Will Bitcoin Take Its Place Next to Gold?

“Coin” collecting has come a long way. Along that circuitous route, the hobby has embraced coins, medals, tokens, military orders and decorations, bank notes, checks, debit and credit cards, and now cyber money. In November, Stack’s Bowers Galleries became the first numismatic auction house to offer a physical Lealana Bitcoin. While some people debate if there will be a future for physical currency, others are now embracing the so-called cashless crypto currencies as something tangible to be collected.

Throughout time, each new form of money that has been introduced has found its niche in society, but none of these non-coin forms of money has ever proved to be a probable replacement that will lead to the total demise of coins as money. What we now have is two non-sovereign forms of store of value, these being gold and bitcoin. Both can be used as a currency, but their primary function appears to be more along the lines of storing and protecting that purchasing value.

Collectors aren’t being discouraged by either, or by the whims of the stock market or by inflationary pressures. The mid-November Heritage “US Coins Signature Auction” realized more than $11 million, but take notice that there were more than 3,000 bidders who participated in that event.

Gold and silver appear to be trading in a new and higher trading range, once more stirring interest in bullion coins and in late 19th and 20th century bullion-impacted circulation strike coins. If anything, there may be yet another surge of investors who may later become serious collectors that is about to enter the market. Everything continues to be a “go” as we enter the Thanksgiving to New Year’s season, looking to a bright 2022 as well.