Numisphere Podcast - Coins, Currency, Bullion
Welcome to the Numisphere Podcast, the ultimate destination for all things in the sphere numismatics. Join us as we take you on a an adventure through the sphere of all things numismatics, bullion, and collectibles.
Numisphere Podcast - Coins, Currency, Bullion
Impact of the FAKE economy on GOLD-SILVER-COINS (2024)
Curious about how the numismatic collectibles market has been evolving this year? Join us on Numisphere as we uncover the latest trends and shifts with Tyler and TJ. You'll discover how average collectors are becoming more selective, with an unexpected boost in the performance of lower-end coins like nickels, quarters, and cents. We also explore the consistent demand for collectible bullion and modern coins, along with an intriguing look at the surprising resilience of art bars and vintage pieces, even when certain sellers flood the market. Learn about the significant role live auction platforms such as Whatnot, eBay Live, and TikTok are playing in driving awareness and participation in the hobby.
Venturing into the investment side, we discuss the best types of silver to stack and compare different strategies for silver investments. Should you focus on cheap generic silver for its weight or invest in collectible silver coins for their stability? Tyler and TJ highlight the potential long-term benefits of high-premium, limited-edition silver pieces and provide insights into the thriving market for high-end U.S. type coins and rare numismatics, where record prices are being achieved. We also share data from Numindex that supports a robust and expanding world coin market, even in economically challenging times. Tune in to get a comprehensive view of the numismatic world and make informed decisions for your collection or investment strategy.
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on The Numisphere Podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. The content shared by the hosts, guests, or any participants of the podcast is purely their own opinion and not intended to be a substitute for professional financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any financial decisions. The Numisphere Podcast, including its hosts and guests, does not assume any responsibility for any actions taken upon the advice given in the podcast episodes.
Welcome on into the Numisphere, where we talk about all things numismatic, and today we're going to be discussing about the current status of the collectibles coin market in the United States and the world, and I think that it's important to stay up to date with these things, and who better to talk about it than two guys in the industry? So, with that being said, tyler, why don't you roll us off with how numismatic Just throwing that pass right there, right off the bat.
Speaker 2:That's right. How are numismatics? Well, if you had listened to our episode back towards the beginning of the year where we kind of recapped 23, we talked a little bit about what we were expecting to come from 24. And at this point I would say that we were pretty accurate. And at this point I would say that we were pretty accurate, we're definitely seeing a consolidation from the average collector.
Speaker 1:They're just a little bit more choosy about where they're spending the money and what they're spending it on. Correct, definitely seeing a separation in certain sectors within specific coins and things that are sought after within specific coins and things that are sought after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, definitely people are shifting towards finishing off those lower-end books for nickels, quarters, cents, all those different things and trying to just fill the affordable holes they may have on average. But on the flip side, we're definitely seeing that there are still those collectors that aren't afraid to spend because they have the means to do so. They're just, let's say, far and few between in comparison to the lower-end consumer right now.
Speaker 1:Sure, Right and I agree, just like in the ratio of percentage. How many are buying within that elite status or that upper tier of the coin, collecting realm, and then how many are filling in with the books and what's going on on the regular tier of the constant numismatic flow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's not just in the shop. I mean we're seeing that with selling on Whatnot or TikTok, even on eBay, ebay Lives, we're seeing everyone's loving the type coins 100 bucks or less, even if they're problem coins. But I will say a couple of areas that are surprising me, that are really holding well, fall more into the collectible right, not just the numismatic but collectible bullion and collectible modern coins.
Speaker 1:Okay, elaborate on this.
Speaker 2:Art bars still killing it. Even with the recent rise of silver, which has been fantastic, you're still seeing that $45, $55 common production art bar happening which is crazy. In my opinion. It's not silver, nice design, it's got a small premium, but we're seeing like triple premiums compared to where they were two years ago.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and I think that that kind of speaks to how timeless those bars are. Right when it's still being desired to be sought after for its content, that's on there for its artistic qualities even today, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 2:We talked about it years ago that although when they were produced they were not rare, right, it's kind of a revival market, right? So like when styles go out of out of style for clothing and it comes back.
Speaker 1:And they come back 20 years later, right?
Speaker 2:it's that same idea is that these art bars that are coming from the 70s and 80s kind of have a nice revival happening to them, right? It's not just art bars too. I mean obviously collectible angle hards and a lot of these other small mines. Huge market people are still going after them.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I feel like the vintage market is strong and currently booming right, I mean for those hyper collectible pieces, definitely, and I think that we're seeing I was actually just speaking with another dealer the other day that the unfortunately there are some sellers out there that are actually flooding the market. Okay, so you may have, let's say, um, a johnson matthew, canada three ounce silver bar, okay, and uh, suddenly there's one for sale, two for sale, five for sale and now 10 for sale on ebay okay so unfortunately they're.
