How Important Is Collector Demand For A Coin

I bought for about melt or slightly above it a nice XF 1952 Canadian dollar. The mintages for many of these coins (especially from the 1940's to early 50's) is below half a million and lower). Yet a 1916-D Mercury dime with a mintage half the 1952 Canadian dollar would sell for $900 in AG grade!.

To me Canadian dollar coins prior to 1959 are very undervalued and some key date US coins are overvalued.

However, the reason for the present valuation is simply collector demand - America has had a higher profile as a superpower and Canada as a developed and active commercial power with a smaller population.

The mintage of the 1952 Canadian dollar is just over 460,000 the 1916-D Mercury dime - 264,000. The downside for Canadian dollar collectors is reselling them, you will get for most dates at or slightly above melt value (I believe there is really one key date the 1948, mintage about 18,800, yet even for this coin prices run less than the Mercury dime 1916-D). The big upside is they are a bargain, even the key date compared with some US key dates with much higher mintages - the 48 you can get XF for around 1500 - 1700, versus the 1916-D Mercury dime $7,500 + with the Canadian 48 having less than a 1/10 of the mintage of the Mercury and an equally stunning but more original design).

I do think that many World coins suffer undervaluation. Only a few countries' coins are fairly of over valued.

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