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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
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I agree I've seen a ton of opinions and weird reasoning on this thread but very little data or anything of that nature. The only information posted seems to indicate a decline in coin collecting in recent years Exactly. The only data I've seen is one link that shows a downward trend in prices over time. Unless/until someone comes up with numbers that show what percentage of the population are coin collectors now & what that percentage has been over time we'll never know. Failure to understand that results in threads full of opinion and anecdotal evidence. |
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Bedrock of the Community
 13014 Posts |
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Could it be true that collecting is moving upward outside the U.S. but downward in the U.S.? Part of the reason for the world price increase has been the increased interest in them with US collectors. The average collector today has a much more diverse and spread out collection. Quote:
As a relatively new collector (the last couple of years), it's kind of disheartening to read such strong opinions that almost want to "will" coin collecting into a slow painful death. Don't let it get you down, some people really do wish it was for various reasons or just like trying to get people worked up. Sometimes it's as simple as thinking if they convince enough people things they want will be cheaper. It happens on basically every coin forum from time to time. Quote:
The only data I've seen is one link that shows a downward trend in prices over time The data is all around and I have referenced it numerous times as well as where someone can find more of it if they want to. If data has to be a chart for some people so be it, it's not something that can be seen in a chart. The market is far to complex to be summed up in a chart just as life conditions and their impact on the market is as well. 20 years ago oil briefly fell to the same price as it was in the late 1940s, yet oil consumption did and has continued to increase including during times where price decreased. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1005 Posts |
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The data is all around and I have referenced it numerous times as well as where someone can find more of it if they want to. This reeks of laziness. You made a brand new topic with quite an essay to discuss this topic so please back up any of your points with just one or two links. Otherwise this thread really is just a shouting match between you and the other guy rehashing the same points. I was really looking forward to learning something here but without some kind of data to substantiate claims it's honestly not worth reading. |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
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This reeks of laziness. You made a brand new topic with quite an essay to discuss this topic so please back up any of your points with just one or two links.
Otherwise this thread really is just a shouting match between you and the other guy rehashing the same points. I was really looking forward to learning something here but without some kind of data to substantiate claims it's honestly not worth reading. It's not anything between me and the other guy, I see what he is trying to do and am ignoring it. For the record I have a college degree and a Masters degree just to put that statistical nonsense to bed and end that accusation. I've already used specific information that hasn't been refuted. More than happy to have real conversations about collecting behavior and changes or specific changes about things. It's impossible to make a chart to counter and overly simplistic chart that gives no real information. I get that some people will just believe what they want or maybe even want to disagree just because it's me and that's fine. But for the people that are interested in a real look at it the best way for them to do so it to look for themselves. Teach a man to fish vs give him a fish. The information is out there, lots of it has already been mentioned with snippets of it and where to find more. If you have a question or something you want to contend by all means do it, but if you are looking for a thesis with everything spoon fed that will have to come from someone else. Edited by basebal21
04/10/2019 6:17 pm
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
900 Posts |
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I am hopeful that he can look back in 20 or 30 years and say "dad and I had a good time collecting those coins together.. I see now why he told me not to tell mom how much we paid for those haha" @Lakeman What a great attitude. You are creating great experiences and memories, and those will never lose value. |
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Valued Member
United States
318 Posts |
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@Lakeman
What a great attitude. You are creating great experiences and memories, and those will never lose value. Such a strong statement. Thank you. It was the early 1970s for me. My only memories of my grandfather before he passed. To this day, I always look at what we had collected together and it brings me back to a time when life was simpler for me. Great memories. |
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Valued Member
United States
318 Posts |
BTW - I'm going to a coin show this weekend here in central NJ, about to drop around $500. Already negotiated with the dealer and the show isn't even till Sunday. Last month the place was packed. I know it's only my viewpoint but here in central NJ, the hobby appears strong.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7961 Posts |
I'm gonna be a real bad boy here and say that the testimonials are like going to a church on Sunday and asking if anyone here believes in Jesus.
Before the mods take my head off, I need to point out this is not a religious comment, but merely a "preaching to the choir" analogy. We are all collectors here, so we have a bias toward basebal21's arguments and against those of dollars.