Speaker 2:They themselves are making it, so this piece no longer seems like it's that rare. If there's so many available, I see, but a handful of them are coming from the same seller. Okay, so we're definitely still seeing within that vintage market there's almost a manipulation, whether that's people intentionally holding back and trickling them out and then them having to compete with people that are like, hey, I got to get out of this stuff for whatever reason, and now suddenly what was once rare or hard to find is very accessible.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I can imagine that's a. That's definitely something to consider that only a handful of people may have control of, where that market dictates that price. That can be a little bit concerning, yeah, so I would definitely want to look into what piece I have and what the market looks like for that piece, certainly Before I delve into it, and if you're looking for any JMC three ounce bars, reach out.
Speaker 2:I know a guy. You're not the one flooding the market, definitely not, I would have trickled that out Come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. So I I really thought that when we were talking about this back in january, we were talking about how things would be mixed right. We knew that we were going into a contracting economy, yet we were also going into an expanding awareness of numismatics as a collectible yourself. You were just talking about the different live auction platforms that are out there. You rounded off Whatnot. You talked about eBay Live. I think you had a third one in there too that you had mentioned. I'm not sure if I did, but I mean IG and TikTok.
Speaker 1:We see this on TikTok Instagram, I mean this is happening all over the place and I do feel like that is still a dominating factor to drive awareness to the hobby, which is creating more people being involved in the purchases. What's your take, I mean?
Speaker 2:there's. Take it with a grain of salt, right, okay, because how many times have have I brought over, you know, watching one particular seller on whatnot, or or any of these other ones? And, honestly, they're spewing absolute bullshit. It's like a used car salesman from 1990. They're manipulating information. I feel like they're selling on television, which, in a way, I get it. They are, but they're hurting the market because they're spreading misinformation. Now, granted, this is probably one out of every hundred sellers out there that are really doing this in a very negative way, but you have to be careful. They might tell you something oh, this is so rare. This is a key date.
Speaker 1:This is a super hard one to get. You're talking about sellers taking— I've got 50 in a junk box. Essentially, you're talking about sellers that are taking advantage of the fact that the knowledge base may be minimal for the customers that they're catering to, right, and then overselling maybe the rareness or the value of their products.
Speaker 2:They're tapping into and this is where the success for these platforms come from. Is that FOMO right, the fear of missing out? I'm putting this nice piece in front of hundreds of people and you're all competing for it now. So it's kind of like hey, who's got the bigger apparatus in their pants or the deeper pockets Right? So that way you just keep fighting over something. That's just ridiculous. It's a $20 coin. I see people paying 50, 60 bucks for it.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So I mean for them to go 3x over market value can be a little bit absurd. Now to the defense of some of the good people out there. I'll see live auctioneers that will cap things and let people know guys, we've exceeded the value, I want you to stop. And they'll start juicing it too.
Speaker 2:And they'll juice it by adding value, so they'll give you the extra value, yes, which is good. So, and again, this is few sellers that are doing it. I just want everyone to be cautious, because it does happen. So try to educate yourself, otherwise you will be taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:Very valid point and I think that a lot of people out there listening right now would appreciate that, and if they have any experiences that might've been similar to what we just described, they could add it into the comments and let us know what your experience was. Yeah, please do. We'd be happy to give you our feedback and maybe we can help you out in the situation that you found yourself into. But regardless of that, I think that the point I was trying to leverage in that is there's more growth and more eyes on the hobby.
Speaker 2:Oh, no doubt.
Speaker 1:Which is great to have the additional participants Now. Of course, having an educated base of participants can be a lot more easy to do business with right, but at the same time, more eyes equals more money flowing through the system and through the world of coins.
Speaker 2:And again, these apps, these platforms have created such accessibility to the average person who doesn't have a local shop or, honestly, you might be working your regular job right're? Don't have time to go. Stop by a shop, right? Whatever, it is right. You have this instant at your hand. There's sellers on there 24 seven, which is just amazing for the hobby because it's driving people to actually enjoy it again. Right You're? You're finding all kinds of errors. There's conversations, the communities are growing, the. The information spreads like wildfire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great collectible silver. Right, you talked about the art bars, but even the premium products, the, the, the pieces that are one of 500 minted and and like luxury silver items, those premiums can almost act kind of as a safe haven with fluctuating spot prices. We were talking about this last week.
Speaker 2:I found it really interesting. Yeah, so we start the conversation off with. You know what's the? A customer had asked us what's the best type of silver to stack right, and TJ was having the conversation with the customer and I kind of chimed in. We had slightly countering viewpoints at first and it was you know he was of the mindset let's try to get as much weight for you, because that's what the customer was looking for, it was getting as much weight as possible.
