Is anyone collecting these coins? Do you find they hold their value?
Thanks for some input.
Ted
Try finding coloured silver maple leafs $ 5 denomination at anywhere close to the intrinsic value or even the issue price. Anyone want to sell the 2006 or 2007 at 30% more than original list price I will buy them.
Ditto for coloured enameled coins with the flag and the poppy (incidentally if anyone has to sell the poppy I would like to buy it). Same thing with some of the other dollar coins (try Montreal Canadien dollar)
I am trying to determine what factors cause some coins to be much higher than intrinsic then others but I have so far failed to find any correlations. Some of the things that tend to stand out are "hype" factor, potential for "longitudnal" collecting i.e. some of the loonies with hockey theme are collected by hockey afficianados and also by loonie collectors and also by those who collect coloured coins. For some reason Montreal Canadiens seems to command a premium in this regard.
In terms of rarity there are coins in same series with similar mintages which sell for disparate prices e.g. the coloured enamelled dollar - Flag and poppy are at super premium while the other two can be had almost below issue price.
In general though most of the lower mintage coins (less than 10000) will only drop about 20% below their value. I find that is because the dealers prop up the market by not selling below their cost.
Case in point of the last example: the two loon dollar is listed by dealers as high as $199. However no one will pay you more than $100 even if you are lucky. The list price was $109. You can easily sell it for around $90. People forget the intrinsic value of coins over time and also the original list price. Dealers like the one in US whose name starts with a T give you a sense that these coins are valued at much higher than the market will pay for them.
After one sees the coin offered at anywhere between $169 and $199 at dealers people come to believe that is the price. The sad part is that some people who no longer need such items for collection will hold on to them thinking that they will get those dealer prices.
From an investment perspective the best strategy might be to sell the obvious winners when the time comes and donate the others to charity.
Incidentally $25 note low serial number selling for around $25,000 dollar. WOW Unless you got it as inheritance at zero cost - if you had that note since 1935 you made less than 10% annualized return on it to 2013. Many people would think the number would be much higher but check it out yourself.
Moral of the story for me - the intrinsic value comes from the joy. What is the intrinsic value of going to a movie or a vacation?
A friend of mine who collects stamps told me that Winston Churchill would go look at his stamp collection during the wartime just to get his mind into proper framework when he got back to his real work.
My apologies but you really got me going with this question. Love to hear thoughts of other people.
