Coin Owners Reluctant to Sell

Relatively common-date, common-condition gold and silver composition coins continue to mirror daily market changes in their intrinsic values. Since there has been no breakaway in the spot price of gold or silver bullion, the value of these coins continues to be in a tight trading range. Regardless, a certain sector of collectors and possibly including investors see these as reasonable prices at which they are quite willing to buy. The problem for coin dealers is there are still too many people reluctant to sell at current levels.

A significant number of better date coins, regardless of their metal composition, continue to sell for what can be termed “soft prices.” Coins selling in several recent auctions brought prices that will draw attention to these coins, but a closer examination indicates that, even here, prices realized continue to be modest and within expected ranges.

The best recent opportunity for a price breakout was in palladium coins. Since the U.S. Mint continues to issue these at prices significantly higher than their intrinsic value, the Mint still had more than half its 2019-W palladium American Eagle $25 proofs in inventory at the time this commentary was being written, despite the uptick in the spot price of bullion palladium. (The coins were initially offered at $1,997.50, more recently at $2,187.50. The spot price at the time of this writing was $1,757.)What all this suggests is we are still in a strong collector rather than investor market. Buyers shouldn’t hesitate. This trend might not last.