Precious Metal Against Numismatic Value

Agree.

Common dates in circulated grades I agree. There have been many changes in the last decade for Mint State gold pieces and likely will be more changes in the future too. It's amazing what low MS gold pieces were bringing relative to melt value in 2007-2009.

Go look at a retail price guide, e.g. http://www.numismedia.com/fmv/price...icesgd.shtml

Notice the floor price is around 1440$ for G4 - that's basically gold price only. Everything over that is the numismatic premium.

Compare the G4 to MS60 price - and filter down to those year/mintmarks showing only a small difference, say MS60 at 110% of G4. That give you the set of coins that basically trade as bullion (except for the very highest grades).

If you then compare mintage and especially estimated survival you will find these are the 'common' dates.

I agree.

Gold coins are something you really need to shop for.

The premiums seem to change from area to area .. Dealer to dealer.

Also remember that most gold coinage was melted in 1933 under the gold confiscation order. There were exceptions for a modest amount per person ($100 IIRC) and for numismatic items.

You need to pull the grade into the discussion. Here are my observations:

$20 Liberty and St. Gaudens. - The early Liberty coins (Type I and Type II) have more numismatic value than the later ones (Type III). Still once you get below the AU grade for the St. Gaudens and Type III Liberty coins and EF earlier dates, the value is mostly bullion.

In rare instances I've seen dealers sell low grade $20 gold coins for less than melt when there was a general perception in the market that the gold price was going to take a drop.

$10 Indian and Liberty. The No Motto coins are in a different class. Still if they are only VF and not attractive, you are looking at bullion prices. For the others, it's the same as the $20 gold pieces.

$5 Indians and Libs - Pieces in VF and lower are hard sells except to the crazy (In my opinion) bottom feeder crowd that gets off on badly worn coins that usually are not found that worn. I'm talking about the coins in Good and AG. If they are slabbed, some people will pay "nutty money" for them.

$2.50 Indians and Libs. Same as the $5 gold. There really not much demand beyond melt for these coins in VF and Fine. Super low grade gets into the "nutty money" market although I think they are less enthusiastic.

Gold Dollars - Not much of a market for these for common dates in VF and lower.

not a lot of mention of $2.50 and $5 Classic and Capped Bust. Is it that these are just self-evident Numismatic even in mid-grade VF+ and EF+? I would never imagine seeing a VF35 to EF45 Classic Head/Capped Bust bringing less than an average of 300% of their melt value in markup(?) Get into Key date and Semi-Key Date years and that percentage increases even more, no?