This week we complete a through review of the more than 12,000 auction lots offered from Heritage and Stack’s Bowers. This annual deluge of offerings can sometime overwhelm the marketplace and most certainly reveal weaknesses in vulnerable areas. After a complete analysis of nearly every sold lot in the auctions, we can say the auction market tested quite well in August.

It is somewhat controversial that your pricing editors at CDN are very attentive to pricing movements in the rare coin market. While most of our readers of very happy that we are quick to adjust fast-changing market prices, there is a small cadre of dealers that would prefer that we slow it down in the hopes that the market will somehow magically correct itself if we simply ignore negative price indicators. There are many reasons we won’t do this, but one of the benefits of accuracy is that we can bear true witness when prices solidify, and even improve, as surely they will. In August, we witnessed a strong level of pricing stability with a fair number of increases, especially for coins of quality. Never before have we seen such a spread between the low end of graded coins when compared to older-holder, fresh material, or those with CAC stickers. This is a troubling sign, and the Bluesheet reflects this the most where we see a number of recently-graded PCGS coins realizing lower values.

EXPANDED PRICING COLUMNS

This month’s printed Supplement and Quarterly include new pricing columns, like MS67 RD Lincolns and AU53, AU55, MS61 early $5 & $10 gold. These are many more pricing columns are now available at www.greysheet.com/coin-prices, FREE for active subscribers.

THIS MONTH’S MARKET

Quarterly III:

Better date gold is doing well and we’ve reviewed early half eagles for accuracy. Hundreds of price adjustments can be seen in dated Liberty gold issues.

Monthly Supplement:

Mercury dimes turned in the best performance this month with significant offerings at auction. Gem Liberty (V) nickels fared poorly as it appears that many former MS65 coins are now in MS66 holders and the levels are taking a hit.