‘Get Rich’ Promotion Wrong Angle for Healthy Market Growth

It may or may not be good news. CNBC posted a story titled, “People have been making up to $100,000 off ‘coin hunting’ – here’s how the highly unusual hobby works” on Oct. 2. The story is about searching through coin rolls for coins worth more than their face value. Part of the story reads: “Like most treasure-seeking hobbies, coin roll hunting can be frustrating, and many people end up facing a low rate of return.”

There is a positive and a negative to be drawn from this. The positive is that this should draw people’s interest in coins. There is little question the business of coins needs more investors and speculators. The negative, however, is that we don’t want what should be a hobby driven solely by speculators interested merely in making money. The coin-collecting hobby is on a much-needed rebound, but an emphasis on the pleasure of collecting rather than hitting the jackpot as if this is a lottery would do the hobby a much better favor.

In the meantime, collectors need to keep abreast of the seesaw gyrations of the spot price of gold and silver that continue to make bullion impacted and bullion coins vulnerable. Coins deemed to be scarce to rare aren’t impacted as much by this, but still have significant room to expand. The market is healthy, but coin hunting for profit may not necessarily project the image needed for collecting coins.