Back in November, at the Suburban Washington-Baltimore Coin Show, I picked up seven year's worth of Numismatic Scrapbook magazines dating from the mid- to late-60's. One of the things I enjoy most about thumbing through these old issues is getting the chance to compare the prices of this period with the prices of today. Occasionally I come across a few coins that have not advanced much over their mid-60's prices, but far more often I find myself wishing that H.G. Wells was an inventor rather than an author. 

For this month's column, I decided to conduct a 30-year price comparison for both a common date coin and a key or semi-key date coin in several popular 20th Century series. Let's take a look! (Common dates are listed first in each series.)

One of the things I found most interesting about this informal price comparison was the number of times a common piece outpaced its key or semi-key counterpart in the "% Change" category -- of the eight coins series considered, six had the common date piece coming out on top. I realize that there are many possible explanations for this -- though I won't go into any here -- but it was still an interesting and unexpected result. Most things I read talk about price advances occuring mostly in the key and semi-key dates -- I guess you can't always believe what you read!

If you were wondering how some of the price advances compared to normal inflation over the same period If we use an average annual inflation rate of 4%, we would see a 224% advance over the 30 years in question; if a rate of 5% is used, the overall change would jump to 332%. Thus, if the 4% annual rate is used, six of the sixteen coins surveyed did not keep pace with inflation; ten coins (more than half!) lagged behind if a 5% annual rate is considered. From this small, unscientific sample, it appears that the best places to put your money in 1967 would have been $20 Gold pieces, Morgan Dollars, Mercury Dimes, and Buffalo Nickels. The Lincoln Cent and Washington Quarter series would have been the worst.

A few notes about my methodology: all prices listed are for uncirculated coins (1967 = BU, 1997 = MS-60); all 1967 prices are actual dealer prices as advertised in the March 25, 1967 edition of The Numismatic Scrapbook; all 1997 prices are Coin World "Trends" prices discounted by 10% and rounded off to the nearest $0.25.

ã Copyright Raleigh Coin Club   -  1997, 1998, 1999,2000,2001,2002

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