How To Handle A Soft Coin Market

Luv it !!!

"Anyone who has spent years building a great collection knows the effort required."

For once I will ignore my guideline and offer advice: TRUST THE TRUTH of this!
Even if your goal is modest you perhaps already know which coins just seldom appear at a coin show and never seem to appear in a local coin shop. This will not change. There is little chance of rolls of rare and scare dates coming on the market.

Look - those who bemoan the market are less collectors and more promoters. Think of the real estate market:
"Why rent when you can own?" and "Choice rental properties available" are shouted BY THE SAME AGENTS!

If you already know coins you know the wisdom of taking the L O N G and prudent course of action.
And if you do not as yet know coins well, well stay with the CCF and learn.
Cooler heads are here to allay your concerns and offer gentle advice.

Thanks Tbone I'll follow my strategy that works in the stock market 'buy low and sell high' or is it 'buy high and sell low'

I really think this article is like so many others. Yes lots of truth to it but then again, similar info always appears for coins. Yes the market goes up and down, same with most things.

Interesting article, however if the decline in the hobby is as bad as some predict I doubt that much of this advice will make much difference. There is a tremendous amount of material coming onto the market as the baby boomer generation begins to liquidate their assets. There is a respected dealer in my area that has been seeing an increase in longtime collections being dispersed. Good stuff too like Draped Bust, Capped Bust, Seated, and Old Copper being sold in bulk. Hopefully once it gets back from grading I'll get a shot at purchasing a few pieces from their most recent acquisition.

Personally I think that it is important to purchase coins that have lots of eye appeal, especially in 19th century coinage since unattractive coins greatly outnumber nice coins. Coins that have been cleaned, overly dipped, or are just unattractive will likely trade at a much steeper discount to premium quality coins if there is less demand overall.

Two weeks makes for a soft market? It takes decades for the coin market to change IMO. On the up side, small branch mints, VAMs, high MS states - none of those were of much interest to collectors 50 years ago. On the downside, cleaned coins, full coin books and classic commemoratives have waned.

The only thing that affects the coin market much in the short term is bullion. If it's down it takes gold and silver collectible coins with it. Not prized rarities, but everything else. It's a good time to buy.

This are also record breaking coins that come on the market once every 10 to 30 years. This is a VERY small part of the market and does not and cannot reflect the overasll market.




The market has been stale for more than two weeks. I have been tracking coins that I have needed for years and over the last few months and have noticed a decline in the quides and in the LCS. Decades? Active market trends can be measured in days or even hours.




I have seen this and I cannot where they got this number but with spectacular auctions that have been held this year if the researcher weighted their research to the high end investor grade coins than I am not surprised that they got such an increase. If they weighted the research to colecter grades from say 1850 to 1950 we would be hearing different numbers. Remember that report was geared to investors not average coin collectors.

ALSO, A soft market does not mean a declining market. All it means is that it is not growing as quickly as it was recently. One needs to remember that the terms that the investment people use all have very specific meanings and it is not always what a layman would think. I even listened to one radio 'financal expert' who could not give the definition of a recession when he was asked. But then again I would bet that if one asked one hundred people how the inflation index was measured that 95 of them would give the answer for how the consumer price index is measured and not know the difference. So I give little creadance to media 'finance experts'.