What is a Fresh Coin?

[physics-fan3.14]

What is a Fresh Coin?

 

Come, take a trip with me. We are going to your favorite coin dealer's shop to look at what's new.

 

As we walk in, you see a row of glass cases. Glittering coins lay there, sparkling in the bright lights. You see a row of ancients, some cool world coins, and an entire case of Morgan dollars. As you look at the Morgans, you notice a few in the back that you recognize. Those dollars have been there every time you’ve come into the shop, and you’ve been there once a month for two years now. They are a bit overpriced, which is why you haven’t really paid much attention to them. One of them is dipped.

 

Now, we get the attention of the shop owner. He comes over, and you exchange pleasantries. You have a good relationship with the dealer, and he likes you because you are regular, returning customer. He knows just what you like. He tells you that this weekend, a real old-timer came in to sell off his entire collection. This guy started building his collection back in the 40’s, after he got back from the War. Most of these coins haven’t been on the market in decades. The dealer pulls out a tray of Bust Halves with circ-cams that would make Lord Marcovan cry. He pulls out a tray of Morgans with beautiful toning, acquired from careful storage since the 50’s. You take a look at them, and pick out quite a few. You get a little carried away, but these coins are worth it! 

 

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Which of these coins did you get excited for? Did you get excited for the Morgans you’ve seen dozens of times, languoring in coin purgatory? Or did you get excited for that brand new, untouched set that hadn’t ever been seen before?

 

In the coin market, that’s the difference between a “stale” coin and a “fresh” coin. Stale coins have been traded back and forth, made a few recent auction appearances, or have some sort of problem.

 

Picture a somewhat generic, but accurately graded and eye appealing Barber half dollar. This half shows up in a Heritage auction, but it doesn’t sell. 3 months later, it goes to auction again, and sells. A month later, you see it show up on Ebay, where it sits for 6 months, and then back to Heritage. Are you going to be excited about that coin? After it’s been traded and flipped and tossed about, it isn’t really that interesting. If you watch certain items on Ebay, or some auction house, or dealer inventories, you often see this pattern. There is a coin on Ebay that I’m watching right now that was listed in 2013. It’s just been sitting there. Nobody is excited for it – the price is too high, and it’s stale.

 

However, imagine that I can talk the dealer into letting my buy that coin (at a reasonable discount). I hold onto that coin for 10 years. People forget about it. I put it into an auction 10 years later, but nobody has seen that coin in a long time. It’s new and interesting again – it is “fresh.”

 

The exact time frame for how long something has to be off the market to be considered fresh varies depending on who you talk to. The general consensus is about 7 years, but I think 10 years is better. Clearly, the old timer’s decades old collection is fresh. And clearly, something sitting in inventory for several months is not fresh. The line for “fresh” is somewhere in between.

 

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So why do collectors care about “fresh” coins?

 

The cynical will say that it’s just a marketing term to get people excited. They’ll say it has no meaning at all, and you shouldn’t pay attention. To a certain extent, they are right – some dealers will use the term liberally and without meaning.

 

However, there are aspects of “fresh” coins that are appealing:

 

First, a fresh coin often means that it hasn’t been messed with. There is some sort of originality implied with freshness. The old-timer’s collection that we looked through hadn’t been doctored or processed to make things look better. They haven’t been dipped. They haven’t been cracked and resubmitted a half dozen times for a higher grade. They’re just honest, well cared for, attractive original coins that nobody has picked over.

 

And that’s the second part of it – with fresh coins, you’re the first person to look at them. You have the chance to pick the best. They haven’t been offered to anyone else. I’ll bet you that in that old collection, there are some real winners. But, 6 months later, after everyone has looked at the collection and picked out the best, what do you think will be left? There probably will not be much great stuff anymore. That once fresh collection has now gone stale!

 

A lot of this is psychological. When a new collection comes to market, there can be a lot of excitement for it. Take the amazing Newman collection, for example. Many of these coins had been in his collection for decades, and had only been sold once in the last hundred years. They were completely unmolested, perfectly original, and a once in a lifetime opportunity. They were the very definition of Fresh! There was little surprise that bidding was intense for these coins, with collectors and dealers both competing for some of the freshest material they’d ever seen.

 

However, after the auctions, a few of the coins wound up in dealer’s inventories. The prices were, of course, higher than the auction (the dealers have to make a profit, after all). Some were dipped. Some were crossed to other holders. Some sold, and some didn’t. Some appeared again, consigned to later auctions by people hoping to flip them. These second appearances generally weren’t quite as successful. The coins weren’t fresh anymore.

