WildShop

As a woman who has been scrapbooking for over 7 years now, I have quite a nice collection of memories all preserved in various albums with nice stories to go along with photos.  I LOVE these albums…they are a tangible piece of my past.  But my husband…well, let’s just say that if he had a chance, we’d warm our home with some of them this winter!

My husband once asked me how much I have spent on all this stuff.  You know, I really have no idea, but it’s probably in the $1000’s of dollars.  It’s kind of embarrassing to think I have that much invested, but if my grandchildren can look through an album I made and learn a little about me, it is SO worth it!Now, as to the question of why men don’t “get” scrapbooking…I’ll give you 5 reasons.1. You know the feeling you get when you open the door of your local scrapbook or craft store?  It’s a small, but unforgettable “rush” to know you are about to embark on a shopping adventure!  Now, while your husband is in the car, listening to talk radio, waiting for you to emerge, all he is thinking is, “I wonder how much she’s spending THIS time!”  They see lots of pieces of paper and stickers that are WAY over priced.

We see the latest patterned papers and sticker embellishments.  Plus, how many men do you know that actually love to shop?  Need I say more?2. That leads me to my next reason: scrapbook lingo.  I told my husband about how I like to use certain embellishments on my pages.  The look he gave me was probably similar to the look he gets when he talks about hunting or anything automotive!   Scrapbooking has its own language that men just don’t understand.3. Crops are a big part of scrapbooking that is outside the comprehension of most men.  Why would anyone want to get together with a bunch of other women, cut up their photos, write what happened in the photos onto paper and stick them into books that, if you mess them up, you will be subjected to tortures yet unknown to mankind?  Men have never really understood the need women have to be with other women, regardless of the excuse.   Scrapbooking is just another one of those excuses!4.

Now, scrapbook retreats take the crop-confusion to a whole new level.  Why women would want to leave the comfort of their own bed to go sleep on a hard mattress to cut MORE papers and MORE photos?  And spend more of the family’s hard earned money?  Men just don’t understand why we can’t get as much scrapbooking done at home with our 3 year olds constantly running off with our scissors, our 5 year olds using the tape runner on the cat and our teens raiding our sticker stash to spell “I love Parker” on their notebooks!5. A party for scrapbook stuff?  Are you kidding?  Yes, even the direct sales parties are a mystery.  I guess the name really throws most men off.  After all, what kind of party, in the traditional sense, do you leave with less money in your wallet?  A party is for free food, not spending money in their minds.  They miss the point of chatting with friends, learning a new technique or playing with a new tool.

It’s all just frivolity to them.You know, now that I think about it, why do we spend $0.60 on one sheet of paper, $12 on a contraption that is basically a glorified glue stick and $30 on a photo album?  You know the answer!  WE LOVE IT!  Scrapbooking is an addictive hobby and, men, you are allowed to join us, but you better learn the lingo and no sharing my tape runner!

Why waste everyone’s time? Let’s skip the appetizers and get to the meaty stuff right now: The Morgan silver dollars poised to increase the most in value in the years ahead are the 1895, 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and the 1883-CC. Pretty bold prediction, eh? At this point, the reader now has three options:

(1) Stop reading and act upon this information,

(2) Stop reading and get on with life, or

(3) Continue on, evaluate the analytical approach to identify the “Top Five” Morgan dollars, and then implement a variation of (1) or (2) above.

If you’ve gotten this far, we encourage you to continue on with option (3).

First, a little background info on the Morgan silver dollar… The Morgan silver dollar is today one of the most popular of all collector coins.

First minted in 1878 following the passage of the Bland-Alison Act, the new dollar was named after its designer, George T. Morgan. Political pressure by powerful silver mining companies, in a gambit to stabilize the price of their commodity at artificially high levels, created the impetus driving the legislative action. Bland-Alison led to the overproduction of silver dollars, resulting in millions of these unused “cartwheels” languishing in bank and Treasury vaults.

Indeed, few coins have ever been released under more dubious circumstances than Morgan silver dollars. Minting continued until 1904, and then again for one more year in 1921, when the series finally came to a close. For decades thereafter, Morgan dollars were largely snubbed by hobbyists. Many dates, including those in mint state condition, could be obtained for as little as $1.00.

