The Quest for Pirate Treasure with Premier Rare Coins Interview Transcript
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Charles: Alright, so we're here with Jeffrey from Premier Coin down in Palm Beach, Florida. They're a well-established dealer down there, very active. I've been following you guys on Instagram. Well first of all I wanted to start out because you guys were just recently in the central states right?
Jeffrey: Yeah in Chicago, I don't know how to pronounce that place Schaumburg, Illinois?
Charles: Oh Schaumburg.
Jeffery: Yeah. So, it's in the middle of nowhere in Chicago, but the Renaissance Hotel that they do it in was pretty funny. I posted a picture of one of their main advertisements for the Central State over the hotel is you don't have to worry about mobs, street mobs to be specific. I don't know if you've ever been there but usually you stay in O’Hare and then you have to travel across a few streets to get into the Stefan convention center, which in the central stage shows they have it at the Renaissance hotel. So, everything's in one. So, we landed on Thursday in the morning at 9:00am and with our baggage and everything we literally just put our suitcases in the safe and went straight to the hotel. Then at the end of the night checked into our room which happened to be the same place. So, I will say it makes it convenient, but you do miss out on a little bit of Chicago. We didn't get to visit the Bean or anything downtown.
Charles: Yeah that it does. It's hard to do that when you're working and you're there all day but the convenience of that is really nice though. I Think whenever you're going to a show and you're talking you're handling coins and stuff like that; I Always get I feel like it's more of a seamless process when you're just like in one place it's kind of cool.
Jeffery: Yeah. I Will say luckily I’m a bigger guy and a little bit younger so like I’m not much of a target as some of the other coin dealers maybe. Obviously there's been a lot of thefts recently shows and after shows. I was dealing with a lot of not even dealers but coin collectors that were saying that they've been robbed at the central state show because es they stayed across the street and would you know they would leave after the show and whatnot and someone would just you know they give me your watch your wallet and whatever's in your hand. So, you know that stuff doesn't happen if you don't leave the hotel right at least you hope it doesn't happen inside though.
Charles: Yeah I mean usually it doesn't. If you're just aware of that stuff and you stay all in one place. I don't know about you guys but when we do them or whatever we ship out all the inventory. So, once I’m leaving I’m not like handling anything
Jeffery: Yeah that works. I haven't done that yet. I know obviously there's many different methods but I really just you know I take a buddy or two with me and we try to fit all the most expensive stuff and like a carry-on or something, that way it's honestly never ever leaves our side. We'll probably put more of the bulk stuff and like the setup and stuff and like big old carry-ons and stuff like that so it's not too bad right.
Charles: So, how was it? How did it go?
Jeffery: I mean honestly it was fantastic. Honestly we missed dealer day on Wednesday which I Mean we had a bunch of friends that were sending us pictures of our booth and stuff like that and it was just fantastic. From start to finish obviously we have a more specialized inventory considering we deal with a lot of things like shipwreck stuff and modern stuff like that. It's not your everyday merchandise right but we built such an established name. People know where to go. I mean we were right across from PCGS. They had their grading specialist that was literally right next to us which was pretty cool. So, it did bring over a lot of traffic. We did do very well at the show and moved a lot of inventory and bought a lot of inventory as well which is always a plus
Charles: That’s great.
Jeffrey: Yeah, the first time I'm going to the central stage show I definitely am going to say I'll be back.
Charles: No, I'm glad to hear it. It traditionally was a very good show. I mean it has been and then it seemed like it took a dip for a period, but I think that show is coming back. I think it's going to be one of the main ones.
Jeffery: Yeah I mean they you know they haven't had a show and I guess like two or three years because of COVID so you know all the shows right now are breaking records. I mean the summer or the winter fun show that was in January this year was record-breaking for practically every dealer I know. So, I mean I guess you would say that's a great sign people are excited to get back to shows they're excited to get out. This is my first show where we didn't have to wear a mask or no restrictions on that so that was pretty interesting as well as you can see with a with a big beard
Charles: You got some protection there.
Jeffrey: Yeah, with a mask you know it's tough.
Charles: Yeah it's tough yeah say the least. It's cool. I'm glad things are starting to get back and people are getting out a bit. I think you're right. I think everyone is just ready to be cooped up and want to go to shows and want to see new inventory. You know if it's not up for auction then you can't find it basically. If people don't have retail sites where you could purchase you know it
becomes hard. So, they want to find little gems. I think there's always a bit of excitement when you go to a show and you find something cool.
