This is the 1970s all over again. Bunker
Hunt paying silly prices for attractive but very common Solidi. Altough you need two persons to make a high bid, a single dedicated (fanatical) collector can have this effect on the market in that he forces everyone else to bid to their
max then overbids them, and what he does not bid on is subject to much more competition. There will be a correction.
The
wise advise for knowledgeable collectors in this climate is to focus on the genuine
rarities but accept a ding,
nick or
bit of flatness as the
price for getting
good value coins. So, at an
auction last year an
FDC but extremely common
quadrigatus sold for CHF 200,000; its 'normal'
price would be CHF 5,000 to 10,000. At the same sale an EF corn-ear
quadrigatus, an extremely
rare type, and a slightly
weak strike as most such coins are, sold for CHF 2,000, which is actually less than the normal
price for such pieces. The buyer of the corn-ear
quadrigatus paid a very
fair price and it will be a solid store of value. The buyer of the common
quadrigatus will be lucky to realise 5% of what he paid should he try to sell it. So, genuine expertise beats barrels full of petrodollars any day.