 

Doug Winter discusses more scenarios here

 

So what do you think? Do you care about fresh coins? Do you avoid stale coins?

 

How do you define fresh coins?

 

Thanks,

 

Jason Poe

[MarkFeld]

A "fresh" coin is a matter of perspective. A coin might appear "fresh" to one person and at the same time, seem quite stale to another. A coin can make frequent rounds at shows and/or in auctions over a relatively short period of time. But for someone who doesn't get out much, it can appear to have surfaced only recently.

[erwindoc]

I would think that it is a coin that has not been on the market in a very long time.  However, "a long time" can be a relative term.  It may be 5, 10, 15+ years or 70+ as your example mentioned.  I would have loved to view the WW2 collection you described!  

[numisport]

Boy you folks have been around the block a few times ! I agree fresh coins for me have been worth the wait. This last year I picked up 2 fresh 1936 proof coins that have no visible auction results that I could find. And yes they cost more than I should have spent but these wont go back on the market for a while so they will stay "fresh" until next time.

[Conder101]

Mark can be right about it being a matter of perspective.  Take those tired old Morgans that you have seen every month for the past two years.  To you they are STALE.  But then take those same coins and sell them to another dealer three or four states away and he puts them in his case.  No one around here has ever seen them, THEY"RE FRESH!!  Especially if the dealer says something about how he bought them out of an old collection......

Fresh only means you haven't seen them recently.  It also helps if the other dealers around you haven't seen them recently either.

[physics-fan3.14]

27 minutes ago, Conder101 said:

Especially if the dealer says something about how he bought them out of an old collection......

Fresh only means you haven't seen them recently.  It also helps if the other dealers around you haven't seen them recently either.

Ah, and that's where you get into the problems of dealers calling it "fresh." To the city-wide local market, it's stale. To the regional market, it's fresh. A bit of a paradox, no?

If you look at it from the aspect of being picked over, I could assume that there are no savvy buyers in that city. But that is probably a poor assumption.

The psychological aspect of "freshness" is based on the presupposition that you are one of the first ones to look at the collection. Nobody has cherrypicked it yet. But if some local clients had already taken the best stuff, before it made it to the regional level, is it really "fresh"? This is more complicated in today's market, with internet stores and auction records. The coin may have been listed on one dealers site for months before he sold it to the other dealer. That information is widely available, and makes a sale like you mentioned much less likely to increase the freshness. 

And, as Mark mentioned, does it even matter? 

[glennm]

To us frugal folk, the Day Old rack at the bakery is fresh (and a treat).  Same with some coins, the price is often what makes it most attractive to me!

[LINCOLNMAN]

All great posts on this topic. This concept applies to lots of things. 

[Raisethis2]

Definitely a two way answer. To a Dealer who has turned over some inventory "fresh" implies fresh to him/her. On the other hand I bought a 1938 and 1938 D Washington quarter in an auction a few years ago. These two coins had more "pop" than any I'd seen in years. It was obvious that these two coins came from a collection that hadn't seen the light of day in 70 years or more. 

[LINCOLNMAN]

13 hours ago, Raisethis2 said:

Definitely a two way answer. To a Dealer who has turned over some inventory "fresh" implies fresh to him/her. On the other hand I bought a 1938 and 1938 D Washington quarter in an auction a few years ago. These two coins had more "pop" than any I'd seen in years. It was obvious that these two coins came from a collection that hadn't seen the light of day in 70 years or more. 

Amazing sometimes the difference when a coin has never been dipped or messed with. Sort of like the difference between a tomato bought at Safeway, and one from your garden. No contest. 

[coinman_23885]

It is all marketing hype IMHO.

[MarkFeld]

2 hours ago, coinman_23885 said:

It is all marketing hype IMHO.

All other things being equal, would you prefer:

1) to pick from a group of coins, randomly selected from a dealer's inventory or from a public auction?

or

2) from a group of coins you know have been in a collection which has been off the market for 20 years?

I'd certainly choose the latter (fresh coin) option.

[physics-fan3.14]

7 hours ago, coinman_23885 said:

It is all marketing hype IMHO.

I definitely think that the term can be mis-used, and often is. Many times, it is marketing. 

The idea of freshness, however, is quite important. 

