By Laura Sperber - Legend Numismatics

We’re back! What a long and completely exhausting week. Hate to sound negative, but this was not our best FUN Show-or even close. For us, we rate the show as weak. Retail was slow. Wholesale for what we had was very strong (still well off record numbers). Buying was so difficult that we started to look in areas we normally do NOT handle. We had expected a block buster show especially since gold rallied to $900.00 an ounce. We just couldn’t muster up any fresh deals on the floor or find pockets of coins to buy to make things happen.

From our view point, much of the activity occurred at the auctions. For the first time probably in 30 years, we pronounce the FUN show as being disappointing to us.

WHEN AUCTIONS RULED

ALL of the major activity clearly took place at the auctions. The PRE FUN sales were as crazy and challenging as they could be. The quality was mixed while the offerings were weak. It was difficult to calculate whether or not to be aggressive on prices paid or wait and see. (more…)

BALTIMORE, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ — The following statement was written by Tom Dyson, who is a frequent contributor to www.DailyWealth.com, one of America’s most widely read financial e-letters.

Yesterday, I spoke to my coin dealer, Van Simmons. “It’s staggering what’s going on in the coin market right now…” said Simmons.

Spot gold prices yesterday hit their highest prices in history … $870 an ounce. Gold investors are euphoric. They’ve waited 28 years for this moment. Van Simmons sells mint-condition vintage gold coins. The U.S. government minted these gold coins pre-1933.

In theory, these vintage gold coins are “leveraged” to the spot gold price. They are in such short supply, when gold goes up 10%, they tend to go up much faster in price … at least, that’s what used to happen. Here’s the reason Van Simmons is so flabbergasted: Even though gold has risen 228% in the last six years and is shooting through the roof right now, gold coin prices are sedate. (more…)

For the last few years, I have been asked by Maurice Rosen, publisher of the excellent Rosen Numismatic Advisory newsletter, to be a contributor to his annual Crystal Ball survey. This feature, which generally has the participation of a half dozen or so very knowledgeable dealers, is an excellent way for me to analyze the coin market and the questions asked by Maurice are diverse and interesting. Here are my answers to the 2008/2009 RNA Crystal Ball Survey. Please note that due to the length of this article it will appear in two parts.

1. What’s your outlook for the coin market in 2008/2009?

I think the market will be mostly strong in 2008 although I think we will see continued bifurcation as we have the last few years. By this I mean I think there will be great strength at the absolute upper end of the market and we will also see good demand for interesting lower priced coins but the middle market will continue to be weak; possibly more so than in 2007. I foresee some weakness in the economy in 2008 and I would imagine that because of the housing slowdown we will see fewer people throwing sizable amount of disposable income at things like coins. Really good coins, though, are going to do awfully well in the coming years. There just aren’t many of them around. (more…)

I have authored this column since 1965, when I became a professional writer dedicated to covering the numismatic field. At times, I even gaze into the future of the hobby and the world around us.

In looking through my clips, the first reference I can find to this line of work is an article that I wrote on these pages in May 1971, entitled “The unmasking of a seer.” It was never a regular feature of this column, though I did it from time to time.

Historically, I’ve spent a lot of time in the “seer business” when it comes to market analysis. I’ve always, for example, predicted the price of gold, silver and platinum with varied degrees of success. The same is also true of my famous predictions for 1881-S silver dollars in MS-65 condition, something I view as a bellwether of the marketplace as a whole. Less accurate is my plea for Indian Head cents to be given their fair recognition and representative pricing. (Okay, finding a 1906 Indian Head cent in pocket change in 1960 changed my life – and yours). Read Full Article

There’s no fancy way to say it: Gold investors made a killing in 2007. Year-to-date, gold’s spot price is up 25%.

For some better perspective, consider the year-to-date gains of the three major U.S. stock indices: The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (6.17%), the tech-laden NASDAQ Composite Index (7.48%), and the broad-based Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (2.59%). Gold eclipsed them all.

Gold hasn’t punched out the broad equity-indices like this since the late 1970s - a period still remembered reverently by gold bugs and institutional investors alike, when the “yellow metal” surged to record highs during an inflation-fueled economic malaise.

“The best one can say is that in the past several years gold’s been going from the bottom left of the screen to the top right,” said Dennis Gartman, editor of the daily investment newsletter, the Gartman Letter. Read Full Story