50 States Quarter

[Ætheling]

I'm hearing ya LostDutchman

 

 

My views on State Quarters are well known around these parts, and on mints making money in general.

 

I'm not going to get started on commems, that's another touchy subject.

[Guest Stujoe]

So if you are thinking of investing in State Quarters... well that's just something to be aware of.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fifthly there is too much concern in many areas of this 'hobby' about whether any coin is going to go up in value or be a good 'investment'.

[Ætheling]

I agree with that too Stujoe. How many times i've shook my head at a newbie saying "i want to collect coins, what going to make the biggest price increases"

 

I respond with the question, "are you sure you want to COLLECT?"

 

 

I know of one (in fact two) coins in the British area that most likely will go up in value, one of which will go up alot i can tell you. If i sold everything i could probably buy one, let the price go up and then sell it at twice what i bought it for in about two years time. So you ask why have i not done this? Because firstly i don't like the coin design, second it's out of my period and thirdly who cares about profit anyway?

[LostDutchman]

Fifthly there is too much concern in many areas of this 'hobby' about whether any coin is going to go up in value or be a good 'investment'.

 

I think a lot of it comes from the newer collectors who started with collecting the state quarters. They don't understand the things that experenced collectors do like mintage. Coin collecting is great no matter what you collect. I have met new collectors who have spent a TON of money on rolls. Sometimes I have to control myself when talking to them and not get into an arguement. I almost lost it last week. A gentleman week was yelling at me on the phone because I informed him that the hundreds of 1970's - 1990's kennedy halves that he had pulled out of circulation were for the mostpart just spendable change and had heard "somewhere" that they are worth a dollar now. He spent 10 min. trying to convince me that this was true.....

[Ætheling]

You get them.

[Guest Stujoe]

I think a lot of it comes from the newer collectors who started with collecting the state quarters.

 

 

There's nothing new under the sun, though. There was a roll craze in the 60ies, I think. What we now call 'Classic' commems were a speculator's paradise as they were issued back in their day. Then the investment in rare coins that occurred in the 80ies, was it?, leading to our current TPG's and the investment that comes along with that.

 

No matter the program or time, there are always the same things going on. Too many people looking at coins as a money maker. Some get rich. A lot lose their butts.

 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Ætheling]

Problem with investments is they are a fashion, what's in one day, is out the next.

 

State Quarters today, who knows what tomorrow. But if someone invests his or her life savings in hoarding State Quarters expecting to make a profit then when the bubble bursts it'll be like their own private audience with the South Sea Company.

 

 

Coins are a bad investment.

 

As for crazes, we've had those the bronze penny collecting craze of the 1960s... sets bust open to get the pennies out whilst the other denominations were thrown in change. Everyone wanted pennies in the 1960s. After decimalisation the copper/bronze series gradually declined and has never really had anywhere near the interest level since. Bronze tends to attract the quieter contemplative variety collectors these days.

 

In fact i don't think we've ever had such a big craze since the 1960s. If video killed the radio star, then decimalisation killed the numismatist. The 70s and 80s were the beginning of the decline and by the 1990s coin shops were closing up left right and centre.

 

Numismatics is still a fringe hobby here.

[Monster110]

Yeah

[FUTRE]

thanks stujoe for your information

[28Plain]

How many regular people could afford to take money out of their pay packet for non-essentials in the 1910s?

 

 

 

You'd be surprised to learn that in the US, most working class people could afford a heck of a lot more in the days before the first world war than any of us can now. Mill workers loved to give love charms made of gold $1 pieces in the days when $1 would buy a fairly decent evening out . People also saved roughly 15 times the percentage of their pay that that we do now.

 

There were collectors among the working classes in the days before the income tax and fiat money. People also hoarded their money at home, thus the discovery once in awhile of a stash of high grade silver and gold coins hidden in an old house.

 

I agree with you on the likelihood of modern base metal coinage ever being valuable. There's little chance of it.

[28Plain]

your statement about pocket change is true....but sometimes I get the feeling from people that they don't understand that.....the state quarter program was started to make money (and that's not a pun) it cost the mint almost nothing to make the quarters...they then sell the quarters to the banks at face value...if they come out with a collectable design or designs that people are going to hang on to they will need to make more to be used in circulation since everyone is collecting them and there are none circulating therefore making the mint more money. The US mint is the largest coin dealer in the world.

 

 

My theory (cynical observer of government that I am) is that the new coins aere always simply an excuse to increase the money supply. Coins were once struck when more change was needed. Now they're struck on a regular schedule once a design or series is decided upon. Thehype about the rolls is one way to get people to buy the quarters and hold them, otherwise the carriers who serve banks and retailers would decline shipments of new quarters because they simply aren't needed to satisfy the demand.

 

That's what happened with the small dollars despite the attempt to drum up interest in them. Nobody really wanted them when they were issued and nobody wants them now. The state quarters succeeded where the small dollars failed because the quarter is the most used coin in circulation.

[AuldFartte]

I'm only collecting the silver proofs. They'll be for my U.S. Type Set.

[LostDutchman]

My theory (cynical observer of government that I am) is that the new coins aere always simply an excuse to increase the money supply.  Coins were once struck when more change was needed.  Now they're struck on a regular schedule once a design or series is decided upon.  Thehype about the rolls is one way to get people to buy the quarters and hold them, otherwise the carriers who serve banks and retailers  would decline shipments of new quarters because they simply aren't needed to satisfy the demand.

 

  That's what happened with the small dollars despite the attempt to drum up interest in them.  Nobody really wanted them when they were issued and nobody wants them now.  The state quarters  succeeded where the small dollars failed because the quarter is the most used coin in circulation.

 

I agree with that but I did some more math today and on the Maine quarters alone (one of the smallest mintages for any state) the government made $103,224,000 from selling them to the banks!!!

 

 

to date the mint has made 25,433,160,000 state quarters that's $5,595,295,200 the mint has made from the state quarters in circulation alone not counting mint and proof sets of all types......that just blows my mind...