The point of this thread was to help people see through the marketing. By looking for truly fresh coins, hopefully we as collectors can get a bit of an edge. 

[coinman_23885]

5 hours ago, MarkFeld said:

All other things being equal, would you prefer:

1) to pick from a group of coins, randomly selected from a dealer's inventory or from a public auction?

or

2) from a group of coins you know have been in a collection which has been off the market for 20 years?

I'd certainly choose the latter (fresh coin) option.

Fair enough, but there is a little subtext to my comments.  I have seen certain dealers justify premium prices and argue that putative “freshness” is an important factor in pricing.  I do not think that the frequency a specific specimen trades or how long ago that specific piece appeared at auction should in itself have any effect on its marketability or price.  The coins speak for themselves.  The coins are what the coins are.

A coin that has traded frequently may very well be a problem coin, but there could be other possibilities.  Maybe a flipper gets carried away in bidding and needs to move it.  Maybe the original buyer had a medical/financial emergency and must sell the piece.  Maybe the original bidder defaulted, and the auction house is trying to dump it through a back door on eBay before relisting it where it could have the appearance/stigma of appearing to be a return (i.e. a reject). There could be a number of explanations that don’t warrant condemning the piece.

On the other hand, I have come across fresh collections of junk or widgets too.  There are advantages like finding original coins that have proven stability; however, that applies with older slabs whether exposed to the light of day for the first time in a decade or if the pieces have traded 3 or 4 times during that same decade.  The coins are the coins.  The real advantage, as I think you might be implying, is the ability to cherry pick, but by the time the coins appear at auction or a dealer’s inventory where I see soaring prose about “freshness,” the coins have already been largely cherry picked.

Finding fresh hoards might pique my interest if viewing a collection for a collector in private, but for me it shouldn’t make a difference in value or liquidity.  I usually only see the term “fresh” when it is being promoted by a dealer or auction house.  For that reason, I think it is mainly marketing hype.  All else equal, the coins are what the coins are.

 

[glennm]

On 1/26/2018 at 1:09 PM, coinman_23885 said:

It is all marketing hype IMHO.

I agree and I disagree.  Depending on one's intent in acquisition (aesthetics, investment, completion of a series, resale), the term 'fresh' may simply be a marketing ploy, or alternatively, it is our feeling during the initial encounter with a desirable coin.  I tend to look at coins in the short to intermediate term resale perspective.  Were I wealthy enough, I would likely be a pure collector, purchasing a coin and keeping until I die.  However, long ago, I realized I couldn't keep it all.

Enough rambling, here is the certification number of a nice, old, fresh coin that I recently submitted:

4649037-002  MS 67 

Cheers,

Glenn

 

[BillJones]

"Fresh Coin" = A nice coin, for what it is, that has not been available for fairly long period of time.

The opposite is seeing the same old stuff at show after show that has not sold because it has issues or is over priced. This can also apply to items that have appeared in auctions a bit too frequently in a period of perhaps less than a year.  

[SkyMan]

It's a coin that comes up to you and says, "Hey good lookin', wanna' take me home tonight?"...

[MarkFeld]

6 hours ago, SkyMan said:

It's a coin that comes up to you and says, "Hey good lookin', wanna' take me home tonight?"...

If a coin which surfaces, has been off the market for twenty years, I think it's fresh. And that's whether it's a monster or a dog.

[WoodenJefferson]

I have quite  a few fresh coins that were bought in the 60' 70' and 80's time frame, where they have languished for years, decades even!

[LINCOLNMAN]

3 hours ago, WoodenJefferson said:

I have quite  a few fresh coins that were bought in the 60' 70' and 80's time frame, where they have languished for years, decades even!

Low market prices = fewer fresh coins in the near term

[Walkerfan]

A coin is fresh to me if I haven't seen it in the last 10 years or so. 

I follow the market for what I collect, very closely, so I would usually know. 

Of course, I look for fresh coins of better quality. 

[numisport]

I made an offer recently on a proof 1942 quarter that would have had the owner profit roughly 20 %. (he bought it in a Heritage auction this summer). A little research showed this NGC coin sold for twice as much in a 2011 Heritage auction. I noticed it is available (make offer to owner) for twice what he paid. THIS IS A STALE COIN !

[USAuPzlBxBob]

A coin that pulls at you so much, and the price is so right, that you know that if you don't buy it someone else will, and then you'll kick yourself for suffering from Hesitation Blues.

And when you look again a short time later, it's already On Hold.