And that's OK, because if collectors aren't going to be passionate about this discussion, then why are we collecting?
I don't know the answer, but remain on the side of the posters who say "the jury's out because there is not yet enough data here to be convincing one way or the other."
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
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Before the mods take my head off, I need to point out this is not a religious comment, but merely a "preaching to the choir" analogy. We are all collectors here, so we have a bias toward basebal21's arguments and against those of dollars Posting the PCGS 3000 over and over isn't an argument. Are you aware that chart misses COUNTLESS sales. Private sales aren't reported because they weren't online. Even with online sales it has to hit the AI perimeters and be allowed to be captured. Do you think GC is a legit source? Their prices stopped being captures overall a couple years ago from the PCGS auction prices realized source. There's more examples of that as well from what would be considered major sellers and not even touch the medium to small ones. As great as the internet is for letting us all connect together, it is also flawed because anyone can say anything. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7961 Posts |
I think you've read my posts where I make the exact same argument, namely that price (the PCGS index) is not a surrogate for broader market activity. The PCGS index is not counting the millions of transactions each year at prices of $50 or less which are the bread and butter of the numismatics hobby. This is the enormous flaw in dollars' argument. If you haven't seen me making this argument, then I guess I need some work on my communications technique  The problem is that nobody has brought any real data to the table on all those millions of other transactions. Do we know if the number of them is going up or down? Do we know if the average price is going up or down? Sure, one or two of us might feel that our local coin shows have better attendance than ever, but let's see the data. Is ANA publishing attendance of shows year over year? Membership figures? If not, then why not? And dollars' macroeconomic arguments on collectibles vs. commodities make sense (as pointed out by llewellin). But I think they are too simplistic. I think the argument may be good for the higher end market, because I work in wine and the luxury brands fit that model of fixed supply and variable demand. But I don't see it with the small transactions. Edited by tdziemia
04/10/2019 10:11 pm
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New Member
38 Posts |
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For the record I have a college degree and a Masters degree just to put that statistical nonsense to bed and end that accusation. *** Edited by Staff - Personal attacks are NEVER allowed here. Argue the topic NOT the person. We take this VERY seriously. ***I know that, you know that, you know I know that... but the more interesting point is how I know that, just from reading your posts. Your degree absolutely does not mean you would pass a quiz on a 200 level stats course and if you'd like to wager 20 Mint State Morgan dollars on just that, lets get together with the mods and work out the logistics. Quote:
I've already used specific information that hasn't been refuted. No, you haven't and when the other guy points this out, you vaguely reference yourself at some point in the past without providing anything substantive. For the record here, lets all agree on one single point. We're lacking hard data. So lets use Baseball logic and claim that maybe, the Beanie Baby market is really just as strong today as it was in years past and the reason the prices are down, well, that's caused by something else, not a decline of interest... and by golly, the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BEANIE BABIES that are sold on ebay every day sure suggest the market is ON. FIRE.... and if you don't believe me, just look at the Beanie Baby communities that are active on Instagram and Facebook! I mean, seriously. That's his argument. Maybe, some people are just better at being objective about evaluating empirical stuff and they realize that the near total dearth of people under 40 in the hobby (compelling anecdotes about kids notwithstanding) the total decline of all forms of IRL coin meetups, the total death of all coin publications and the decline of prices... maybe those things are an indicator of something. Of course, we have the Baseball guy here who says otherwise. And he also says "data" a few times. And he has a Masters Degree. Edited by dollars
04/10/2019 10:33 pm
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New Member
38 Posts |
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This is the enormous flaw in dollars' argument. No, it's not. Imperfect data can still be the best available data. You see people with agendas appeal to perfection all the time, constantly reference a bottomless well of abstract scenarios to imply that fundamentals aren't in play, that maybe, what we can observe is actually caused by an elaborate scenario they've devised and that what is blatantly inferred from what we can measure all just an illusion... The PCGS3000 isn't even close to being perfect (not within light years, actually) but we can use strategies that are employed in other markets. We can basket an array of key dates, reference Worthpoint for 20+ years of historical data, set a baseline of grades and then adjust the prices for inflation over a 20 year arc. Hell, I'll even volunteer to do the work and show my data if I can get someone to make a meaningful wager that makes it worth my time and takes the side of an array of key date prices trending up, not down, over a 20 year period. We all know Baseball won't, but maybe someone else is a true believer and willing to put their money where their mouth is. If what Baseball is saying were true, it would absolutely favor the side of prices trending up over 20 years, as per Worthpoint, ebay data and key dates as the data. Any takers? Edited by dollars
04/10/2019 10:34 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7961 Posts |
Well, I've already gotten started with the PCGS database, since it's an obvious source of activity data from the same source data in their index.
