Where Is The Market For Canadian Coins?

I think BIN is the result of a lack of a large active market and too much garbage being up for auction, it is hard to sift through it all.

We now have a virtual coin shop model where prices are posted as BIN and maybe you can negotiate, I know that I do. When I sell, it is usually BIN or auction with minimal acceptable price for me to sell it at,not sure if it is lack of bidders or only bargain hunters, but Most go unsold. I am a passive seller. Some sellers have great followers and regular customers and can do more regular business.

Cooke sale is an example of a "higher" quality collection (note quotation marks) with many uncommon items and will attract bids accordingly. ebay is full of junk bin coins that clog up the listings and turns buyers off, in my opinion. At least it has for me. There are some good auctions, but they only happen every few months, but even the prices are not different than ebay, just a better currated sale offering.

ebay does huge volume of lower end stuff and mid-grade, better/unique/rare stuff goes to the big auctions one to two times a year and the mid grade Au 50-Ms 64 goes through the torex/cnc/bell auctions at regular intervals. I am not sure about private sales, but that is probably a niche market and dont attend coin shoes (timing is never right).

Plenty of deals to be had at many venues. Just don't be greedy. I get many potential customers trying to get quality pieces and key dates at huge discounts. Not going to happen even in a soft market!

good material sells for good prices,
crap material sells for crap prices.

people make be claiming that the sky is falling but top coins are still fetching top dollar.

moral of the story, concentrate on the highest quality you can afford.

FortCollins,I agree with everything that you said. I was disappointed that the auction for the 1911 Silver Dollar did not get a mention anywhere in the press. Imagine a coin that could have sold for $1,000,00, there was a good story there but nothing appeared. It could have brought some good PR for the hobby on both sides of the border. There is quite lot of $$$ being spent on NCLT that is impacting the marketplace. Say what you will about Steven Bromberg, the guy knows how to market product and is very skilled at packaging. Perhaps we should learn from his approach because the way we're doing it now isn't getting us anywhere.

The irony of NCLT overload is that most NCLT attempts to commemorate, but ends up obscuring. The latest event or idea depicted on NCLT is quickly forgotten, swamped by the flood of the next big overproduced thing released by the mint.

The circulating coinage, however, much more effectively commemorates, communicates, and educates. The profound symbolism of Kruger-Gray's one cent design captured the essence of a nation and educated the world about the uniqueness of Canada.