Clearly, these are interesting times and I think it’s fair to say we’re all going through changes. And, as in any shake up of this magnitude, there are undoubtedly opportunities.
Of course I’m very curious about what it all means for the pricing of silver and silver coins!
The big picture
A quick look at the charts (kitco.com is a good site for this sort of information) is useful in establishing a context and background:
Essentially, silver traded in the USD 15-20 range from mid 2014 right up until early last year.
Then, after bottoming in mid March 2020, it steadily worked its way up to over USD 25 by late July – which is pretty much where it has remained since. That was a nice increase if you were able to get on it.
Price levels – going up…?
The current price level is sitting roughly just above halfway to the crazy highs of 2011 – the period following the most recent global financial crisis when governments all over the place started printing money in unbelievably huge amounts.
There’s still plenty of room for the price to go higher if things become as bad as they were back then (not all that long ago, really, and perhaps not that far off either).
Isn’t it interesting that money printing (aka “quantitative easing” or “stimulus”) is precisely what those same governments are preparing to do again – those that haven’t already started, that is!
I could go on (and on!) but let’s get back to coins…
Keeping up
In the light of what has been happening, it’s really not reasonable to go with a hardcopy coin value catalogue at the moment and anyone who relied on even last year’s book would be in for a bit of a surprise. In many instances silver coins in the lower grades, say VF and below, are quoted at below their melt value – obviously not right.
Internet sites have done a better job – I just checked allcoinvalues.com as a reference and their estimates seem to be on the money ( eg, values for early Australian florins in VG do reflect the uptick in the spot price ).
Mind you how much the spot price has increased probably isn’t all that relevant for higher grade and harder to get coins, so if that’s your area of interest the hardcopy publications are probably still there or thereabouts…and perhaps those internet sites are being a bit too optimistic when it comes to that class of coin..?
Uncertainty
I don’t know…it’s all a bit up in the air but one thing is for sure – you really need to watch what you’re doing buying and selling. There will be unscrupulous operators looking to take advantage of the confusion and gouge, and there will be underpriced coins, too…
Happy Collecting!
pre1946silver.com 