Two coins I absolutely had to have at any price.

What do you do when you have been hunting for a coin for over a year, and it finally comes up for sale on E-Bay? Does that coin become a ?must win? that you are willing to pay almost anything to acquire? This situation presented itself to me twice in the last month and in both cases, I paid whatever it took to acquire the coins. On the surface this may seem like lunacy, but when the coins are rarely available for sale, and fit perfectly into my collecting goals, it makes perfect sense.

In most cases, I refuse to get into a bidding war with other collectors, but prefer to wait for another opportunity. To prove my point, say I am looking for a 1916-D Mercury Dime in AG-3 condition and it is available for sale on E-Bay. Since these are regularly for sale on E-Bay, I can afford to let the overpriced example go to someone else, knowing that there will be others to bid on soon. However, when I know a coin has not appeared for sale on E-Bay in a year, I am often willing to pay whatever it takes to acquire the coin, knowing it will not likely be for sale again soon.

The first coin I had to win was a 1993 ?World at War Commemorative? 50 Tala coin memorializing Anne Frank from an island nation I never heard of before called Tokelau. I have been seeking this coin for my ?Inspirational Ladies? signature set for over a year. I missed an opportunity to purchase one for sale in January 2009 because I was overseas in Brazil at the time and not paying attention to my watch list. Now a year later I can hardly believe my eyes when my watch list shows one for sale. Sometimes you can pick coins like this up on the cheap because they are not particularly valuable and few know of their existence. Unfortunately, that was not the case with this coin because the listing was alongside other coins in the ?World at War? commemorative series that another bidder seemed interested in acquiring as a whole. In the end, the other bidder drove the price up for me, but since this coin was a ?must win?, I paid the price. Now with the coin happily in my possession, it is on its way to NGC for certification. When you think about it, the hunt is part of what makes collecting coins so much fun.

Many of you know that I collect Silver Britannia?s issued by the United Kingdom with a goal of collecting the entire series in MS-69 or greater. These counterparts to the Silver American Eagle are much scarcer, with the mintage held at 100,000 annually. Additionally, Britannia?s graded MS-69 and higher are very rare. Part of the problem with Britannia?s is poor packaging at the Royal Mint that leaves hairlines on the coins? relief. With MS-69 Silver American Eagles in plentiful supply assembling a collection of 69?s is not terribly difficult to do. However, the NGC population report lists ?five? 1998 Britannia?s at MS-69 and PCGS lists ?seven?. With such low population numbers, I tried submitting raw Britannia?s for certification with varying results. While I did have a few coins return with MS-69?s, most of my submissions were meager at best. Therefore, I decided to give up on this option because of the high cost of submissions. With few options remaining, I decided to wait it out for examples to appear for sale on E-Bay. Six of the twelve of Britannia?s in my collection are MS-69, with four MS-68?s, and two MS-67?s. Overall, this collection is nice, but still falls short of my goal. Last week I won one of the PCGS 1998 MS-69 examples, replacing one of my MS-67?s, and I could not be more satisfied. Any certified Britannia for sale on E-Bay is scarce let alone one certified MS-69, so this coin easily became a ?must have?. Bidding for this coin remained low until the end when another bidder pushed up the final price, but when it comes to meeting one of my clearly defined collecting goals; it?s a no-brainer.

While most price guides list the value of these coins significantly lower than what I paid, the real value is much closer to what the market is willing to pay to acquire these coins. That someone else is willing to drive up the price shows me that the value of the coins I purchased is pretty much what I paid. As always, Happy Collecting!

Gary