Jeffrey: Yeah and not only that though a lot of people forget that you know a vast majority of these shops or dealers at shows have been around for a long time, they have brick and mortar shops. So, you know those are usually the places that you can go to figure out like what has the population brought into them recently right. You always get a lot of those booths where this just came in. I haven't had a chance to look over everything or send anything off and degrade, take a look and tell me what you think. Those are usually the best opportunities that I find and that's why I love going to shows I mean originally I would say the first you know, almost four to five years, of being in the business I never had a booth at a show I would just go and walk around the shows go to table to table introduce myself to whoever's there, find the booths that have a lot of the general inventory, give them my card, explain to them who I am and this is what I’m looking for and this is the price range. Then I say if you guys come across at any point in time skip the show and call me immediately. I think just doing good business like that over the last decade has really helped us to get to where we are today.
Charles: Yeah that's interesting you say that because I think that's a really good point like especially if you specialize in something, you have a specific clientele for that type of coinage. So as if another dealer comes across that and that's not where his customers are, I mean it's very easy. Now you opened up a whole new channel to do business with someone else who has that sort of clientele you know.
Jeffrey: Absolutely. You never really know. I mean again, most of the time when you go like luckily for us we're Florida based. So that was a local show for us, a two-and-a-half-hour drive. So, that was the first show we went to a lot and really dedicated our time and effort to and I Mean the summer show that's coming up in like a month isn't that big it's about the same size as central states, but the winner show is huge. Think it's one of my top five coin shows for dealer purposes in the state in the united states
Charles: It's probably the biggest.
Jeffrey: Yeah I would say between that one and probably the A&A. Those two would probably be the top two. A&A definitely surpasses by a little bit, but I think it's like 1800 fun and like 20 something hundred A&A. So, they're respectively similar but what I love about the Fun show is that you get a lot of more overseas people. You get a lot more out of state people just because it's easy to travel to Orlando. You know it's easy to get there and you get a lot of that aspect. So if you are a world coin dealer you know if you like that kind of stuff, you get a lot more people from that, bring in dealers that have brick and mortar that you know have their own business that are just bringing a snapshot of their inventory from whatever country or state that they're from. That's why it's so good and from my perspective. I mean if you look at east coast versus west coast, you'll see you know east coast has a lot more world coins, shipwreck and specialty items like that. Well if you go over to the west coast you find a lot more territories, nuggets and more memorabilia right to say. You have your markets yeah you have your places so that's why it's sometimes good to cross and go through I mean some of the major shows that we go to and have representation at would be you know fun show Baltimore now central states and long beach. Those are really the big ones that we try to make it to every year.
Charles: How's that doing Long Beach for you guys coming out from the East Coast?
Jeffrey: I mean it's a long flight, especially me. I'm a big dude so getting on planes and flying all the way out there and then you know having to get to a long beach, but I would say overall they do about three of them. I believe a year we try to get to about two of them and they do pretty well. I would say those are more buying opportunities for us in selling opportunities since there's not a large collecting population like cobs or world coins. Like I was saying before on the west coast it's interesting buyers but just not in that industry for the most part correct so that's
Charles: You seem to specialize in that sort of stuff like the old Spanish gold pioneers’ cobs and stuff like that. I know is that that seems to be a thing in Florida because I Know the Sedgwick is there right and he
Jeffrey: Yeah well they're in Orlando, Daniel Sedgwick and them. So, they're a little bit again about two and a half hours north of us but I mean I started in this industry. My original business cards said we specialize in pre-1933 gold. I mean double eagles are still to this day my favorite coin on the planet. I have like a whole work up on them on why you can get a double eagle for cheaper than silver which blows people's minds a long time because they've never actually done the math.
Charles: When you assess the numbers right. Yeah like buying a monster box versus spending the same amount of money buying double eagles.
Jeffrey: It's crazy, you know you can get a 100-year-old certified gold coin in mint state and spend about half the premium. Which is insane considering on an eighteen-thousand-dollar deal buying double eagles you're looking at around like $3,100-$3,200.
Charles: Especially now. I mean the premiums are crazy on bullion.
Jeffrey: So yeah it's even worse now you know when you're looking at, for example, a monster box around $6,400 premium while the same amount of money spent on eight double eagles is about $3,160 in premium. So, I Mean you're looking at over double the premium to buy a modern monster box today versus buying with the same money eight double eagles. I tell a lot of my customers again, I’m a big guy I can't carry that many monster boxes know versus I can easily walk out the door with you know eight ounces of gold.
