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 Replies: 68 / Views: 9,997 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Just a fun idea that I had for a thread: What is the *worst* numismatic investment that we can thing of? Both in terms of short term (1-25 years) or long term (decades to centuries). I can think of a few offhand: Worst short term - 1970s to date US proof/mint sets: With a handful of exceptions, most can still be bought for their original issue price, which is worth 10-25% of the issue price in terms of 1970s-80s purchasing power. - Bronze common US cents. They are "worth" 2-4 cents each, but carry no numismatic premium and carry a $10k fine for melting them. That effectively fixes their price at 1 cent each, or 25-50% of melt value. - Most 20th century world coins, excepting the UK and Commonwealth, some current Eurozone countries, and a select few others. The US, Canada, and Switzerland are pretty much the only countries that haven't demonetized all of their coins at least once between 1900 and today. Worst long term - Common bronze ancient coins: I can go out and buy decent bronze Constantine I coins for $2-5 all day long. And the ones that were stashed in pots and buried? They sell in lots of 50 for $10 all day and night on ebay. - Qianlong Cash coins. We're coming up on 300 years since these coins were first issued, and they can be bought for $1 each, compared to a 1750s buying power of about 25-50 cents. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7620 Posts |
Bad ----- 50-D BU nickel rolls at over a 1000$ each in the early 1960's 1973-S proof silver Ike dollars at 100$ each in the 1970's |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1118 Posts |
Keep in mind that they just keep finding AE3s burried in the ground as well. I have had luck moving them but they won't go up in value. Municipal trade tokens come to mind. They where apparently really big about two years before I was born so if you bought into them you lost out as I buy them between 50cents to $5 with the occasional $20-$50 outlier all day long. Franklin mint, 'nuff said. Olympic lapel pins bought in the host city during the games. A "Fry Sauce" lapel pin put out by Coca-Cola were going on the secondary market for about $150, now only $20. I recently bought a 2012 "Migra" pin at a Value Village for $3 With the exseptian of the Venetian Glass Lady Bug anything the RCM puts out. |
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Moderator
 United States
188440 Posts |
Quote:
What is the *worst* numismatic investment that we can thing of? Both in terms of short term (1-25 years) or long term (decades to centuries). How about any coin. Short or long term. Coins are for collecting, not investing.  Kidding aside, I like your assessments. Quote: 1973-S proof silver Ike dollars at 100$ each in the 1970's I remember thinking I wold never be able to afford one. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
Speaking of 1950-D nickels, there seem to be a lot of huge and very temporary bubbles:
- Boxes of 2009 cents sold like crazy for $250-500 when they first came out. $30-50 is the current buying price
- That huge 2011 silver spike... I remember people selling AU 1964 halves for $40 each.
- 2015 March of Dimes set in PF70 for $500? Nuff said.
I personally had the chance to cash in big time on all three of those. Hindsight is often 20/20, sadly. I am thankful that I am not one of the schmucks who bought high and got stuck with the coins.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
1903-O Morgan dollar in MS in say 1960, around $2,000 (about $20,000 in current dollars) Currently around $400. Believe it or not the GSA dollars if you bought them in the 1972 sales and held them til today. The annual rate of return works out to about 1.5% per annum. Less than the rate of inflation. Winning in investing is always a matter of timing. Buy and sell at the right times, win big. Buy and sell at the wrong times, lose your shirt. For example that lousy GSA dollar investment. If you bought them in 1989 instead of 1972 and then sold them in 1991, instead of a loser they would have returned close to 100% per annum. But in the 20+ years since then they basically haven't moved, except maybe down a little. So they were a lousy long term investment from 1972 to 1989, a great investmet from 1989 ro 1991, and a lousy investment from 1991 to 2015. Edited by Conder101
09/15/2015 11:53 am
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Valued Member
United States
324 Posts |
I was 12 in 1975 when I cashed in a savings bond to buy a 1975 proof set for $22.50 to get the first cent only issued in proof, the 1975S.
