When Will This Coin Price Inflation End?

When will it end? I think it will stabilize soon but not drop much. Despite overall inflation, people with money to spend had nothing to gain by keeping it in a bank, so they bought coins. Now that CD/savings rates are back near 5% I think less money will be spent on coins and demand will level off.

CC gold is not something you find in ordinary coin shops. The internet has been a great tool to locate it, and there used to be bargains. The last F-VF 1882-CC half eagle I bought was $600 from a dealer on Collector's Corner, $150 over melt. I don't think he realized what he had, but deals like that on eBay used to be fairly common. If you're not a specialist it's dead stock. Now everyone is a specialist.

Sell?



Someone will inherit it. I'll let them decide. Hope it doesn't go in a yard sale.

If it does end up at a yard sale, shoot me a PM with the address the day before so I can get prepared.

The coin market had a previous surge in pricing in the latter part of the 2000s as people sought alternative investments in a very unstable economy.

Rising gold and silver prices have put further pressure on the numismatic markets over the last couple of years.

Whether you like eBay or not, it's the largest numismatic marketplace in the United States, and for many collectors, it is their ONLY entry point into the marketplace. Therefore, a resurgence in interest in coin collecting -- whether that's for numismatic reasons, or from folks looking for tangible precious metals investments, or from big investors and funds betting on the rare coin market -- will generate more traffic to eBay, and this means more visibility and more bidding.

I haven't been able to pick up many good deals off eBay since the pandemic. Even junk silver and culls are selling in excess of their bullion value. Try finding common-date Morgan dollars in ANY condition for less than $30. It wasn't that long ago that I could have purchased Uncirculated rolls of common dates like 1883-O and 1884-O for $30 per coin ($600/roll), those same BU rolls are now $1350-$1500. That's up to a 250% increase, in less than 7 years.

I sold most of my Washington quarter registry set last year and made money on it, despite having overpaid quite a bit for many of the coins from 2008-2017 or so.

If I go by PCGS price guide (which is unrealistic, but useful for comparison) my collection has gone up in value by about 20% the last 2 years despite me adding almost no additional inventory (in fact, I was a net seller for that time period.)

Will it end? Sure, sort of. There will always be market corrections. But as long as the price of silver and gold continues to stay high or climb even higher, it's going to continue to be an overall growth trend in the long term. That being said, over the last 100 years, truly rare coins have consistently outperformed many other investment opportunities that you can think of,.

when they decide to stop debasing fiat?

But.you just agreed to everything I said? eBay charges more than a dealer website (yes it does) So you disagree but in your post you agreed to exactly what I said?




Yes, If the starting price is below market you sometimes can get good prices, I've won a few auctions below greysheet. But that's only for a few. Most auctions go way over greysheet and way over price guides. The people on here are already thinking eBay is well priced you think they won't over pay when bidding?

So I'll tell you a funny story. I recently was looking for a coin. Grey sheet was $125, so my max bid was $132.50, the coins sold for $162 which is over the PCGS price guide. I see a comparable again on auction with a starting price of $150 which is PCGS price guide, I offered $130 ($5 over greysheet) and got the coin for $130. So you can get good prices on eBay but you have to know how to ask , what is a fair market value, how long it's been posted and make a fair offer and many times you'll get a no and some times you get a yes.

But on average you'll do much better not buying on eBay.

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