Farewell to the “Bluesheet”

The Certified Coin Dealer Newsletter (CCDN or more familiarly known as the "Bluesheet") published its last issue on April 27, 2018. For 32 years, it has reported the sight-unseen prices for coins certified by the major third-party grading companies. While this coverage will continue in a new Monthly Greysheet, this certainly marks the end of an era in printed price coverage.

The first issue of the CCDN appeared in the late summer of 1986, and covered what were then the three major certification companies in operation: ANACS (American Numismatic Association Certification Service), NCI (Numismatic Certification Institute) and the newly formed PCGS (Professional Grading Service). It listed Commemoratives, Silver Dollars, Type Coins, Better Date Coins, Buffalos, Mercs, Walkers, and Proof Singles, mostly in grades from 63 to 66 though a few lower and higher grade columns appeared for some series. It might also be noted that PCGS was the only company encapsulating coins at that time – NCI and ANACS were still issuing certificates.

The following year, NGC (Numismatic Guaranty Corp) would join the fray, and over the next several years, both ANACS and NCI would slowly fade in importance leaving PCGS and NGC as the nation’s two major certification services.

I thought I’d take this occasion to have a look at what the market for certified coins has done since 1986. The results were quite surprising, even to an industry veteran such as myself who has been in the coin business throughout this entire period. In a nutshell, the performance of so-called generic coins (common date Dollars, Walkers, Mercs, Commems, etc...) has been absolutely dismal, while the track record for truly rare coins has been nothing short of phenomenal. Have a look at the following charts to see what I’m talking about:

This looks truly awful, with this "basket" of coins losing more than three quarters of its value over the past 32 years. But before you throw in the towel on rare coins, take a look at this next chart.

Looks a bit different, doesn’t it? Rare coins here, gained over 500% during this period. Not bad at all!

So what’s to be learned here? I think the conclusion is rather obvious. Buying rare and key date coins in popular series appears to be the way to go. At least, that’s been the case for the past three decades. Whether that trend will continue is anybody’s guess, but seems like a pretty good bet to me.