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Valued Member
Netherlands
74 Posts |
Pretty much anything that's not rare... But some egregrious examples:
- with the switch to the Euro many people kept the old coins with the idea 'that they'd be worth a lot one day'. Sadly, that day is still far away. Guilder coins from the Netherlands can't be exchanged anymore, and are now selling by the kilo. To get a complete set of all non-silver Dutch coins from 1977-2001 in FDC (mint state) you'd now pay less than what was their nominal value. As a little boy I was once told at a coin fair when asking how much one of those sets of a single year was: 'that's very expensive'. For that price I now get 10 of those sets...
- In the early '80s coin collecting was a craze in the Netherlands. some of the difficult years of the silver 'rijksdaalders' from the '60s sold for up to 50 euros. You now buy them for silver value (4.5 euro). And then I'm not even looking at inflation in the last 35 years!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7620 Posts |
On the other hand.... 1903-O BU Morgan dollars for less than 10$ each when bags of them were released by the Treasury in Washington in the early 60's. Heck you could get rolls of 98-O, 99-O, 00-O, 01-O, 02-O and 1904-O for 39$ a roll delivered! Trouble was, I was making 25$ a week working part time at the Piggly Wiggly and I had more important things to spend my money on ... like food, gas and girls! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6370 Posts |
Anything sold by Littleton Coin.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5853 Posts |
As with any field of collectibles, whether it be coins, comic books, baseball cards, or what have you, the absolute worst investments tend to be the "special, limited edition, collector's version" that is sold well above face value and often produced in vast quantities. The best investments are the things that nobody knew would catch on until many years later and either were never made in large quantities to begin with or else weren't saved in mint condition. Anything made specifically for investors is pretty much guaranteed to never be worth much in the long run.
And yes, I am including my beloved 2013 Niue Island Six Ounce Silver Proof $50 "FORTUNA REDUX" Cylinder Coin (which I still think is incredibly cool even if its value goes down on almost a daily basis).
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8137 Posts |
colorized and gold/silver plated coins
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
17933 Posts |
The British Churchill crown, the cuprro-nickel 1977 Jubilee Crown and the 1981 Royal Wedding crown - also most recent British proof sets.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
814 Posts |
Quote:
Coins are for collecting, not investing. I like this. Any US Mint or Proof set 1971-date, including the silver proof sets. I have only ever bought any mint set in order to fill holes in my Ike/JFK/SBA sets. However I would like to buy a couple 1964 mint sets; one to put away in order to preserve a complete set from the last year of circulating 90%, and the other to upgrade my 20th C. type set. Modern world coins. My favorite example of a waste of money would be the 1965 Crown--not because it's not a worthy coin, but just because there were SOOO many made coupled with the fact that it's base metal. My LCS literally gives away foreign "junk" if you are making some other purchase. So pretty much all of the base metal coins in my UK £sd set--including two 1965 Crowns--didn't cost me a dime. Copper bullion rounds. I don't have much of an issue if you're purchasing some copper rounds for the designs--I've thought about getting me a couple SLQ and incuse Indian rounds from Provident, but only as example pieces of the designs. Certainly not as a precious metal investment. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
757 Posts |
I've seen this craigslist post for like a month. This clearly seems to fit the spirit of this thread. He originally wanted I believe $1250 a box. https://buffalo.craigslist.org/clt/5186565895.htmlI have $2000.00 worth of Bi-Centennial quarters, all wrapped for sale. They will have to be picked up because they are very heavy. These coins are in very good condition. I have four boxes of $500.00 each.These coins will only improve in value as they get older. I'm 74 right now and would like to use the money now while I'm still alive. Thanks for looking. Wayne PS I've lowered the price to $750.00 a box.This is a deal and a half at this price. I will not go any lower. |
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Replies: 68 / Views: 9,997 |
Posted 09/15/2015 10:20 am