Charles: And that's fascinating you could go anywhere in the world with those coins and then just call up the auction house and you're home free.
Jeffrey: Absolutely. So, you know personally though that's the number one coin I go to, you know that's one of my favorite coins. I personally collect them. It's what we sell the most of but getting back to your question you know we just kind of fell into the shipwreck stuff because our old office was on the island in north palm which is one of the biggest marinas for the boat. So, you get a lot of the yachties and stuff that are in town that go scuba diving a lot and it just so happened that we're on the treasure coast. So like usually you'd get people coming into your office like hey is this nickel worth any money I saw a buffalo with an extra leg, while we had people coming to our office going hey I just found this at the beach or hey I’m in town for a little bit my boat stocked here I’m looking for some type of shipwreck. So, we just started getting so many local customers asking us for this material or bringing the material in that you know we just started looking for it. Now we built up such a large distribution you know we supply a lot of the keys, St. Augustine, a lot of the shipwrecked coins. We also have people that buy them from us and or distribute them through a network.
Charles: So, who exactly are the collectors of that stuff? Are they here in the U.S. or are they abroad?
Jeffrey: So, believe it or not most of my collectors that stuff is local and again that's why we fell into it. Most of my customers know they literally I call them, and they race to my office to come and check it out. It's my friend, it's my family. I mean I don't know anyone, at least from my perspective. If you're born and raised in Florida, I don't know anyone that doesn't already have some type of cobb necklace or hasn't always wanted one. It's probably a Florida thing again being you know this close to the beach being that it is our history for shipwrecks they call this the treasure coast right for a reason. So, it's just insane how much history and culture are right around here because at the end of the day, Cuba was ideally the last pit stop you know before leaving back to the mainland or any of you know the Bahama islands. So, you know just getting unlucky and getting hit by a hurricane you know sank some of the most famous shipwrecks that we know of today.
Charles: It's very interesting and there's a lot of things working there with that stuff. Not only is it a big local collection, I think its part of part of the lure, probably being in Florida and just close to that history there and then people finding stuff too, a little treasure here and there over the years and people hearing the stories about it. I also like said with you know they did a lot of research on this stuff they published a lot of quality research and books and then building up the building up the demand for it adds to that over time and now it seems like there's a well-established collector base for that stuff.
Jeffrey: Yeah and what really helps out is a lot of people when they originally got this stuff, you always hear the story about a fisher, one of the guys they pulled up and like old Chrysler or Cadillac and opened up the trunk and you know they had $1 million worth of the stuff there and he just kind of bought what you wanted you know just fairly above spot and most of you immediately put it into jewelry. So, you know a vast majority of the historical stuff that even exists is held or you know been embezzled or been cleaned. For example lima meant eight escudos there's like less than 2,000 of them certified according to NGC and PCGS like in existence and that's from like 1640s to like 1850s so a 200 year time period of every gold cop in a one ounce form or Ada scooter that was ever produced by the lima mint there's only 2,000 of today. That every grade, every condition, every date, every med mark period that's certified so when you sort of put that into perspective I mean there's like tens of thousands 1904 and maybe 60 61, like you know it's remarkable. So, when you're talking that the entire collection is less than $2,000 one-ounce gold coins for that particular mint. You start looking at very low populations and very scarce coins. So, I Think that's really coming to market. Meaning if you look at world coins, shipwreck coins, cobs and stuff like that, it's been a long time where I made what a bid less than estimate in practically any auction when it comes to these capture points.
Charles: Do you feel like the market seems to be picking up right?
Jeffrey: Oh, it's skyrocketing. I mean like I said literally when I went to the central stage show I bought the only ado scudo under $30,000 that was there, and that's abnormal. Usually I'm able to find a handful here and there even if they're, you know, polished or been in jewelry. Remember to find something I was only able to find one. everyone else was asking you know I Wouldn't say outrageous prices but what the market is bringing right you know I was joking with our GM the other day because we were going through heritage and we were looking at hey we could use some more inventory so what we like to do is go on to you know all the other old coins we used to bid on and stuff like that because heritage allows you to make offers to people, sometimes you get them most of the time you don't, but we were going on there and we're like man how arrogant was Because I bid $3,500 max and I lost it at $3,750 for a coin I’d pay $10,000 for today and that was two years ago. So, I mean I would say when it comes to gold escudos, gold cobs they've almost doubled if not tripled in value over the last two to three years.
