Friday, September 25, 2015

Many great CTs are coming on the Market but I have a Mistress

CTs for sale at the Baltimore Expo.
As many of you know, many great CTs have been coming on the market. And, the marketplace is hot despite few bidders. Nonetheless the serious few seem to be paying attention.
   How about that Mariners' Church token (BZ4192) that sold for $255 on September 13th! I almost jumped in, but the waves were too rough and white-capped.
   A nice Inveresk CT (BZ4844) also sold for big money. This is the third one sold in the past few years according to my records. This time it went for a record $202. Very cool piece!
   Many CTs from the W.J. Noble Collection (previously of the Norweb Collection) that sold on 11 July 2000 are coming back on the block, as Steve Hayden has been selling those pieces that were acquired by Steve Tanenbaum. Over 7000 CTs were sold at the Noble auction (plus an impressive collection of coin weights).
   The auction catalog is available to those with the persistence to hunt it down. It has many nice pictures. By the way, the CTs were sold in group lots, so individual valuations are not available from this sale. But now, we are seeing sale prices. As most serious collectors know, many pieces are quite rare and only the lack of bidders hides the true rarity.

I have cut back on the Market Watches for a while. Other interests have pulled me away for now. I just like collecting too many things. I admit to some guilt about this, as if I had a mistress or something. But these things have been germinating for a while. For example, I have been quietly collecting a few ship coins here and there; but now, I have become more involved -- I jumped in the water so to speak. Other stuff, like cobs and relic coins, have also pulled me farther afield. I started another blog to explore these realms: it is called Coin Collecting Necromancer. Check it out. Nonetheless, I still love the CTs, so I hope some folks will add some comments and/or submit an article.

My Communion Token guidebook is still available. I noticed that there are six or seven ebay sellers hawking the book. So, grab one if you are reading this. I also have a listing on ebay since I have a few left. Most folks have liked the book -- you can read more about it elsewhere on this blog.

Good hunting everyone!

2 comments:

  1. Not sure if anyone still visits this site but if so would be interested to hear from you.
    i) does anyone have a ready made concordance/spreadsheet/database they would be willing to sell/share ideally giving Burzinski/Cresswell/ K&L/Brook/Dick with additional empty columns for ticks, comments & sales history.
    ii) recent US activity on eBay leaves me baffled- some relatively common tokens you would expect to pay $15 for making 10 times that. Prices on nearly all US listed material outstripping those pieces listed in Europe and again some very high prices for common material - Why?
    Best wishes for Christmas & the New Year

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sunnyleith, I, too, am intrigued by the recent (the last3 or 4 months) increase in U.S. eBay auction prices. Most of the inflated (?) rates are for pieces offered by Steve Hayden of CivilWarTokens.com. The majority of Steve's pieces are ex. Norweb, Tannenbaum, or Burzinski collections, with many being Burzinski plate specimens. These could be viewed as superior pieces by the established CT marketplace, thus deserving the higher prices. They might also represent newcomers to CTs, collectors drawn to our specialty by the desire to own pieces with provenance to either Norweb or Tannenbaum.

    I tend to think it's the latter, simply because there is no corresponding increase in other venues. For instance, eBay.co.uk prices don't seem to have moved, and the most recent Simmons Gallery auction of the Bob Merchant collection closed with what I would describe as bargain prices. Also, non-Hayden pieces on eBay.com still go for low rates, $10-15.

    I'd love to hear what others think.

    ReplyDelete