I’ve been collecting US Proof Sets since 1968. Most of them can be purchased today from coin shops for not much more than I originally paid for them. In other words, most proof sets don’t even hold up against inflation. For me it’s a hobby, not an investment.
You can find this sort of treasure hunt on Ebay. Many sellers claim to have discovered huge caches of pennies or other coins and purport to sell them (by the pound) as “unsearched”. What they really mean is “unsearched by me”. Any collector worth his salt will have culled out the winners and thrown the sinners in a bag or jar for disposal. It’s naive to think that the bags are truly unsearched, or that you will find a treasure in one. Many sellers will ‘salt’ the bag with a nicer grade coin or two to sweeten the deal.
There I was, stranded in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, flat broke. Or so I thought! Just then I remembered my Government Issue World Trade Center Silver Dollar that I had secreted away in my shoe! Only $23.45 to insure my financial safety when traveling in the Mariana Islands! Thank you National Collectors Mint!
Is it even possible for contemporary coins to become valuable? In 1968, U.S. coins were intrinsically next to worthless, but they still had some meaningful value in the prices of that time. If you could plunk two quarters and a dime on a counter in payment for a magazine, you didn’t really care if the quarters were really silver, or just nickel plated copper, because they still “worked”. But now that their value has become so miniscule in practical terms as well–by a factor of 500-1000%, and the government stamps out such immense quantities of them, how can a particular date or mint mark ever become rare? I can imagine that in 1900, the government might have underestimated the number of nickels the economy would need, but this was a time when a nickel was like a dollar or two today. They just didn’t need that many to begin with, and then by intentionally ordering a low production run, bingo, you have rare coins. But today? Is it conceivable that the 1999P copper plated zinc penny is ever going to eagerly sought by collectors? I think now.
“I think not” is what the last sentence of my post was supposed to be.
While I realize dealers do this all the time, maybe a better question is why don’t grocery stores sell stamps for a profit? Just out of convenience, they could charge maybe $.50-$1 higher per book, right? Why don’t they do this? It’s so much more convenient NOT to have to go the post office… - Jinx
Nope – the U.S. issued steel cents, or “pennies,” in 1943. But the U.K. for several hundred years issued the silver penny, which was replaced with a copper “cartwheel” penny about the time of the American Revolution. However, the silver penny was still issued for one particular usage – the “Maundy Sets” where the King (or Queen) annually on Maundy Thursday gave out 10d to a select group of people in the form of silver pence, twopence, threepence, and fourpence (groat) coins. They are still issued, but I believe stopped being silver sometime around 1972. The “gold penny,” worth something like 12 times the silver penny in terms of face value, was issued a few times sporadically in very early English times; the coin astro linked to was one of them.
How can John Q public discern between “proof” = Hey I’m a worthless copy. and “proof” = Hey No human hand has touched me?
The NC Mint-type folks are hoping he can’t discern the difference. That’s why John Q shouldn’t be buying coins that are advertised on TV!
I used to collect pennies as a kid. I had the blue book with the circular cut-outs, for each year issue from 1900 on up…to…1970? 1973? Whatever year I bought the cardboard fold-out book. I still have it. Have a steel penny.
I also have a 1909 VDB penny, but it’s not a VDB-S so apparently it’s not worth much…
Cartooniverse
Hence my posting correcting myself.
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but since posters with relevant experience seem to be congregated here…
Apart from the “rare coins”, I also always see the stupid “Harry Potter $5 coin” or “Heroes of 9/11 - in Full Color!” commercials. They go on to say how they’re genuine currency, etc, etc, and of course at the end of the commercial, it says that it’s actually legal tender of Liberia, or something similar.
Does this mean I could go to Liberia with a pocket full of Harry Potter coins and buy stuff? And when they say $5.00, do they mean USD, or Liberian dollars? And (while I have a feeling I already know the answer to this) are these coins ever worth anything above (or even at) their selling price?
And dude, what the hell is up with that ad, perhaps the true rock-bottom in prime time tastelessness, for a 9/11 commemorative “collector’s” coin… plated in silver “recovered from Ground Zero”? I mean… really? Isn’t that… wrong, in some way? How do you get silver out of whatever they were pulling out of there? Isn’t anybody complaining about it?
There was a repository of gold/silver in the underground area of the Center. Can’t remember if it was coins or bullion.
They probably found one ingot of silver in the rubble, and your coin will contain a drop of silver from that ingot mixed in with the rest of the silver coating.
It truly is the height of tastelessness.
I’d say no, and the US Mint (the real one) says that at least some of them aren’t even authorized by the government which is supposed to have authorized them.
I remember growing up you’d find little stamp machines (coin-ops, like gumball machines) that did mark up the postage–35 cents for 1 first-class stamp (about a dime mark-up) or 25 cents for a postcard stamp (ditto).
I’m always amazed at the dearth of stamp collectors on the SDMB. I’ve started several stamp threads in the past, and they’ve always died quick lonely deaths…
The stamp hobby died a horrible death, starting in the early 1980’s. Combination of an inflated market(1979-81) which crashed, and kids re-discovering baseball cards in the mid-late 1980’s, then discovering electronic games, and computers in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. No new blood coming in.
We have a discount drug store in N.E. Ohio, Marc’s, which sells stamps at face value as a good-will gesture.
Yeah, I suppose that’s true. I’ll attend WESTPEX on occasion, and it seems like everyone’s a good decade or more older than I am. A shame…
In those instances in which the coins really are authorized by some government (and Tuckerfan’s post indicates that that’s not always the case, the sellers’ claims notwithstanding), they would be denominated in the currency of the authorizing country (like Liberian dollars which, BTW, are worth 45 to the U.S. dollar, so a $5 Liberian coin is worth about a dime).
Even in that case, however, the “Harry Potter” coin almost certainly never actually went into circulation in Liberia - it was produced solely for “collectors” (I use that term loosely, since true coin collectors wouldn’t touch this stuff). So, if you took those coins to Liberia, you’d have a devil of a time spending them, since the locals have never seen them. Heck, they probably don’t even say “Liberia” on them anywhere!