Increase In The Prices: An Inquiry

Thanks, this is really helpful! So my impression was not completely misguided.

Prices for ancient and mediaeval coins have gone crazy in the past few years. It was happening before he Ukraine War started, so I think we can rule out war effects as the primary cause. My guess is it's purely related to COVID.

The worldwide mass lockdowns affected everyone. Some people lost their jobs, were forced to leave their country of residence or otherwise were made much worse off, while others found themselves in the situation with lots of unexpected spare money, but their usual luxury expenditures (world travel, dining out, etc) were now blocked to them. So members of this second group who had an interest in coins went shopping online for coins. The rising prices have also encouraged those members of that first group to reluctantly sell their coins (again, online) for much-needed cash. This trickle of supply has helped sustain high prices,whereas a sudden rush to sell would have caused a glut and resultant price crash.

The price rise for coins has been across the board, but perhaps it's particularly noticeable for ancient coins because ancient coin prices had for the longest time long been rather slow; for example, the Sear millennial edition Roman catalogue was published 20 years ago but until COVID started, people were still using it as a price guide, because prices had changed so little. Now, all the price guide prices are out the window.