Three years ago I approached the folks at PCGS to encourage them to expand the Registry to include a section that would be for circulated coinage only. I told them at the time, that if they would expand the grades in the Registry and launch the concept, I would help make a market in the coins that would be placed in the collections. A year later the Everyman Registry was launched.

My reason for suggesting this addition to the Registry was multi-faceted, not the least of which was my feeling that the majority of collectors build sets and collections in circulated grades. Why shouldn’t they be able to have a registry where they could showcase their coins?

My second reason for suggesting this addition to the Registry was the marketing phase that would create the same sort of fervor that the Mint State Registry had garnered over the years. Collectors could compete for pieces grading VF-25 as opposed to VF-20 pieces. The sets would be weighted on the same scale as the Mint State Registry—percentage of completion and superiority of condition. The highest graded pieces that would be allowed into the Registry were AU-58—meaning those coins could potentially achieve significant price increases over their former levels.

Needless to say, even I could not conceive of how well this project would be received by the collecting public and how dramatically it would impact prices for all circulated graded coins, not least of which were the better AU-graded coins.

When I received the email that it was time to submit data for the upcoming 2013 Red Book issue, I knew immediately that I needed to work on the Barber half dollar section. This area of collecting has exploded with major pricing increases (most notably in the AU-58 grade range) as evidenced by auction prices over the past several months. In fact, many AU graded Barber halves are selling for multiples of bid and in some case are fetching prices in excess of MS-63 graded coins! I did not, however, list a higher Red Book price for an AU graded coin versus the Mint State grades as I thought that would create a lot of confusion and would look like errors in the text.

Overall, the market has managed to hold it’s own in spite of bleak economic news. From where I sit, the prices have not so much weakened this year as the buyer has been forced to scale back their purchases. Instead of buying a $1,000 coin, a collector might purchase a coin for $500. The biggest areas of market activity for us are coins priced up to $1,500. The upper echelon of collectors and investors still seem to have plenty of money to spend and that has materialized in a lot of coins selling in the $10,000 to $40,000 range. One of the strongest areas of the market for us has been the sale of early gold coins—particularly $5 and $10 gold dated 1795-1812. This represents quite a vast divide, but quite indicative of what is happening in the overall economy.

The market, in my opinion, will go the way of the bullion market. If gold and silver continue to be strong, it will have a positive impact on coin collecting. If they don’t then the coin market is sure to suffer along with the metals markets.

Liz Coggan, Numismatist