Speaker 1:So cheap generic buffalo 100 ounce right, just to chime in, the usual experience is that we find out what the customer's basis for stacking is, whether it's purely economic, whether there's some collectible attributes to that, whether it's a long-term investment or a short-term flip, and then help build their strategy. So in finding that, that's where the discussion came up about lower premium, where Tyler stepped- in and that is what the customer was asking.
Speaker 2:So to both of them I offered a counterpoint of well, when you're buying just for weight, you're susceptible to actual fluctuations in the market. Right, spot goes up or down, you're subject to that change. That's the value of your piece. Subject to that change, that's the value of your piece. But if you have something like a levitating alien silver coin and I hate to tell you it has nothing to do with the price of silver, right, it's because this thing is badass and that's the value, because it's super cool and super hard to get Correct. So, getting into the high premium, you know, the three to $500 price point for only a few ounces of silver on a piece that would qualify as art and low mintage, truly collectible, has an additional place within everybody's stack. Right, right, and that's because when silver goes down, you're not losing all that value there. Granted, when the first piece comes out, you know everyone gets super hyped Premiums go up, even a little bit higher. Sure, wait a little bit.
Speaker 1:You might be lucky to find a little reduction in price.
Speaker 2:But then they go away, right, and suddenly two or three years pass and people are like, whoa, I never knew that was even made. I want that in my stack, I want that in my collection, I want that in my collection. So it's getting that extra true stability within a collector piece where you have an additional opportunity to retain that value Right and possibly like 3, 5, 10x what you paid Interesting.
Speaker 1:So I also understand that not only is the collectible silver or very rare collectible silver piece facet of the market doing well, but also the higher end US type coins and the cream of the crop, I mean, from my understanding, auctions are still seeing record prices come to the table. They are phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Great pieces continue to come out from all of these fantastic collections. I mean there's just too many to break it down. But if you're in that realm of where you can spend millions on coins, there's definitely opportunity.
Speaker 1:Some of these coins are going for a quarter of a million, half a million, a million plus Multi-million. It is a truly incredible thing to see, but these are, of course, the rarest specimens known and on record, or to have been recorded.
Speaker 2:That is the high end of investment quality, numismatics and for those.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's a one of a kind You're probably never going to be able to find a replacement for it and it's going to hold a premium from now and then to the end times. I imagine, yeah, definitely, especially if it's based in silver and gold, I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's always a good idea. I don't know. I mean you're you're getting like a quarter ounce of gold for a couple million bucks.
Speaker 1:All right, valid. You might be able to look at that another way, right, and the law of percentages.
Speaker 1:I guess it doesn't matter all that much. But you know, what's interesting is just taking a delve and looking at the world coin market in general, educated myself, learned a little bit about new Mindex. So I believe that's N-U-M-I-N-D-E-X dot com, which has a charting of the numismatic world coin market, looking at the premiums within a specific set of 30 coins. So this is brand new to me. Had no idea that this was something that was being monitored, no idea that this was something that was being monitored. But in looking at all of the information that they hold, you're actually able to track the progression of the numismatic through world coins and it looks to be that we are on a solid uptrend. We're at more than twice the point of the numismatic market or where it stood in 2000.
Speaker 2:Would you say it was recently like 123% premium, so 123% premium away from its precious metals content.
Speaker 1:And just so we're aware, that index is actually looking at that space between where the coin sells to where it was for precious metals value, and the difference between them is the premium, and the stronger the premium, the healthier the market. And as that's being pushed throughout the timeline since 2018, I think we've almost doubled the premium against the precious metals price and, of course, precious metals have gone up relatively. So if you can think about that in a factor of multiples, so we're talking about folds. I think that people are doing pretty well.
Speaker 1:For those that were purchasing 2018 and prior, to now, and yet still the economic data or sorry, the projected market data is forecasting a CAGR of 10.4% and that growth is still putting us on track for something like $20.8 billion by the year 2031.
Speaker 2:That sounds great to me.
Speaker 1:Now the odd part for me is that we're in an economically contracting point in time, so we are seeing some cash flows dry up right that are no longer participating in the market with the same pace. But at the same time, the market is flourishing and expanding on its own right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're comparing a few aspects there, right? So the Numindex is leveraging data off of world coins. There isn't a single US coin within that evaluation. Not one listed no Right. Single us coin within that evaluation, not not one listed no right. So the world market for coins is so much bigger than just the united states and it's thriving. We actually spoke about that quite a bit, uh, back in january and when we were talking about the world's fair money and how it is just another beast yeah and it's an amazing market with so much rich history and so much opportunity for the average and for the investor that it doesn't even compare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we are economically contracting, but I think, although the rest of the world is feeling it too, within the US market we're experiencing things we really hadn't experienced before. The level of inflation and just the basic cost of living, lack of purchasing power all of these things haven't hit us like this in quite some time. We've always kind of been the last one, or, as they once said, inflation is transitory, so it affects everybody else first, and we really haven't felt it so much.