Here is what I've done, and what I've found. It's piddling in scope, but it's a start.
I looked at the highest population cent (1909S VDB at 8500), Morgan (the 1881-S at 24,000) and gold (the 1924 $20 at 8500) over the last 10+ years, which comprises about 65% of everything in the database for these three types (remember "population" in the sense I'm using it is population of auction sales).
Each of these coins increased in sales through the late 2000's, peaked between 2010 and 2013, dropped off between 2014 and 2017, then had an enormous increase in 2018:
1909S VDB. 2010-13 averaged 600 sales per year, up considerably from just a few years before. Then dropped by nearly 50% to only 315 in 2016, but shot up to 950 in 2018, highest year in the database.
1881S Morgan. Peaked 2012 at a little over 2000 sales. Declined gradually to 1500 in 2017, but increased sharply to 5200 in 2018 (again, highest year in the database).
1924 $20 gold. Peaked at 835 in 2011. Decline to 370 in 2017, and increased sharply to 630 in 2018. Not as high as 2011, but highest year since 2013.
Each of these continues to run at high sales rates in 1Q19.
If the other coins in the database tracked in similar fashion, it means 2018 was the highest activity level in the last 20 years, and 2019 may match it. But that comes after a couple of years that were the lowest in a decade.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7961 Posts |
The 2019 point is 1Q annualized.. Addition of ebay sales accounts for the discontinuity in 2010. I don;t have an explanation for the huge jump last year, and must head to work now (to sell another favorite commodity/collectible depending on your viewpoint).  Edited by tdziemia
04/11/2019 08:29 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
Quote:The old myths and marketing were exposed big time in many areas and as the online market really turned into the force it is today prices adjusted accordingly. Places like ebay themselves essentially encourage driving prices down on common things especially, a bunch of people keep undercutting the each other and next thing you know the price is way down. This is not data and the interpretation of why prices went down is not correct. The internet in general and ebay in particular changed the dynamics of all collectibles. Instead of being segmented into individual markets one big market was created. Basic rules of supply and demand dictate what happens at that point. Quote:Which is a good way to look at it. For ebay if one wanted to you could go through the financials or just track it month to month on your own which would obviously take work. I just did a quick check for ebay, they showed at least 1.5 million coins sold for three categories and that doesn't even count bullion/tokens/exonumia for what I believe is the last 30 days of sales with the sold category. That's data but it's not complete or enough to form an opinion. Sold searches on ebay show results for the last 90 days. 1.5 million is a big number but it's absolutely meaningless without knowing the number of collectors involved in those purchases & what percentage of all collectors the participants represent. Quote:
If you have the patience to look for it all Heritage usually does some press releases about the prior years sales. I've seen a few where they've been setting records in the last couple years and I believe 2017 was the first time they reported that over 50% of their total revenue came from internet bids.
This is incomplete but it's data. Heritage, like the other higher end venues, sells coins that are rarities. That's a small segment of the overall market that sells the absolute cream of the crop. You can't base the overall demand for coins from a small segment of the market, especially when it's the top end of the market. It's only natural that the top end of the market will be stronger due to scarcity & the make up of the core of collectors that supports that market. Quote:
I've already used specific information that hasn't been refuted. Maybe I'm dense but I haven't seen a single piece of specific information that isn't either incomplete, anecdotal, or opinion. |
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Posted 04/10/2019 5:34 pm
