When Will This Coin Price Inflation End?

I'd say wait until 2024-2025 before prices noticeably drop, coins shot up in price around 2008 and very slowly dropped after that until Covid happened. The economy doesn't look so good right now, so a lot of people are following the "don't invest in the market" trend. Thus, more people than usual are choosing to invest in alternatives, like numismatics. Once the market starts to do well again, and everyone feels confident that the market will perform, then more and more people will follow that trend and switch their investing to the stock market. It could take a couple years maybe before general feelings towards the market are "optimistically confident," so until then coin prices will be higher than usual. This is just me adding my uneducated opinion after looking at past trends in the coin market compared to the stock market and reading a few investment books here and there. I'm just a novice here and don't have years under my belt like some people here, so take what I say with a decent grain of salt. I am definitely missing those under $20 silver dollar prices, and maybe it is too late to buy certain coins again at their 2015-2019 prices, but I'd bet the vast majority of coins will drop in price. You just need to be patient! Some coins will stay high and continue to rise in value, but only a minority. Most will drop in price or stay the same.

With numismatics, at some point, I feel some "investors" (me recently) realize that coins don't pay regular returns, and unlike investing in companies, indexes, or governments, which have the promise of return and continued growth, these coins stay put and hopefully remain in the same shape in the safe or drawer until someone else comes along and asks to pay more for it than I or you paid for it. The Greater Fool Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

Of course, perhaps the motivation behind what drives certain markets is not the same. Chinese coins may stay valuable and continue to be valuable as coins are one method in which wealthy and normal Chinese individuals can store and transfer wealth through a medium which their government cannot track. Perhaps premium coins from countries with more "totalitarian-style" governments (wealth control) will continue to rise in value as wealthy people in those countries seek to store and move money in ways that don't require digital interactions. I'm purely speculating, but if I was a Chinese businessman trying to store or move my savings in a country that examines every digital footprint I leave behind, or perhaps I want to pay an untraceable bribe, of course I'd use coins (small valuable little items that airports/train security don't know how to identify; two Chinese silver dollars that look identical to the untrained eye could be both $100 and $20,000-$100,000, the average person cannot tell the difference!). The average American investor doesn't face the same challenges the average Chinese investor faces when investing personal wealth (in the US, the government can't just swoop in and lock access to your personal savings for no reason, which is possible in communist China), so how both parties feel entering the coin market could be different.

These are just a few ideas I've thought up while observing and passively studying numismatics, so I'm probably very wrong (perhaps some element exists, but very very minimally).

Regardless of the "investment" angle to coins, I love this hobby

People who live in areas where there are more than one decent-sized coin dealer to visit in person are truly fortunate these days. In much of the country, there are no coin dealers of any decent size within 50-100 miles or more, apart from, perhaps, a couple of "mom and pop" type places, or gold & silver shops that happen to have a few coins. In many cases in those areas there are no larger coin shows close by either.

This is what I mean about ebay being the only access point many collectors in those areas have when they want to expand their collections. The alternative is sifting through individual dealers' websites one at a time looking for particular coins, and then having to deal with inventory issues, high prices, and no opportunity for auction-type bidding on coins.

As far as auctions go, there are the major online sales of Heritage, GreatCollections, etc. but many items in those sales tend to be higher-priced and carry a buyers' premium (BP) which can further substantially inflate prices paid.

If you avoid ebay's "buy it now" listings, which are usually quite overpriced, and utilize Make Offer, as well as making good search lists and using them to spot situations favorable to the buyer (auctions that end at late hours or on weekdays, e.g.) you can find some amazing deals. If you pay through PayPal you have a decent measure of protection, and feedback is still something that is useful to identify potential problems with refunds and returns or items that do not live up to their photos/descriptions.

I've overpaid for coins on ebay, but I've also found many more good deals on coins that I was able to acquire for Greysheet bid or less, as well as cherrypicked errors and varieties that flew "under the radar." People want to be able to bid, and feel like they've "won" an item. It's psychological.

As a member of Coin Cube Trading since its inception, there we have been trying to make something more useful -- an aggregator that allows all member dealers to list their inventories in a single, searchable website and pays commissions to dealers on sales generated from those websites in exchange for a membership fee -- but it has been a thankless, tiresome, and largely very difficult process that is nowhere near completion due to issues finding a suitable e-commerce system to underpin the endeavor; and this does not address the auction / bidding side of the market at all.

Citing two examples out of millions of listings sold is not exactly a well-grounded statistical analysis and certainly cannot be construed as a meaningful or accurate reflection upon the numismatic market in general.

Your statement above only applies when you have an "elsewhere" to buy from that happens to have the precise coin you need in the grade and condition you are looking for and at a price that you agree with.

I collect German States coinage but live here in the US. Without sites such as ebay and MA-Coins, it would be incredibly difficult to find coins to purchase, since the vast majority of US coin dealers do not carry German States coins in their inventories.

The dealers who DO carry such coins are more often than not located in Europe or the UK, which means substantially higher prices (due to the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Euro or Pound) and MUCH higher shipping costs to acquire the coins, as well as much longer delays in receiving them. This makes ebay a much better option for finding coins.

Even when looking for, say, Snow varieties of Indian Head cents, my choices are to go to EERC's website (and pay a substantial premium), or visit dozens of other dealers' websites trying to find unicorns among the goatherds. It is easier, more fun, and often more cost-efficient to scan "ending soon" auctions of Indian Head cents looking for varieties that have not been identified by their sellers.

I recently purchased a nice chopped CC Trade dollar from Larry Briggs. But it was an ordeal. His website is not up to date due to problems with his provider (GoDaddy if I remember right). The coin I wanted was sold. After many phone calls and emails he found me a nice one. I probably did better than ebay, but it was a lot of trouble and took two months from the time I sent the check. I ran into ebay dealers with the same "can't find it" problem, and at least got prompt PayPal refunds.

For international coins and silver tableware, I've done very well with the French and UK eBays.

Back to my original point, Trade dollar prices are also rapidly inflating.

Here you go, only 2 under $535. And both were auctions, like I said above on auctions sometimes you can do very well.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/177652/i.h...te=1&_sop=10

lol... 'end'... that's funny.. I've never known any kind of inflation to end..

but I understand the point.. I totally agree that coin prices are ridiculous.. this week I've been musing over a few gold coins I bought four or five years ago now selling for more than double what I paid for them back then.. I also had a look at a lot of ASE prices.. wow.. I'm so very glad I built my ASE collection when I did, I cannot imagine trying to do that now

Although I agree, it is not reasonable to compare dealer's websites with ebay. ebay is a collection of thousands of dealers, with prices all over the place. Specialist dealers can only get so much inventory, which cannot even compare with the quantity of coins on ebay.