belonged at one time to Dr. Steven Duckor (and sold in David Akers' Dr. Thaine Price collection offering) brought almost $2 million.

Obviously collectors are spending freely for top-quality material. I think it is a really good sign for the market that rare gold coins are going up while bullion gold is going down. I was surprised the Brasher didn't bring more but I think folks don't consider it a Federal issue; it's more a pattern proposal for Federal coinage, apparently. Nonetheless I think the price will be considered a bargain someday! I bought a few things from FUN and Mervis (and elsewhere) but the sweetest early gold coin I had my eye one got away from me.

Best Regards, 

George

[VDB Coins]

We recently got back from the regional Blue Ridge Numismatic Association show where we had a record year! This is always a great show, more than 400 dealers on 300 tables, and like most shows, most of the sales were at the wholesale or dealer-to-dealer levels. But we were really cheered to see that collectors were buying as well! They were opening their wallets for nice collector coins. Sure, they are price-sensitive, but who isn't? Still, nice coins, priced right, were selling in good quantity. Other dealers nearby were also seeing good sales volumes, as far as I saw. And the important point is one I have made earlier in this thread, this is all despite the silver and gold bullion prices being in the doldrums! We bought one supernice coin at wholesale, a great-looking 1820 Small Date cent  with the encircling die crack, one of the Randall Hoard varieties, in MS64 Brown PCGS-CAC with great luster, and it didn't even make it back home with us!

More sales of the Newman and Gene Gardner collections are on tap the next few months at Heritage, plus of course the monster Pogue Collection sales set later for Stack's. We believe that the U.S. economy is definitely on the uptick, and our show experience confirms that! Time to buy some coins y'all!

Best Regards, 

George

[rrantique]

It occurs to me that next year is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy half as well, a series I call the "Morgan dollars of the 21st century" although they are actually six years longer than the Morgan dollars already. (!) I wrote an article on my website about the series under "Collectors' Guides" that points up the many similarities between the two series. With the 50-year anniversary approaching, I think some of the 1964-after issues will, in the next few years, stop being perceived as "modern junk" or "modern" at all, but rather part of the classic series. In particular, I point out the 1964 SMS  (NB, not 1965-67) coins which are among the rarest coins from the second half of the twentieth century. We have bought and sold quite a few individual pieces and complete sets, and have done much research in this area. When they started appearing in the Stack's auctions beginning in 1993, they were not in any official Mint packaging, just clear plastic capsules. The pieces are easily distinguished because they are business strike dies that were all polished roughly and haphazardly, then struck multiple times like a proof, so they show far more detail than any business strike but have a satiny, scarcely reflective (usually) surface unlike proofs (and to my eyes not resembling much the 1965-67 SMS coins, even though Stack's theorized they were experiments for that coinage). Anyway, not all of the sets contained the "real deal" halves (especially) and quarters, so authentication is required. I believe that all the coins are rare, but the halves more so than the other series. I think only 12-15 examples of the half survive. The dimes seem to be the most plentiful. The half in our Registry Set is MS67 PCGS (now they use to SP prefix), a coin we acquired about three years ago. Prices have more than doubled since I acquired my piece, and even then practically all of the sales are private transactions at prices that would astound most readers. The 1964 SMS coins are another area of the "modern" coin market that is going to become more and more interesting as time goes on. I would be extremely interested to hear from anyone who has now, has owned in the past, or knows of examples for sale or at auction. Since I am attempting to complete a roster of all five denominations I would particularly like to know the NGC/PCGS certification numbers and grades. Prices realized are nice but completely optional. Per VDB coins  George. I agree and I followed up on these in 2014 buying annual proof and mint set Kennedys the 50th anniversary set in high relief. (the silver set is great)

[VDB Coins]

Thanks for sharing, rrantique. I did the same thing, bought a few each of the high relief clad, the 4-piece silver sets, and the gold Kennedys as well. I think they are a fantastic shot in the arm for a series that is already popular. However, PCGS chose not to include the coins in the Complete Variety Registry Set, a move that I consider simply stupid. While one might argue that including the gold Kennedys might discourage some collectors (and that is certainly true, as they are not cheap containing 3/4 ounce of gold), but I can see no justification for not putting in the special-finish 2014 silver issues. How are they different from the 1998 SMS (which was available only in the two-coin commemorative Robert Kennedy dollar//JFK half dollar set from the Mint) and the later Satin Finish coins, all of which are in the Complete Variety Registry Set?

PCGS includes them all only in various Commemorative Registry  Sets.  I think this tends to dampen demand for them as well. PCGS might have made this clear before we spent so much money on them. I am not feeling the love.

Oh. BTW. Regarding a Vibrant Coin Market, have you taken a look at the Partrick Colonials? A 1792 Birch cent in MS65 Star Red and Brown NGC -- that's crazy! The bid is currently $1.5 million plus 17.5 buyer's premium -- more than $1.7 million! And he has an incredible number of other fantastic Colonials up in Heritage's FUN auction as well. I see where Heritage put out a press release saying they had sold nearly $1 billion between all of their different venues -- sports, coins, Hollywood, luxury vintage handbags, and so on. But U.S. coins was the leader of all of them, of course, at $334 million. So it looks like the coin market is doing Pretty Well, despite a down year for precious metals.

But at any rate I wish all of you here a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2015 and wish Stefanie a continued speedy recovery!

Best Regards, 

George

[VDB Coins]

I am glad to announce (belatedly, as it has been a few weeks ago) that PCGS has finally seen the light of day and put the various 2014 Kennedy half dollar issues into the complete Kennedy Half Registry Set definitions/compositions. This should help increase demand and financially assist the many of us collectors who poured considerable funds (at least I did, anyway) into these gorgeous coins. They also kept them in some of the Commemorative sets where they were first placed, also good to not harm the collectors of those sets who bought, thinking they would need them for completeness.

In other news, the first session of the celebrated (although that is too mild a word) Pogue Collection is only a few weeks away now from Stack's Bowers, as well as the incredible material (mostly but not entirely Seated Liberty coins) from the Gardner III sale soon to be offered by Heritage! It feels like the numismatic world is collectively holding its breath to capitalize on these two incredible auctions coming up. I expect that the prices will be superstrong, and I continue to believe that a lot of New Money is coming into the numismatic market from folks that we would not classify as traditional numismatists. These folks are liable to swoop down on something like the unique-outside-of-the-Smithsonian 1822 half eagle, or the only known Mint State 1872-CC Seated dime which is in Gardner III, and add it to their collections of Bugattis, Picassos, fine jewelry, and bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. The strength of those two auctions (particularly given -- again, for another year, relatively lackluster precious metals prices) should go a long way towards determining the health of the numismatic market in 2015. My 2c.

Best Regards, 

George

[VDB Coins]

Anybody alive here? It looks like even the crickets are dying. Back to the overall coin market, the Pogue Collection sales through Stack's Bowers were certainly a shot in the arm for the coin market, and it does not seem to have sucked for too long a great deal of disposable money out of the market. The recent news is that a new billionaire collector has been spending money hand over first, millions of dollars in the last few months alone, attempting to even better the complete (virtually, those known to him at the time) collection of the great Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. The new collections are stunning and visible at the PCGS Set Registry website.

We have resigned (as of July 2017) after 12 years as longtime writer-editor-researchers for Heritage Auctions and gone back to just being full-time coin dealers. It was great but tiring, and I learned an incredible amount about top-end coins while I was there.

Happy collecting to all!

Kind regards,

George