Charles: Oh yeah man.
Jeffrey: I mean especially something that scale. Most of the time what I usually see is that you find a sector of coins that hasn't been certified yet. What happens is a lot of people start selling them the ones that are certified for a gross amount of money they start going to auctions and stuff like that. Then I usually start seeing a flood of coins that are like, oh I have a coin like that let me go get it graded let me see what I got. Then sometimes you'll see the market dip a little bit because there's so many more coins coming to the population and then all of a sudden you see that submission stop and then you just see an assessment of the market and then everything skyrockets.
Charles: No it's funny you mentioned that I Thought about that quite a bit and I’m curious to see what you think about this I think it might have to do you think that has something to do with the inefficiencies and the grading process for that type of coin, like they haven't done it right yet or they haven't figured out a clear grading method.
Jeffrey: What do you mean by grading inefficiencies?
Charles: So like when you're when you're looking at like cobs and stuff like that like how do they really look at grading like because a lot of them have been under water they've been treated you know there' there's things that have come over the so many years of this stuff and that the way they were shaped and a lot of them, put in jewelry. I mean is there really a clear grading criterion?
Jeffrey: I mean I would say NGC is definitely the world leader in world coins, at least I think they just broke the world record for the most amount of coins certified different coins or something like that. So, I mean you definitely have your pros and your cons right. You know if I have a really high-end US coin I will probably send it over to PCGS. If I have a high-end, you know, world corner shipwreck, I'm most likely going to send it over to NGC. So far you know I Think they're very good on it like if you have like an Atocha coin with an original Mel Fisher tag like NGC won't even practically grade them anymore because of the amount of like fakes that exist out there the amount of you know real Atocha silver which is pretty much just a dinged up like cup or plate that they had melted down they had re-scanned some of the dyes that were on the ship or some old coins and they're remaking modern re-strikes with authentic Atocha silver. So the problem is you know you have a lot of that stuff that exists I mean eBay just did a large scraper practically anyone that had raw material that claimed shipwreck were practically wiped off of eBay because they found it was such a fraudulent error of how many people were selling fake points it was just it was just ridiculous hence why we get 99 of all of our coins graded like even if I get it in a bezel, I’ll pop it out of the bezel send it into NGC or PCGS get it back put it in the bezel and then and then you know sell you the photo authentication with it either the TrueView or NGC style which we've seen. It does bring a slight premium above but the interesting part about it is like how you say salt corrodes chrome saltwater does that to silver but not really to gold. So, from my understanding most silver coins have saltwater damage. Let's just say in a thousand years it will turn into dust right well that doesn't happen to gold coins so they're capable of giving straight grades and stuff like that now if there is damage they'll get saltwater damage if there's edge firing or ex jewelry and stuff like that. So, getting a straight grade is almost impossible on a shipwreck from silver. So, if you find one, that's usually valuable. Well it's more common for gold coins. I see that they're getting you know you know very stringent on you know requiring an abundance of documents to be able to get in a certification for shipwrecks. So, I've had no loss in faith when it comes to the process because I mean it's rigorous. I can tell you that much.
Charles: That's great, that's very good news.
Jeffrey: Yeah but I would say the only problem that I see is the resubmissions, but I mean that's a problem across the board yeah because PCGS and DC don't really communicate. So, if I Were to look at the 2000 or less lima coins in the eight escudos in NGC for example, how many of those are resubmissions? How many of those were I had an AE 58? I thought it was a little bit better to send it back in for a 63 or a 62 right and that 58 was never taken out right or vice versa. I sent it over to PCGS because that's what a lot of people will do now. They'll get a world coin that's a high grade or tied for a high grade in NGC. They'll bring it over to PCGS, get the same crossover grade but now it's not right. It's the only one known in ECGS if you don't top up so you've got to be smart looking at both of them.
Charles: If they're not updating the population reports, it's very hard to tell.
Jeffrey: That's a problem with a lot of coins right now Think they're especially a lot of high-end coins or like fatty holders and stuff like that you know you see a lot of people resubmitting those for higher grades and other you know in other housings. So what is happening with those are they being taken down are they and I usually say that that's not a bad thing for the coin market because at the end of the day you know when that is corrected or when that is fixed right it can only lower the populations of certain coins making those coins if you have them more valuable right now sure but I Haven't met anyone that could come up with a realistic solution that would work we'd have to practically get every coin regraded.
