Collecting gold and silver coins

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jiminbartow
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Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by jiminbartow » Sat Apr 18, 2020 1:06 am

As you may know, whenever the economy is good, precious metal prices in the commodity markets, decrease and whenever the economy is bad, precious metal prices increase.

During this time at home, I have revived a childhood interest of mine. Coin collecting and I have been buying choice Uncirculated examples of silver and gold coins as an investment and hedge against inflation (now that I have the money to do so).

I know that the price of precious metals depends upon the rise and fall of the economy, while the numismatic value of gold and silver coins depends upon the condition of the coin (from poor to proof) and the scarcity and (maybe) the current price of precious metals in the commodity market. This is my question. How much influence does the price of precious metals have on the numismatic value of a gold or silver coin. Does it figure at all? Is it okay for me to be buying gold coins now while the economy is down and the price of gold is at an all time high? Should I wait until the economy recovers and precious metal prices decrease, or does it matter? I’m concerned that, I may be buying coins at a premium price because precious metal prices are up and when the economy recovers, the value of my coins will decrease. Thank you. Jim Patrick


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Herb Iffrig » Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:24 am

I would say that depends on factors that are unpredictable. Are you enjoying yourself? I imagine gold coins will never be valueless monetarily, :) . Are you jumping in with everything you have? Don't do that.


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by jiminbartow » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:33 am

Thanks Herb. Yes, it is enjoyable. No, I am not putting a whole lot in. I just search for nice uncleaned coins with a strong strike and beautiful appearance and lustre, then go to “Coin Help” and check to see if the price is fair for the date and grade. While coins are great investments, I also enjoy holding a piece of history in my hand and imagining what it has lived through and what was going on when it was minted. Last week I bought a beautiful silver Trade Dollar from 1877 minted in San Francisco. One of the most beautiful US coins ever made. Last night I bought a silver Walking Liberty 1945 half dollar that was being sold as uncirculated but looked like a flawless proof. I am purchasing one coin a day and sending them off to a grading service. It is possible to greatly increase the value of a coin by buying an ungraded Uncirculated coin and sending it to a grading service and having it come back as MS64. Thanks again. Jim Patrick
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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by DanTreace » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:25 am

Jim

Count me in as long time collector, cars, guns, coins, and stuff :D

As for your gold coin purchases, the present is a good as the past IMO.

Gold price floor sat for decade and a half at $400, then a new floor in recent years @ $1000, that is from just the last past decade of monetary inflation, gold won’t go lower, next decade, esp. with the huge monetary stimulus from Covid-19, a new floor will be reached $600 higher @ $1600, so spikes from now on will always be above $1600.

If you are always looking back, it's easy to say back then was a better time to buy, but even today, gold is a very good future investment.
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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by HornsRus » Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:28 pm

gold is good but have got to be able eat while you hang on to it.charley


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Herb Iffrig » Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:12 pm

Watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT3SKrrufu0

It makes you womder.

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by HornsRus » Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:07 pm

you better know what you are buying!!!!!!!!!!! its easier with old rusty gas pumps.i just sold one for about as much as i want for my 1910 pile.i got it 40 years ago.wish i had never seen an old car. and just bought gas pumps & motorcycles. charley

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Duey_C » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:58 pm

Interesting thread Jim! :)
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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Wayne Sheldon » Sun Apr 19, 2020 7:12 am

