By Laura Sperber - Legend Numismatics

You’ve seen the many articles (including our recent Market Report) as to how dry the bourse floors and auction are. There are very few nice, fresh, and eye appealing coins to buy these days. We believe this is a direct result of GRADEFLATION and pure heavy demand. In our opinion, GRADEFLATION is the collecting public’s “enemy #1”. We won’t let up on this subject until the problem is cleaned up.

Gradeflation is when standards have shifted. What was an MS65 12 years ago maybe an MS66 or even higher today. The sad reality is that the third party grading services brought it on themselves. Overall, the services have done a good job, but now the situation is spinning dangerously out of control. Until GRADFLATION ends, in our minds it cannot be mentioned enough.
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Viewpoint by David Allen Hines - Numismatic News

advocating a circulating presidential commemorative dollar program. Now with it actually realized, my feelings are more mixed and muted.

The design of the coins so far is disappointingly token-like. After the real promise shown by the various depictions of Thomas Jefferson on the nickel over the past few years, most, particularly the 2005 five-cent coin, with the unique close-up of Jefferson’s face flowing from the edge of the coin and handwritten “Liberty,” the Presidential dollars so far have returned to the unimaginative centered portrait with standard typeface inscriptions. The reverse also disappoints. The view of the Statue of Liberty is nice, but the “$1″ and the interior circle around the inscription makes the coin look like a cheap token.

Moving the date and mottos to the edge of the coin was innovative, but ill-considered. The date missing from the design contributes to the coin looking like a token. In fact, twice recently, when I presented the coin for payment to cashiers not familiar with the new design, they said it could not be a real dollar coin because there was no date! And putting “In God We Trust” on the edge of the coin has needlessly engendered political complaints. In retrospect, perhaps only putting “E Pluribus Unum” on the edge may have been a better move.

A common phenomenon, shared by dealers and collectors alike, has been growing in the market during the past several years – a shortage of the right coins. This is true for circulated coins and gem quality coins.

In the past, at least five to 10 years ago, almost any kind of coin could be bought for a price, if one were willing to pay enough for it. Owners would usually sell if they believed they could get more money than a coin was considered worth in the marketplace. This was usually true for trophy coins, like 1804 Draped Bust dollars and 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coins, and especially true for much more inexpensive coins.

A recent ad by an antique dealer in a leading antique publication inspired this month’s column by suggesting that the role of the dealer is heading towards extinction.

The advertisement in question starts off by saying “yes, we are dinosaurs.” It goes on to define dealers not as large prehistoric creatures feared by small mammals and loved by children, but as a species who has acquired specialized skills and knowledge and who “grew up buying, owning and selling objects.” It follows that for dinosaurs (also known as dealers), their judgment has “been honed and tempered in the heat of risked money.”

In the 12 years since eBay’s launch, the online auction house has established itself as a one-stop shop for all things rare, kitschy, and collectible. But recently, a small group of economists have mined the site for a different prize: clues on how people spend their money.

Behind the millions of online auctions lies a virtual mini-economy flush with raw data. Harvesting this information has fed a new branch of economics, one that has proved again and again that shoppers act in unexpected ways.

Auctions can be hard to predict. Various items, be they ancient coins or next-generation electronics, can inspire odd behavior in buyers.

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The ACCG deplores this unprecedented extension of UNESCO inspired import restrictions to include historical coins of possible Cypriot origin. In this action, without stating any justification or disclosing reasons for this decision, the State Department departed from its prior decisions exempting coins from import restrictions - even though the solid factual basis for this exemption has not changed. Under the CPIA statute, import restrictions should only be imposed on artifacts “found in the ground”. There is no statutory authority to impose import restrictions based on where an artifact was made.

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