Charles: No, I know, and you know, and they probably will. I mean I'm hoping so at least that would be interesting to see what the numbers really truly are. You're right, a lot of those coins got cracked out of old green holders, especially the original PCGS ones, the rattlers. Now I mean rattlers are becoming a thing to where they're just having the rattler holder is becoming rare.
Jeffrey: Well yeah I know people that pay premiums for rattlers NGC fatties and even old annex holders. I had an annex holder and a shipwreck coin that I sold at the central stage show and the guy's looking at me like dude this thing's cracked, like to Get a discount on this? I'm like no. The honest with you or if I could have given a better like If it wasn't in an old school annex holder. I would have taken it out and sent it into NGC or PCGS but because this holder brings value. I just want to pop it out.
Charles: Right exactly.
Jeffrey: So, you know it's interesting within that as well. I've seen you know a lot of that recently, yeah which is cool but like you said, like what happens if they resume the same coin five times because they're looking for a better grade or you know a star or proof like or some type of designation. So, you know what happens to all those grades? What happens to that population?
Charles: So, let me ask you if someone wanted to build a really good collection of shipwreck stuff and cobs and that kind of thing. How would you approach it if you're starting from scratch, let's say?
Jeffrey: I mean obviously it depends on the budget so if you're saying like I just got into this world you know what I Want. I tell most people to stick to the gold if you can while you're starting out like don't get me wrong there's a lot of silver coins that carry a lot of value, that bring a lot of value, but there's a large abundance of real cobs that exist. I can tell you right now that there's also a large variety that go for a ton of money. Well the gold escudos and a lot of the gold coins, but the populations are so low. I mean if you get a gold coin with a full date on it, winner chicken dinner. I mean you know there's obviously the smaller denomination you get the more expensive they become and dates. You know if you're out there, if you're going to the shows if you're doing those things, keep an eye out for that you know look for those kinds of things. Silver coins are obviously a little bit cheaper but again it comes back to that premium you are going to pay a lot more premium for a silver cob than you are a gold cob. It’s just it's just the way it is you know so it depends where you want to be and where you want to go but then again you know silver Atocha goes anywhere between $2,400 to $3,000 you know to $5,000 while the 121 gold coins they found the last one went for $90,000 for like a one escudo that wasn't even that exciting. So, you know it's so specialized that the coolest thing about getting into this market in the world coin market is that there are so many niches within this one niche. Yeah you can specialize in other world wrecks, south Africa wrecks. You can specialize in south America versus like Spain and then obviously the varieties that go through there. I know some collectors that make an entire living on just buying counter stamps which are super cool because they tell an amazing story.
Charles: So now what about the coinage that didn't get shipwrecked? Essentially the same type of coins, but somehow they made it back to Spain or whatever. How does that work? is there a difference? Is there premium basically with some of the more well-known shipwrecks versus the ones that made it out or is it vice versa?
Jeffrey: Yeah so rule of thumb, I would say every coin you see that has a shipwrecked pedigree can almost double. If I got the crappiest like you can't even tell where it's from right. I can just barely see a little bit on each side like I buy those in bags for $75 to $125 a piece. That same coin in a shipwreck is minimum $200-$300 right. So almost every coin practically doubles with a shipwreck pedigree to it. Then when you start tying it to like you know the Windham with the black Sam rack right you know. For example, that's a real that you know I’m currently bidding on over 10k on you know. You get to 17, 15 fleet gold, Atocha silver or gold then you know the more famous the pedigree is, who owned it was it in a book, was it you know original taller coin, the far back you can trace the history of who owned it where'd it come from who found it etc. the more magnitudes it increases in price.
Charles: So, pedigree is a big thing there.
Jeffrey: It is everything
Charles: Got it. Ok. So yeah I mean feel like that's probably across the board. Yeah that's it's interesting to know because I’m you know my specialty is more in U.S. like early American U.S type stuff, but very interesting. Another thing actually I Wanted to know with this stuff is there is there one like mint that everyone goes for? II Know you mentioned Peru but
Jeffrey: Yeah I Mean obviously Seville is the motherland but if I had to pick one mint that I find that has a lot of the really pretty coins that I like most… I guess my Wishlist coin so the coin that I Have where if it comes down to any auction I'm immediately notified, is this you know Segovia Mint. You know they made some really beautiful coins. There's a lot of history there with a lot of princesses and queens getting inaugurated or you know married there. There's a lot of historical significance to that area into that mint but really it just depends where you're coming from. If you're looking at South America, practically anything from Colombia is rarer and vice versa. So again, it depends on what time period, what they were making, what comes out of there that brings a certain premium, but I personally would put a small significance on this. You know Synovia mint coins.
