COIN COLLECTING AND INVESTING’S ULTIMATE CRYSTAL BALL
What will our hobby look like in 2041? Thinking many years into the future can be all at once frightening and exhilarating. Attempting to look ahead 20 years from when this was published in June 2021 may seem like a fanciful notion. But if we put those two decades into historical perspective, we realize that 20 years is the same span of time that has elapsed since 2001, a period that for many of us may seem like only yesterday.
Sure, a lot has happened in the past two decades: the 9/11 attacks, the Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic, just to name a few major milestones. But in hindsight, we can safely say we already saw shades of 2021 back in 2001. At the time, modern social media was in its infancy with the rise of instant messaging services and early interactive websites such as SixDegrees.com and blogging website OpenDiary.com.
With the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., we entered a new era of counterterrorism awareness that continues to this day in countless areas of daily life. In 2001, Americans were already replacing their bulky cathode-ray televisions and videocassette recorders (VCRs) with massive flat-panel TVs and digital video disc (DVD) players. Meanwhile, the Toyota Prius was already harkening a new era in the low-emission cars that have since become ubiquitous on American highways and byways.
And while much has changed in the numismatic world since 2001, it’s easy to see how we got from where we were in the hobby 20 years ago to where we are today. By 2001, the United States Mint was well into its 50 State Quarters program, which ushered in a new era for the hobby and has since been parlayed into the numerous other multi-design coin programs the U.S. Mint embarks on today.
Elsewhere in the coin universe, the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) had brought its popular Set Registry® program to the internet in 2001, broadly changing what numismatists collect and how they show off their collections.
And little did most people know it then, but gold prices, which had hit a decades-long low over the summer of 2001 with levels of around $267 per ounce, were beginning a protracted upward swing during the autumn of that year on their path to the four-figure prices we see today.
When we put the past 20 years into perspective, we realize that the world we know today was taking shape in 2001, and it’s suddenly less daunting to prognosticate the future as it could be 20 years henceforth. Perhaps it’s just as reasonable to suggest that predictions as to what the future will look like in 2041 can be rationally informed by the trends, inventions, and dreams of today. It’s with this educated understanding of the past and present that we boldly look ahead toward the future of coin collecting and investing 20 years beyond the horizon.
Maurice Rosen is one of the hobby’s great numismatic prognosticators and publisher for decades of the hobby and industry’s original Annual Crystal Ball Survey. The Plainview, New York, coin expert has been a full-time coin dealer since 1968 and is the editor and publisher of the award-winning Rosen Numismatic Advisory, which debuted in January 1976. Rosen’s newsletter has won over 30 awards from the Numismatic Literary Guild. As the president of Numismatic Counseling, Inc., Rosen has led seminars throughout the United States forecasting numismatic and precious metals market conditions and advising standing-room-only crowds on the most lucrative areas of the market now and in the future.
“Our nation’s finances are as bad as I’ve ever seen them, and it’s a safe bet that today’s $28 trillion national debt will be well over
$100 trillion by the year 2041,” says Rosen peering ahead. “Actually, based on its growth rate for the past many years of 8% per year, the debt could very well be $130 trillion, and that’s without a major monetary crisis, war or national emergency.”
This, he believes, will lead to a period of high inflation. “It also concerns me, but I must say the trend is irreversible, that the government will be taking more control over the economy and our lives, with more intrusive rules and regulations, including the tracking of monetary transactions. It is quite likely that private assets will be highly sought by the population. Technology is a wonderful thing, but in the hands of the government, it serves to increase their power and control.” He also thinks some vast changes will be underway that completely reimagine monetary policy as we know it today. “I’m anticipating that there will be at least one global monetary reset by 2041 and that the current U.S. dollar will be replaced with a new dollar, likely a digital dollar.”
Rosen builds that general economic outlook to serve as the backdrop for his predictions about where numismatics and bullion investing may go over the next 20 years. “As for the coin market itself, it appears that we are at a generational pivot point. The majority of current market participants are in the 60-plus age bracket; in 2041, those left will be 80-plus years old,” he notes.
“Clearly, unless replaced by enough younger participants and by significant economic forces that will make buying coins an attractive pursuit, the influence of those older folks will be gone as their heirs liquidate their coins.” He says he has yet to find the answer to reverse those trends. “I know the industry has made many attempts to introduce the younger generation to the hobby, but the factors that gave rise for the hobby’s growth during the 1950s through the 1970s have been eluding us.”
Even still, Rosen points out the growing risk of inflation makes assets such as rare coins an “attractive investment refuge,” especially when coupled with the likelihood of higher prices for precious metals, a phenomenon that usually drives investors and the general public to the avenue of rare coins. “There’s one thing I’ve noticed over my career that can be counted on, and that is the promotional and marketing efforts of the industry to seize on opportunities that produce higher revenue.”
He adds, “Gold is the ultimate money; it has served mankind well for some 5,000 years. Gold will fulfill its role to preserve wealth and purchasing power over the long time. I’m on record predicting $5,000 to $10,000 gold and $150-plus silver by the end of the 2020s. That may prove to be too-conservative targets to be achieved by the end of the 2020s and exceedingly too conservative with the benefit of the additional years to 2041.” But why does he believe gold and silver will shoot for the stars over the next 20 years? Surely the dire economic outlook of increasing inflation and possible upheaval in longestablished monetary systems owe to some of this. However, Rosen poses another reason bullion prices could see many bullish years ahead. “I anticipate the government will not be making it quite as easy as it is today for people to make transactions of precious metals. While I’m willing to rule out the threat of confiscation, I believe it is difficult to see how excess profit taxes on precious metal gains can be avoided.”
As for rare coins, the numismatic scholar is confident top-end rarities, the type that make news headlines when they cross the auction block, will continue leading the way. “Our highly-prized trophy coins – a term I ‘coined’ a few decades ago – will do marvelously well. They satisfy the criteria favored by affluent buyers. Such coins are private and compact assets, highly mobile, and pedigreed and documented by PCGS or Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC), often enhanced further when accompanied with a sticker from Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC). They are the true master works of numismatics.”
Of course, not everyone can afford to pay out six- and sevenfigure sums for trophy coins. Rosen says there are numerous