Week of April 24th, 2006

Hello and welcome to the week of April 24, 2006 market insight.

This past week showed a lot of signs for silver type coinage being accumulated by collectors and investors. Also it seems there is always a collector or investor for super nice Walking Liberty’s as we sold the following dates – 1917 MS65, 1918-D MS64, 1934-D MS65, 1935-S MS66, 1941-D MS67, 1944-S MS66, and 1945 MS67 – This was a new collector who wanted to do something with Half dollars holding onto a pristine appearance – So to our judgment we decided to start with the Walking Liberty series. This design was created by a man named A.A. Weinman, a man who won a contest to design a new Half Dollar and Dime. Walkers are for the most part an easy series to put together with the exception of the rare dates such as 1921 and 1921-D which are difficult to find in MS condition.

So to give my judgment on buying Silver type, I say buy, buy, buy! Remember Silver is moving up to record highs now also, and with coins as long as the rarity, eye appeal and grades are there, the “bullion” price doesn’t mean much! I really think Proof Silver coins such as Seated Liberty, Trade Dollars, and Morgan’s are super buys right now with the potential of sky rocketing values over the next couple years.

What can I say about gold again? I guess “The Saints keep marching on!!!” We sold around $25,000 worth of collectable Saints showing signs of Gold accumulators buying with no signs of wariness. Some super Proof gold pieces have passed through our doors again this past week and into a few Museum collections such as an 1881 $20 Liberty in PF66 Ultra Cameo, and a beautiful 1893 $2.5 in PF67 Ultra Cameo. A few years ago if I would have thought that we would be handling so many classic rarities when it comes to Proof Gold would have amazed me, and still does actually. The main reason is I would have never dreamed to even get my hands on so many pieces because there are so very, very few of these out there that exist. A big reason lately that we’ve had the opportunity is our reputation and our knowledge. Now when people want to move these treasures they know to call us because we have the clientele to put them into homes rather then trying to shop them around to other dealers or putting them in auctions, this way they stay “secret” coins and our clients know they can always come back to us when they want to move them (if they ever want to move them that is).

Total sales for the past week exceeded the $300,000 mark. The reason to give stats such as these is to show activity to give confidence to buyers and potential buyers. You can see buy or sold signs even if I didn’t give this stat, and this is a good thing because it gives people the sense of what is moving and what actual prices certain areas are bringing.

As I write this gold is at $619.80 and silver $11.80 – WOW!

Cheers, and have a great week.

Dean Albanese
dean@coinace.com