DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 2, SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

Hi Folks. Thank you for everyone who has signed up to receive this newsletter.  There has been a lot of discussion on numismatic chat boards these past couple weeks on topics like the state of the coin market, auction formats by the big houses, and approaches to bidding in coin auctions.  All kinds of views have been presented.  Our view, based on 20 years of bidding, is that at least for auctions in the big houses where so many potential bidders are present, the coins find their true value, in almost all cases.  The auction format does not seem to matter, nor the approach to bidding, except to have the highest bid when the lot closes, no matter how one got there.  Truly spectacular coins can go for what many think are astronomical prices, common, good coins, pretty much go for what the price guides say they should. Of course, there are always outliers, but the market, based on auction results, is fairly consistent and efficient.  So a lot of the value we believe coins have, are in turn linked to what happens in auctions, and in turn again, the price guides mostly reflect that.  What the price guides don’t reflect are the super strong for the grade coins in all series that again can go for above price guide to ‘astronomical’ values.  And these are sometimes very hard to place value on, and those values can change strongly from when these examples are auctioned.

            Here is an example where coin values went wild.  In 2013, Heritage auctioned off a very special collection, the Eric P. Newman collection of coins he had obtained from the Col. E.H.R. Green collection.  These coins sat in Col. Greens collection for decades in little manila envelopes. The auctioned examples mostly came with the original manila envelopes, and the NGC holders had special labels. Many of these obtained absolutely breathtaking patinas and exceptional toning.  As a large group curated together, nothing had been seen like this collection in decades as far as we know, or since, and the pre-auction hype was in the sky.  They were special because of how they were kept and how they developed their skins.  Suffice to say that there were 100s of price records for this collection, sometimes in multiples of previous prices.  Especially for the exceptional examples, auction exuberance was going totally wild!  We bid on a few but were stunned at the prices.  We have obtained 2 of these pieces after the auction upon resale at different times including this one which is now crossed over to PCGS:

Needless to say, this is a stunning example and there are very few like it in the wild, if any.  The PCGS price guide at the time of the auction in 2013 had this one in AU58 at $395, and today they have it at $550.  The auction result for this one in 2013? $1527.50.  That is 3.87 times the stated price guide value.  This was fairly typical of many of the examples in this auction.  In early 2021 we tested the waters for it in the PCGS slab with the Newman pedigree listed on the label at the FUN show. No dealer would go above $800, and that was ~7 years after the auction. Assuming they mark it up 20% at that purchase price, they would be selling it for $960, still about 60% of the value of the auction price back in 2013.  Still a strong price relative to retail price guides but no where near where it auctioned at back in the day.  There are likely countless examples from this auction where the exuberance at the time set record price levels, that probably dug the original auction winners or after-market buyers, into a deep hole if they expected a return within a couple of decades.  Nevertheless, for us, we love this coin, and recognize its value as a special piece and have no plans to sell it.  Anyone with an exceptional coin from this auction will enjoy said coin, but have to recognize they are probably going to have a hard time getting a positive return any time soon.  So we recommend being wary and not letting auction exuberance carry oneself away, too often, but once is a while it can be a good thing.  ;-)

Last, we would like to present 2 cool coins that listed on the website this weekend. Several other NEWPS can be viewed by going to the website.  Here are the images:

Thanks for reading!  Desert Moon Numismatics