Coin Prices

Yes, that's what I thought, that maybe non-precious coins were shadowed by buyers attention shifting towards gold or silver coins (which I have to confess, is what made me start collecting coins).

What I see is that, in places like ebay -for example, gold and silver coins well pass the cataloge price (due to rising spot prices), while most other coins rarely reach this cataloge price. Has this always been this way, or indeed these coins have been shadowed to such a point that their prices had been lowered?

I'm mainly asking because I thought this might be the best moment to buy these coins at a bargain price.

Question cleared then... any tips? [:p]

What about gold/silver coin prices; are these expected to drop dramatically *if* precious metals go down?

Yes, I was fearing that answer. The only hope is that gold/silver will never go back down, or that at least it won't go down so much.

Just in case, it might probably be a good idea to start getting rid of all those coins with low premiums, and start buying with that money non-precious coins or even rare/scarce issues with higher premiums.

Going to coin shows about 2 or 3 times a Month I've noticed the prices of Gold anything way, way up. Yet oddly enough the Silver prices have little effect on Silver coins. Not sure if the reason is normally a Silver coin is rather on the high side price wise already. For example almost any Mercury dime in any condition runs about $2+ and a few years ago, same coin was about $2. Even the more high priced Silver coins don't appear to have jumped up much due to Silver prices. I suspect that dealers know that the collectors buying a Silver coin is buying a coin for collecting not melting. Not sure why but just don't see massive increases in Silver coins. YET.

What I noticed over the 2 years I've been collecting silver coins is that their price does rise accordingly to the spot price of silver. But curiously, they usually maintain the same premium. I mean, I found that the best formula would be: the BV + the catalogue premium; in which the BV rises according to spot price, while the catalogue premium stays the same.

Of course, there are some exceptions (i.e. US and Canadian dimes and quarters, most post 1920 British coins, and other European silver coins of the same period). These can easily be found well under this formula, and even you can find most lower collectable grades under BV, and high grades near BV.

What I've been doing these 2 years is buy all these coins that you can get collectable grades at (or under) BV; as I didn't had enough confidence or knowledge to risk overpaying for coins with high premiums. And I have to confess: at the current price of silver, there are very few coins that I wouldn't be able to sell at a profit; that's why I was so curious to know how they would perform when silver goes down (if it does).

Only recently I began buying coins with higher premiums; and only recently I realized that this could be the best time to buy non-precious coins at low prices; instead of silver coins. Since I have no idea about what non-precious coins to buy, I was also thinking about nickel buffalos or something like that; also older bronze coins (I find old bronze coins quite beautiful); any more recommendations on what types of non-precious coins are popular?

By the way; does anyone use the Krause catalogue? Do you find the prices for these non-precious coins reliable?

Silvermaniac,

I'm not sure I'd sell the low premium coins if I were you, unless you don't plan on getting them again in the future. You *might* make money doing that, but keep in mind that a dealer won't pay melt, he'll pay a percentage of melt (maybe 85% or so). Then in the future when you go to buy them again you'll be paying retail price which will be a bit above melt. So it is possible that the actual amount of money you make in the end is little or nothing.

I've been looking how previous crises affect the price of precious metals --especially after the crisis is over-, and I found that it's quite improbable that these prices would return to their previous value. As I understand it, what drives these prices up is not only demand, but also inflation and the devaluation of currencies; therefore, when a crisis is over the decrease in demand for precious metals would generally drive the prices down, but the increase due to inflation or devaluation would not. For example, during the last big crisis in the 80s the price of gold went up from $150 to $750; however, when the crisis was over the price did not return to $150; it stayed at around $400 to $500 in subsequent years. If we expect gold to behave in the same way when this crisis is over, and we take the current peak of $2000, I calculated it wouldn't go under $1250.

Where I was completely lost was in regards to collectable coins; as I have no reference to calculate if coin collectors will continue to pay the current price --adding this difference as premium-, or if they will recalculate the prices based on a lower BV. But I guess you guys are right when you say that the coins that will be most affected will be those coins with low premiums.

In answer to Saruma; It's not that I'm getting rid of my collection; it's that during these 2 years I've been buying everything that I found under or at BV, so I had a lot of repeated coins and a lot of coins under collectable grades. I've been selling these coins at a profit and immediately re-investing the money into better coins as I learned. So I thought that, since the price of coins in low collectable grades will drop with silver once the crisis is over, it might also be a good idea to sell these at a profit while I can, and with the money buy other coins in better grades and with higher premiums; or better still, non-precious coins that will not be affected when silver goes down.

Yes GoldRush58, I moved from the UK to Spain last year; though I continue to buy coins in Britain. The problem with Spain is that they stopped minting silver coins for circulation (the main ones I collect) quite early; so the only local coins available have quite high premiums (compared with what I'm used to buy). I managed to gather a good collection of US coins; but mainly Mercury and Roosevelt dimes, Washington quarters, Liberty and Franklin halves, and a couple of Morgan and Peace dollars. Everything else previous to that is quite expensive here; even the nickel coins.