Ebay Is So Boring These Days.

I am a frequent ebay buyer(never a seller) and really see very little difference now from the way it way 6-7 years ago ... except dealers want more money for their common stuff. To me, I think it is almost entirely due to the "visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads" attitude that, if they get a coin certified, then it will sell. I don't like and have never trusted ANY TPG. If a dealer wants to put another $20-40 into the cost of a coin, then that's fine ... but there is no way that he should expect an $80-100 return on his TPG cost. A coin in a plastic holder is worth the same as one that is raw. I think that dealers have cut their own throats by biting off on the TPG propaganda. If you are not in a hurry to buy what you want or need, there are enough honest dealers out there who will give you a good deal. The thrill is in the HUNT, not the purchase.

To add to the points above, the Canadian coin market is small with shrinking demographics. A great time to be a buyer because there are lots of collections/estates coming onto the market.

And yes, once the nice weather returns then ebay activity slows waaaaaay down.

Cheers!

The Royal Australian Mint is also pumping out the "Grannybait" as well.
Also the recent trend for Bullion coins being thought of as collectables isn't helping much either.
Why would a new collector want an old circulation coin when they can get a brand new overpriced bullion coin with even a chunk of glass stuck to it

It is a well known terminology in the Aussie "Coin Speak" .
The RAM, RCM and now the RM are producing a plethora of pretty much irrelevant coins and are bombarding the market with them.
The sheer number of different coins coming out from RAM over the last 2 years have disenchanted many of the die hard decimal collectors and they have ceased collecting these because of it.

Pacificoin:

Interesting post from you. I don't know about the world view of Canadians as collectible coin buyers, but I remember back in the mid 1980's visiting Cancun. I met up with an American who was going to pay $5 for 3 silver bracelets from a street vendor. I looked at the vendor, and said: "4 dollars?" He agreed, the American thanked me, and the vendor said, "You're Canadian, aren't you." :)

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle of collectors. My ceiling is $2k for a coin, and it has to be something special for me to pay that. It's hard for me to define special, but I know it when I see it. I have a hard time paying high dollar for a beat up, hard to look at rare coin.

It's ok with me if sellers target other markets outside Canada. If and when I sell my collection, I'll offer to as many buyers as I can. I feel no obligation to sell within Canada to only Canadians, and see no reason why sellers should do that either.

I saw another post about high dollar collectors who quit after 2008. Maybe they were speculators who moved on to something else, rather than collectors for the sake of it.

I collect a few unrelated things, and the thrill of the hunt is part of it for me. It's more than getting a good deal, but also finding a coin with eye appeal that suits my taste. The tougher the hunt, the bigger the thrill of success.

Everest is certainly right about the taxation part. It gives one with US residency at least an additional 5 to 15 per cent advantage as far as price goes . That topped with a strong USD and it virtually kills any market for anything decent in Canada.
Talking to a few of the bigger dealers in Vancouver over the past few weeks and had a couple of eye openers. One dealer told me he turned down a nicer lot of Canadian Decimal offered to him at 40 per cent of trends. Just no where to go with it.
Second dealer said that his retail walk in is way off as far as collectors Canadian Stuff goes but his export sales and tourist sales were quite good.
Must say that we are finding similar results lately. Our last GST and PST reports we filed showed that over 78 % of sales are export. This trend has been growing over the past 18 months or so.

I've noticed over the past couple years, a definite decline in the selling price of graded Canadian Coins, which is both good and bad in my opinion. Some may say dealers are getting killed, but from my experience, it just means dealers are obtaining coins even cheaper. My main coin dealer and I have a very good relationship, which means that virtually any graded PCGS, NGC, and ICCS coins he has in stock, I can purchase at 55 percent of trends. This has come down considerably from when I first got into the hobby so naturally I talk to him about how he's doing. He's of the opinion that although selling trends have come down, the realized profit is near the same as the cost to obtain them has also come down significantly. It's clear it's a great time to be a collector, but I don't think it's necessarily as bad as some may think to be a dealer either.

E-Bay right now for me is like watching paint dry. Good thing summer is just around the corner