Charles: Interesting. So, with that type of stuff do you see the collectors of it? Like if they're from a particular country or region then they tend to focus on that more so? Or is it just all over the place?
Jeffrey: Not Really. That's the cool point about shipwrecks and cobs and stuff like that. When you look at a U.S coin right for example if you bring out something like a common date Morgan or double eagle or any of them, they all practically look the same.
Charles: Yeah right
Jeffrey: From XF to mint state like they just look a little prettier right a little shinier but like cobs you know they were they were hammer stamped by usually slaves during the time period before they were milled. So, they were just like hey we're going to produce as many of these as possible. They didn't really put two and two together or some art skills. So, you get so many coins that you know off like the same coin where like one of them you know stamped the cross is halfway off the coin and then another one where it's centered but it's the same coin at the same grade. So, what really comes to the cob coins is if you're looking at a thousand of them which one are you pointing at? right and that's really where their collection starts to go you know. What are they like, you know where do they grow up watching? What do they grow up doing? That's what's really cool and that's why you know we kind of specialize in territories and shipwrecks because they really go hand in hand with history and they're just super cool.
Charles: Yeah it's a unique niche within the history of numismatics and the history of money in a broader sense.
Jeffrey: Yeah I Mean that's why I Love like the territories. We did a lot of California fractional territorials in the small denominational money in the US which a lot of you don't even realize. There were you know quarters half dollars in dollars right which I mean the US made dollars when we made the largest denomination coin we made the smallest nomination one as well the 20s and the ones and in the 1850s. There were actually smaller coins than the one dollar and that was where they were made to make trade more fairly. they made them all the way through the Mormons all the way through to California. They were making small denominational gold wherever they could find it, you know. They'd give it to jewelers to refine and so on and so forth. There's a lot of cool stories in that yeah definitely and then
Charles: Especially how it transitioned to being officially they went from small private mentors to the actual government you know taking over eventually opening up mints.
Jeffrey: Yeah because if you look in the red book actually, I believe it was 1870 or 1872, but that's when they put in the national coin act where it was illegal to do all of this. You'll see the territories. They started making like Washington style coins until they realized there was no way in the world the secret service was going to prevent any of this. I was reading something the other day and that's why I think Abraham Lincoln is the one that established the secret service right before he was assassinated, and he did it to fight against money. Which is funny because what is a secret service person going to do all the way over in San Francisco in the wild west right. They can't even get money out there let alone telling people what they're already using is money they're not allowed to use.
Charles: It's a serious matter messing with the monetary system right.
Jeffrey: Yeah well I mean you look around it though and it's like you start reading the history at the beginning secret servicemen started disappearing and then the people making the territorials started disappearing I think happened by a taxi or something. I’m like at some point you start seeing your trends
Charles: Yeah no definitely. Definitely well it's a big thing to be able to control the money supply and the monetary supply. As these territories became states it just you know that's what eventually just happened.
Jeffrey: I Mean yeah guys are so difficult to control. I Mean there's so many people over such vast amounts of land. Everything was just so fresh so new I Mean they didn't even really have roads back then going from one into the next so yeah
Charles: exactly transportation stuff
Jeffrey: Yeah I mean by the time someone ratted on somebody in San Francisco it took a few months for that note to get to the address and then a few more months. Like the period was completely different by the time the secret service made their way out there looking for whoever it was that was doing this. In reality you're only like hitting established businesses of people that were doing this for many years they have a brick and mortar you know most of them are jewelers
Charles: Yeah, that's true.
Jeffrey: It was just I'm a guy with talent. I can refine your gold dust that you were just paid in and turn it into small denominational gold. So, you can spend more fairly
Charles: So, it's funny how that wound up too and then some become more respected than others because they you know a lot of people they would short you on the goal.