This situation shifted dramatically in 1962, when the US government began selling original 1000-piece silver dollar Treasury bags to the public at face value. Stories of rare dollar finds circulated widely, touching off a veritable Morgan mania. Within a matter of months, all but a small fraction of the federally owned coins were transferred from government vaults to private hands, consequently expanding the Morgan dollar collector base far beyond anything seen previously. Since then, Morgan silver dollars have proudly perched themselves atop the catbird seat of the numismatic world.

Their physical size, availability, beauty, and historical significance have consistently attracted herds of new buyers. Numerous boom-turned-bust cycles have come and gone, sometimes driven by pure speculative motives, but from a long-term perspective, most Morgan dollar prices have trended somewhat positive. Unlike some controversial promoters in the past, I do not propose purchasing Morgan silver dollars simply as investment vehicles.

However, for collectors hoping to satisfy their numismatic yearnings AND acquire coins destined to be worth substantially more in the future, Morgan dollars do present a few opportunities. As noted above, as a whole, Morgans have gained moderately in value over the years. The crucial challenge, then, is to identify which members of this series have enjoyed the best growth patterns in the past.

The underlying logic is clear: coins that have demonstrated the strongest gains over a long period of time are the coins best positioned to show similar price advancements with the continued passage of time. In order to measure past performance and thus visualize Morgans most likely headed toward a bullish future, I developed a systematic approach. First, I researched individual Morgan dollar retail prices as they existed in 1950, for a broad range of conditions, and entered this data on a computer spreadsheet.

Moving forward in time, values from the years 1980, 1995, and 2000 were likewise recorded. Finally, estimated selling prices in 2005 were juxtaposed with counterpart data from those earlier years. Because grading terminology has evolved over the 55 year period, certain assumptions were made to progressively track price movements throughout the time spectrum (e.g. an “Uncirculated” value in 1950 is equivalent to the “MS-60” of today). For each date and condition, compounded annual return rates were computed from 1950 to 2005. [Editorial note: compounded annual return rate is the accepted yardstick for comparing investment performance. Of course, coins do not grow at a guaranteed uniform rate, such as bonds do, but if a coin is purchased at a certain price, and that price is compared with the value of the coin at some later date, the compounded annual return rate can be calculated for the time period in between].

Return rate computations were made from 1980 to 2005, 1995 to 2005, and 2000 to 2005. For each Morgan dollar, the data was placed in tabular format. Next, I calculated a “composite” score for each date by averaging all the compounded return rates computed for that date. I then ranked all the “composite” scores. The Morgan silver dollars with the highest scores are as follows: Date: Score: 1895 11.37 1892-CC 10.54 1894 10.43 1878-CC 10.28 1883-CC 10.25 So, it would appear, based on past performance over a period of 55 years, the 1895 is the Morgan silver dollar with the best hope of appreciating significantly in the years ahead, followed by the 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and 1883-CC. Not surprisingly, dollars of the Carson City Mint occupy 13 of the top 16 positions, thanks to persistent collectors scrambling for bona fide artifacts of the romantic American West.

On the opposite end of the rankings, Morgan silver dollars having the bleakest long term prospects include the 1898, 1899-O, 1884, and the 1888-O, followed by the 1897 coming in dead last with a score of 2.66. Anyone whose dual objective is to acquire Morgan silver dollars with a bullish future ought to begin looking at the “Top Five” above. Purchase coins in the best condition you can afford, but be sure the coins are clean, problem-free, and CERTIFIED by a reputable grading service. Be prepared to hold for at least five years. Morgan dollars have skyrocketed in value in the last three years, so some cooling off may be in order before the next upward cycle. If a polling firm were to survey the population of US coin collectors, it is very possible that Morgan silver dollars would win the vote as the most appealing coin in American coinage history.

These beautiful coins have been the heartbeat of the hobby for many years, with no retreat in sight. Ironically, these same coins spent the better part of a century hidden away in government vaults, unseen, unwanted, and unloved. My, how times have changed!