Speaker 1:So I do think that again goes back to what we said at the beginning of this is the average person and how they're spending their money is different, yes, Especially compared to the world market that out of our customer base, and obviously this may be because they're already in our customer base, but it seems to be that if people are going to spend on a luxury, they want to spend it on a luxury that they can somehow hold and hope for a return right or also not feel like they're wasting it on something consumable or that will expire right.
Speaker 1:They feel as though most they're investing in themselves, because they're investing in their own precious metal or numismatic collection.
Speaker 2:Even a lot of them are looking to their grandkids, so they're looking generations down the road to try and find a way to take their hard work or lifetime of work and pass that value and effort down to somebody else within the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's funny, you know, we've had, we've had quite a few people actually with that specific mission coming in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, just the other day, one of our really good customers brings in somebody we've never seen before. And who is it? This is my grandson, this is who I'm doing this for, and it was awesome to see it.
Speaker 1:It was. It was, and we always appreciate that when our customers will bring down that next generation and introduce them to the coins. The younger numismatic collectors get treated like gold here, absolutely. So if you ever are in town and you decide to stop by the shop, make sure you bring your youngin. We'll let them know all about coins. Maybe they'll even walk out with a handful of something Most likely. So overall, I think that you know we look really strong and in the current economic situation the coin, the collectible coin market for rare coins, specifically in the U? S, is extremely healthy Very much. We're on an upward momentum. Awareness is continuing to grow, avenues to participate and be a numismatic collector are continuing to grow and the world coin market is healthy at the same pace.
Speaker 2:So we'll have to see, I'd say, the world market's outpacing?
Speaker 1:Yes, so the world market is outpacing? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, with all that being said, I think that you know, we can only hope that this is going to continue on an upward trend, pending any geopolitical catastrophes.
Speaker 2:Pair that with the rollercoaster of the bullion market and it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Now, there is always that fear, right that? Um, it was an. There was an article that I may have read I think it may have been through Numismatic News, but they had suggested that the possibility of cryptocurrency could negatively impact the numismatic market, which I found to be very strange in my mind. If anything, I found that it would enhance it.
Speaker 2:That was my thought, Old school thought versus new school thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe you're right. So I have a feeling you're going down the route of tokenizing your assets, leveraging them in other ways In my mind that's where it goes, but I think that the apprehension is a restriction in transactions if there were to be a mandated use of CBDC and privacy is no longer going to be able to be honored in those transactions the way that customers are used to it.
Speaker 2:I mean I hate to say it this way I think the average person's already given up their privacy. Yeah, I mean, it's even in numismatics, right? You see people that are building, you know their their collections on PCGS and trying to do registry sets and compete and like how my collections started their new program and I definitely see a lot more transparency than I've seen in a long time.
Speaker 1:I like the transparency. The transparency for me, is good. It keeps the market honest and it keeps everything moving and it I mean, what better of a marketplace to participate in, right, when it's all transparent?
Speaker 2:You know, the other thing to consider too with that is if we are leveraging blockchain data or tokenizing. And let's just say, I do have that multi-million dollar coin, sure. Or actually, let's say, I have an $1,800 Carson City Morgan right. Well, what if it stops all of these counterfeits coming in from right? Well, what if it stops all of these counterfeits coming in from China? Well, exactly. Is there a way to prevent additional counterfeiting?
Speaker 2:Because, you see, the same serial numbers, all manipulating the same coin coming through. We had one guy walking around with 10 of the exact same because he bought them off Facebook special. But by leveraging that data tracking the transparency of where it is who has it.
Speaker 1:In that idea that you just presented, you could take that coin and you could go to the source transaction and you would see the unique identifier that's labeled on that coin and it would tie the entire transactional history. Some people don't like that part that that happens. But the end user is going to appreciate the fact that they were able to validate and source and provide prominence to the piece that they own. Right, and it will cut back on those frauds, because you can't do that with a fraudulent one.
Speaker 2:It's not going to have the same, it'll be a lot more difficult.
Speaker 1:The encrypted data will not match the end result of what you have, absolutely. So who knows what is to come for us? I mean, this is obviously years to roll out. Yeah, my outlook is optimistic and we're going to continue to go into a growth pattern. I'm hoping that whatever's going on in the country for economics is going to shift and we're going to see liquidity pump back into the people's hands that's the hope within the next year or so, right, and it will only exacerbate the growth is going to shift and we're going to see liquidity pump back into the people's hands that's the hope within the next year or so, right, and it will only exacerbate the growth of the different asset classes, from stocks and bonds, things like numismatics, gold and silver, definitely. Yeah, absolutely, man. So that's it for another episode from the Numisphere. I hope you like our update. Be sure to chime in with any comments, concerns, things you want to add to the conversation. We're always looking for them and be happy to reply. Hope you guys have a great night. See you next time.