Jeffrey: oh yeah they make their fake ones and stuff like that and if you get into the big book you really find a lot of them which actually sell for a lot more money. Now the counterfeits but you know like Robert Gray and a few of those guys you know they were the more stable and stature you know they made a lot of pieces. They're very well known for doing. So, we used to make a joke back in the day that could anyone guess what the best and highest paying job was back in this time period and we'd always used to say it was the giants because they had the big pinchers right. Before small denominational gold I’d be like oh it's a pinch of gold dust for the meal and drinks tonight. Well the dude with the biggest pointer finger and thumb would ideally grab the most gold on their finger. So, you know obviously it's a joke, but it gives a real insight into the time period of why small denomination coins were made because you literally got paid in the gold dust that you sifted for the day previously. So, what do you do with that? and then the fact that like they didn't have Priuses or common roads like you went in you dropped your gold dust off he gave you like a leather pouch with all your coins in it. So, you know how we have one today in proof-like conditions or 66, 67, 68. To me that's just amazing right you know to have a coin that was minted to be immediately traded and used. I Couldn't go to the bank today and get brand new quarters, put them in my pocket, drive home, take them out of my pocket and send them in to get graded and expect grades that high.
Charles: It's amazing they exist even though I'm telling you.
Jeffrey: Exactly so something 170 years later and then and then again you timestamp that and think of what about something 200 years before that right I Have like I Have like a milled coin from Spain right now it's like from 1746 that is a mint state 66 trade. There's still like five coins graded higher than that so I’m just like it's amazing how does like how? like I Can't even hold on to something for like a couple days.
Charles: You know all the values should reflect it. That's the thing like given the context of what that piece is and the history that comes with it and the importance of it in the grand scheme of you're talking about the history of money. I Really think that these rare coins in general are undervalued tremendously. Especially with all the support of the grading companies and stuff like that and all the way you could attribute these coins. I mean it's just mind-boggling to me still to this day.
Jeffrey: Absolutely and that's what I think is really cool and what a lot of people don't realize is they haven't made it outside of the U.S yet, when it comes to the coin world and when you do that you realize no one oversees grades of coins. Nobody's crazy right. It's probably unheard-of right. That's why you get a lot of the more pretty and artistic points from overseas because that's really the market there. With that being said right you know with all the grading and with all the new stuff coming out you're getting a lot of the dealers that are good with the internet that know how to look stuff up that are young, that are ready to hustle. Those are the guys or girls that sit on NGC and PCGS and they look through the population reports and they're like let me find a group of coins that there's not a lot of them. Let me find something that's worth looking for that's rare. That's you know let me and they start finding them through the population reports and then looking for them on eBay on websites and then across you know cross-reference into shows. That's what really in my opinion starts snowballing these other markets within the coin world. Really you just start to see them taken off and you're either in it or you miss it
Charles: Yeah, that's interesting. That you think they're just discovering little niches like that and they sort of get into that yeah it's interesting.
Jeffrey: Pretty much I mean I know a lot of people that just sit on the population reports and they wait for a new coin to come out or you know they wait to see something because ideally like you know you can't keep track of every mint around the world.
Charles: Oh no right.
Jeffrey:: I mean it, if you can by all means like show me how.
Charles: There's a lot of those examples, like take for instance look at the Balkan countries right. So, some of those older silver pieces that are really rare in the 19th century went through communism. I mean they had to survive a lot. So, the ones that did survive and if they're in men's state they go for high premiums.
Jeffrey: Yeah they were for a lot of money and I think that's what people are starting to realize now. I was joking with another you know old-time coin dealer and he was like it's hilarious because I make less money per coin, not me the coin dealer, saying I Make less money per coin selling a double or a common date double eagle then the guy next to me does selling a full steps nickel.
Charles: Interesting.
Jeffrey: It was just a joke but like it's true you make 20 to 50 on a common date you know double eagle while you know most of the other guys selling the Morgan’s. It's easy to make ten percent on a Morgan Carson City or you know a yogh, or you know a full step nickel and stuff like that like.
Charles: They're hard to find.
Jeffrey: That's the thing like exactly, but it's also normal while on like double eagles and stuff like that people still consider them more of a bullied coin. So right you really don't make nearly as much yeah.
Charles: Well those premiums on that stuff. The generic gold was like it shifted over time. I mean there were times where the premiums were higher and then they sort of went back down but what I noticed is like once we once we kind of went on a bull run with bullion you know it just squashed all the premiums of that stuff. People just want an American eagle. It's easy.