I started serious collecting with coins when I was about ten. Unfortunately, I had to sell most of mine to pay medical bills when the kids were young. I still have a few interesting items. One Greek coin identified as about 100 BC, and a couple Roman coins ranging from 300 to 500 AD. None of the ones I have are considered valuable, but I love the history, and still wonder about the people that had them so very long ago. I also got a bit of paper money, also nothing valuable. My favorite is a three dollar bill. With only a very few minor exceptions, the US did not issue paper money until the time of the Civil Way. Paper money was issued by banks and other financial institutions. The history of those is fascinating. There were regulations, some "warranties" to insure the paper money was adequately backed by actual investments, and some guidelines about the printing to discourage counterfeiting. With the breaks between the North and South, counterfeiting became a much more serious problem, even supported by supporters of the Southern "causes". Because of this, Abraham Lincoln (decreed?) that banks should no longer print money, and reserved that "right" for the Federal Government ONLY! Efforts to "exchange" banknotes for Federal notes were tried, but the old banknotes managed to continue in circulation for many years.
If I recall correctly, my three dollar bill was a New York Bank banknote, from 1833. It is in very poor condition, but I still love to tell people I have one.
I also have a five dollar bill issued by a book publishing company, from also the mid 1830s. Book publishing in those days was a very big and expensive business. So I guess they figured they should issue money also.
I have over the years, found (and lost) several references to problems of managing finances with non-government issued currency. One historic record indicated that a merchant, in far away California had to ship cash to an Eastern company for a shipload of merchandise. The order was totaled to a sum of some amount, but the merchant needed to ship an extra amount (5 to 10 percent over the sum total) to cover any currency that had become worthless. He then had to hope the Eastern company was honest enough to return the overage along with a proper accounting of any failed banknotes.
I have also run into a couple of historic references to bankers and major merchants keeping ledgers showing which financial institutions that had issued currency were still solvent, and any such institutions that were known to have failed. That way they could know which notes were reasonably safe to accept. Banks sometimes did fail, and with no governmental backing or insurance, whoever was holding the notes could simply be out of luck. Notes that were actually worthless could actually be circulated for years after a bank failed going from one person to another based upon blind faith.
It was not uncommon for some banknotes (and maybe my five dollar bill?) to be looked at suspiciously. Not all currency was equal.
Although I have run into several references of the problems of independent monies, I have never seen an actual ledger or record of what was or was not still valuable at any given time. I wonder if any such records still exist? I would love to see one.

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by DanTreace » Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:14 am

Wayne

Your post brought back memories for me too, started coin collecting about same age as you, used to go to the bank and get rolls of coins and look through them for dates to complete collections. Would cherish too the new coins that Dad put out every morning for our .35 lunch money, he used new rolls of quarters. Still have partial rolls he kept from 1958.

Guess my dad was the spark, he always gave us comments of wisdom, one was from a college prof. Dad didn't follow the advice at the time, but I think of it sometimes. Anyway, the prof. said during a discussion on money, (remember this was back in the silver coinage time) '...go to the bank, each and every year, and buy a new roll of each, .10,.25,.50 coins, put them away, and by the time you are my age, those rolls of coins will be worth a lot more'. !

So over those years got all the common denominations in albums.

My aunt sent me around that time about all of the liberty nickels she had, so only had to coin show buy the key dates!
Then began the quest to locate and collect all the USA type coins, still haven't finished, and doubt I can now, continental coins are uobtainum for me.

Have a few confederate bills from 1861, on a Memphis TN bank, the engraving on notes almost matches coin designs.

Not much on foreign coin, but a few representative examples of real Roman issues, those when you hold in your hand are something, never know who bought what or sold what for it, and if that coin could talk :shock:

Last trip to the UK, visited some Roman ruins, and sought out displays of Roman gold, love that stuff! And of course a few antique coin shops.

The one photo is from York, in the Viking museum, where you can get a freshly stamped coin, from dies just like they used in AD910-920, when the Viking Kings ruled Northumbria. Except, the coin is stamped from aluminum :(

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by jiminbartow » Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:11 pm

Thanks for the memories fellers. Amazing how much we have in common and how our lives, interests and experiences are so similar and how we gravitated toward the same things.

Born in 1963, I started collecting coins in the golden age of coin collecting, in 1963, at 9 years of age when silver was still in circulation. It was a great time for kids collecting coins as standing liberty quarters, Mercury dimes, Franklin half dollars buffalo nickels, wheat pennies and the occasional Indian head cent and Barber coins were still in circulation. In 1964, when silver ceased being used in minted coins, collectible coins started to disappear from circulation by hoarders.

I too remember riding my bike to the bank each day after school and getting rolls and rolls of coins of all types to go through looking for wheat pennies and silver coins, re-rolling them, returning to the bank, trading them in and doing it all over again. The silver coins were easy to find as the silver edge stood out as bright white, when looking at the roll from the edge. Pennies were harder because you had to look at the reverse or read the date. I still have all those rolls of finds from so long ago in a briefcase in my safe. I was able to fill up several of those blue coin collecting books with coins I found in circulation.

