The article is broken up into separate posts - The coin investments list is at the end of the articleTwo big auctions finished recently: The Stack's Hong Kong auction, and the Heritage Chicago ANA auction. These auctions have been part of the reason so many nice coins have been hitting the market lately. The sellers are raising funds for their purchases at these auctions. Many of the purchasers were dealers, and in a few months, we'll see some of these coins in this list, around the peak of the busy season.
Coins that have never been to auction before were seen for the first time at these events. Many of the rarest and most interesting ones were the medals. As tamo42 notes in this list, below, huge quantities of coins are changing hands. I don't remember a single list selling as many coins as the last one did. Plus, the list is being published twice each week, where previously it was once per week or less.
Prices have been about the same as usual for most of the coins, and there were many bargains. Although the pricing in the market has seemed a little weak recently, there have been mobs of buyers eager to buy them up. So, we have some mixed signals: Weak selling, but strong buying.
I tend to ignore these short term signals, so you won't be getting an opinion on them from me. However, I do sense that overall strength in the market is building up a little slower than in previous years when coming out of a summer slow season, and that when strength is reached, it may at first seem weak, but will peak later than expected too. It all depends on when and how America handles its inflation situation, leading up to 2012 elections.
America has to choose between joblessness, and inflation. They can't control both. In the process of trying to manipulate public perception of these prior to the elections, they must make the problem worse and longer lasting. This is why some people are selling coins cheaply, while others are aggressively buying them. The sellers are the short term people, while the buyers are the long term people (or dealers who intend to sell to long term people).
The people who are selling are worried about short term declines in their wealth, while the people who are buying are increasing their overall long term wealth. The buyers need to have strong hands to keep them from selling into short term market weaknesses that try to shake out the ones who aren't strong enough to be the nobility of the new dark age. In all dark ages, what matters is material wealth in assets, not paper wealth.
When a feudal lord discusses his wealth, he does not speak of the number and quantity of the contracts he holds (like paper dollars) - instead he speaks of his lands and their productivity, as well as his gold, jewels, servants, and military might. Basically, his only true wealth is the wealth that serves him, or is of interest to other wealthy people. Those are productive assets you can eat, like farmland, and human resources like laborers and security forces. And, of course, the shiny, glittery stuff that wealthy people trade back and forth amongst each other, because nobody else can afford them.
That's the widening gap between rich and poor. Everyone is getting poorer, but the people who are already poor hit the ground hard, while the rich people decline, but still accumulate assets that will be worth more when conditions improve for everyone. In every dark age for the West, the East experiences a golden age. These shiny, glittery things that Western nobility treasure often either come from the East, or end up there eventually in exchange for "spices".
This is why Western shiny and glittery things are not as valuable as Eastern ones. This is why I own Chinese coins, and not American ones. I'm also never going to exchange them for "spices", because I don't live an extravagant, luxury lifestyle. If you want to be successful in the new Western dark age, it won't be enough to just be nobility. You have to be the BEST nobility - the aristocrat. The common knights come and go as their fortunes rise and fall, but the aristocrat evolves into "old money" that is always powerful, and always available.
The aristocrat doesn't wear the finest silks, and doesn't engage in holy wars. That's for kings that get themselves beheaded, and wannabes that end up in the poor house. The aristocrat endures because he dresses well, but modestly. He eats well, but modestly. He thinks of what is going on around him, and whether criminal or benevolent, he is wary of the state of happiness of the roving masses beneath him, because he knows that their fate is his fate, inevitably.
Forgo the "spices" and the Chinese "silks". Stick to the cold onions and cotton smocks. Accumulate wealth, don't spend it or send it (to the East). As the dark age progresses, you may be the last noble aristocrat standing when it comes time to select a new king for the West...