Jeffrey: I think yeah which it’s is just random to me because a proof eagle sells for like $2,500-$2,600 right now. So again, when you do the math from what they're selling from the U.S. mint and what they're selling in third-party markets, again, it still comes out to be more promethean buying a historical one ounce the largest denomination gold coin the United States ever struck for circulation.
Charles: Still crazy to me.
Jeffrey: It’s a little wild to me, yeah.
Charles: I mean if you're going to be a Bullions stacker it's not bad I mean why especially now when the premiums are high. I remember retail like on an American eagle was like 50 bucks over but now it's like what a hundred or something
Jeffrey: Let's see I had it pulled up here earlier. I Had my premised so for example um for a gold proof eagle in a box it's 525 over spot. So, I mean that's just insane 525. For a regular gold one-ounce buffalo it's 78 over spot. For a sealed panda it's 65 over spot. Let's see here the spot isn't that high on one-ounce gold coins not in boxes on papers. When you start getting to anything else above a mint state coin this is not what we're looking for you're looking at outrageous premiums for a coin that there's usually thousands if not millions of them that exist in multiple graded years.
Charles: Those I Don't think are worth it. I mean you're going to buy gold then buy an okay buy an American eagle random date, generic you know exactly.
Jeffrey: Now there are some rumors in the coin world that you know there's going to be new grading statistics that may or may not come out for modern coins. So, it won't be like a one to seventy scale, it'll have a little bit. The mass majority of modern coins come out you know 70s and whatnot. So, you know how do you start breaking those 70s down a little differently? I think that's what we're going to start seeing coming around in the future to start differentiating between what is a you know a high-end 70 right and just a regular you know 70 or what not so you'll probably have a different grading scale. While a 70 might be 90 to 100 right in a new grading scale which would make a difference in prices.
Charles: yeah it's definitely going to affect the market but for it to really establish itself it's going to take a lot of time.
Jeffrey: Well I Mean right now the coin market is having a lot of problems. I Mean that the first man and the U.S. men can't even come up with enough blanks to produce the coins they want. I Mean that's the rumor why the Morgan dollars were made this year was because they didn't have enough to make them. So, I Mean they didn't have enough blanks so I Mean you know they can pretty much ask the premiums that they want if they're selling out of coins and can't produce them fast enough.
Charles: Yeah that's interesting. It goes to show you the supply too. That's another problem with bullion is that the price could be effective without transferring physical.
Jeffrey: Yeah and I Mean Bullion market has been wild I mean gold's been over $1,600 right in like the 70s and 80s and silver has been over $100 before you know. So, there's lots of time periods where if you didn't invest your money into bullying throughout the years right if you just like bulk bot you would have lost a substantial amount of money or made a substantial amount of money. While in the rare coin market you know if you bought rare coins if you bought you know top pops and really rare specific coins, as long as a whole bunch more didn't come out in population through hordes and stuff like that, which even hordes would get a special pedigree in self or premia Bove so it wouldn't even affect your premium, you did pretty good. I mean if you look at the red book from 1980 till today there's practically no coin that's worth less today than it was then.
Charles: I agree. Especially if you focus on quality like all my clients that focused on quality and stuff like that and then put together really good collections they made money.
Jeffrey: they did well they did very well, so you know and then and you
Charles: And you get enjoyment out of it. Like it's something that's a hobby but it's also an investment, you can make money out of it.
Jeffrey: I mean yeah, and I tell people like double eagles for example, there's like 15 to 20 common date and mint marks that you can get at very small premiums above spot. If you're looking for that and you're trying to build a collection like I think that's super cool. You know that you can get coins that were minted in the 1800s, they're the largest denomination coin the United States ever made. You can get them for the smallest premium above spot compared to practically any silver coin and almost any other modern coin today based on premium. You know there's really not a lot of stuff that's competitive against it besides you know men's state gold and bars.
Charles: Yeah, that's true. So, get them and then collect different dates, have a bit of fun with it as you stack.
Jeffrey: You know yeah and that's the whole point. I mean that that's what we specialize in and we try to convert a lot of bullion buyers to get you know if they're monster box buyers and stuff like that but in reality it's really about just buying what you like and doing it over a long period of time.
Charles: It happens. I had one bullion client, I told him every time it took about 10 times convincing him but then since he made the transition, now that's all he wants to buy is rare.
Jeffrey: Yep. You usually find something that they like you know everyone has aa niche or a cross reference um that that slides into the numismatic market right that they love.
Charles: It spikes their interest.
Jeffrey: Exactly.