I stopped collecting coins in 1970 when I entered High School and was no longer able to find collectible coins in the rolls I got from the bank. It was also the year I bought my ‘26 Model T coupe for $600.00 and my prerogative changed and I began spending all my after school time and money earned bagging groceries, restoring it. Time and money well spent. Jim Patrick


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Scott_Conger » Sun Apr 19, 2020 12:40 pm

Jim

your memories and experiences and dates fall in line perfectly with me. A friend's dad also had gumball machines and we'd cull out lots of wonderful stuff. Like you, my dad would buy me trays of rolled coins and I sorted for hours. The very best was when my dad, a small businessman manufacturing venetian blinds, would get paid out of a jar which often contained 1/2 life savings for some people. Those jars yielded the very best stuff.

Now, a true modern version of the 1964 gumball machine: about a year before I fled corporate life, I bought a Coke out of the company vending machine. It paid change in standing liberties and mercury dimes (!). I bought another one and got the same change. I bought until my $1's ran out and think by the time I was done, the cokes were essentially free and I felt like I'd won the lottery as silver was approaching $30/oz at that time. The next day I'd found that the machine had been wiped out and no one seemed to know why :roll: All I can figure is that somehow a bag of junk silver got mixed into circulation and that's where it, or most of it ended up.

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Herb Iffrig » Sun Apr 19, 2020 8:03 pm

Wow Scott I have a similar story. When I was in grade school a couple of friends and myself started collecting coins. It was after 1964 because I remember we talked about keeping silver coins after the started making clad coinage. My Mom was the lunch ticket sales person at school on Monday mornings. Kids would buy their lunch tickets for the week usually with a hand full of change. It was our job to count the money at night and roll up the coins. I was allowed to buy the coins I wanted to keep. It was fun and an innocent pastime. Sometime during this period there was a laundromat in town and for what ever reason I was in there one day. I needed to get change from the change machine there. It paid out in dimes, silver mercury dimes! I would walk across the street to the small store and turn in whatever coins I didn't want and get what ever the change machine would accept and do it over again. I think I ran out of money and told a friend to run down there and do it too.
Good memories.


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by jiminbartow » Sun May 31, 2020 12:32 am

$20 gold Liberty double eagle coins are about the size of a half dollar and weigh one ounce. It is a very novel way to invest in the future while holding a beautiful piece of history in your hand. If you are knowledgeable in history, it is fun to imagine what was going on in the world when the coin was minted. Back when I collected coins as a boy, in the 60’s the grading scale was very simple, but arbitrary and subject to interpretation so arguments always ensued as to what the actual condition was. Poor, good, fine, very fine, extra fine, uncirculated and proof. You could usually get a good deal if you could convince the seller that the condition was less than what he was claiming. Now the grading scales are much more accurate. I Prefer MS62 to MS64, already graded by Professional grading services such as PGCS or NGC and already slabbed (encased in a permanently sealed plastic case with the coin description and grade). If I buy them unslabbed, I send them off to one of the professional graders to be graded and slabbed. Slabbed coins are much easier to sell to other collectors where the condition or grade is not in question. Jim Patrick

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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by TRDxB2 » Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:16 am

Condition, rarity, provenance, size of collector community, etc are effect value. But in the end, a "collectible" is only worth what you and the other guy settled for.
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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by jiminbartow » Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:12 am

Not necessarily Frank. As for anything, from cars to real estate to collectible coins, a buyer and seller, through negotiations, can come to a mutually agreeable price, but if a seller is less knowledgeable than the buyer about the item, or is unaware of information that makes the item more valuable, or a seller just wants to unload the item at a loss, such as a divorcee that is selling her ex-husband’s favorite Classic car for a fraction of its’ worth, for spite, the item being purchased can be worth much more than the price that was agreed to. The buyer just needs to become super informed on an item he wants to buy, then be aggressive and convincing in his negotiations to acquire it. Pawn brokers do it all day, everyday.

In the case of collectible coins, a good example is, if you can find a nice uncleaned MS state coin that you feel is an MS64 (very nice uncirculated, “mint state” coin) and can successfully convince a seller that it is an AU58 (very nice, “about circulated”), or that it has very fine scratches indicating that it has been cleaned (which can reduce the value of a coin 25% to 50%), you have just made several thousand dollars. Jim Patrick


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Re: Collecting gold and silver coins

Post by Burger in Spokane » Thu Jun 04, 2020 12:58 am

When Pa tore down the old hotel, he found canvas bags full of gold coins sealed up in the walls
in a room upstairs.
More people are doing it today than ever before !

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