Coins We Love: What Collectors Need to Know This Fall!

2026 has been a wild year in numismatics. When I look at the calendar, it blows my mind that we’re already in October. As the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun. In all honesty, it's been a blur since July. Now that Fall is here, we have a little more time to analyze where the market is and focus on where we need to be heading in the next few months. All of the 2026 issues hitting the marketplace have brought an increasing number of eyes on the hobby. Thankfully, this has brought some new collectors into the space and I think that the hobby is doing a good job of welcoming them. Like the State Quarter program in the late 1990s, it takes time for these new collectors to find their way into what we’ve always considered the most important part of the hobby, classic numismatic items. But, as the other cliché goes, good things come to those that wait!

The economics of the coin business are a bit confusing at the moment. As market values and publications move pricing, it creates a level of excitement and energy, especially when it’s gradual. When things have been quiet, pricewise, for a while and larger jumps are made to get to the correct levels, it causes some market confusion. We’ve seen some price corrections (we’ll use that word as the price guides are getting to the right place), but the general public doesn’t live within the confines of studying coin prices all day, so it sometimes can feel like a jolting moment when you realize the coin you’ve been searching for and haven’t found is now all of a sudden 10-20% more expensive. Of course, it bodes well for your collection when the other coins have increased in value. But you really do have to look at the big picture and not just the holes in your set!

We’ve generally seen that coins in all prices ranges are probably 10-30% more expensive than they were six months ago. This includes classic silver commemoratives — which haven’t moved in 20 years! As a coin buyer, it’s shocking to follow. As a coin seller, it’s incredibly difficult to explain to collectors why the coins are now more expensive…and why the three month old price guide they have is severely outdated. It’s a bit easier if you’re solely an auction company; you’re just telling the consignor that the coins will bring whatever the market dictates them to be worth. It’s more about the “pitch” than the math. Unfortunately for DLRC, I’m a math guy. I don’t work off of vibes and I’m certainly not a good salesman. But, according to a recent Instagram post that has been called out, I’ve been doing this a LONG time, so we have to analyze price levels and forecast what collectors are going to be looking for in the coming months.

What am I seeing now? Besides market confusion, I’m seeing that coins under $1,000 are just going up. Why? The dealers putting together “surprise” boxes are gobbling this material up. It’s turned into a pricing matrix or a spreadsheet formula and it’s not about the actual coins. So, with the popularity of these business models taking off, we’re likely to see this continuing for slabbed coins under $1,000. The slightly higher-priced coins, up to $2,500, are doing much the same but to slightly less degrees. What else? I’m seeing that grading is becoming more and more important to the common collector. But it’s also becoming more expensive every month, it seems. The grading services are enjoying the increased revenues and all of the modern issues from 2026, but what will happen in 2027? I’m guessing less moderns for them, so maybe some lower prices, but that doesn’t seem to track historically, so we’ll see.

I am glad to see some creativity in upcoming show locations. Whitman is introducing Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, NC to the major coin show market…that’ll be a fun improvement  over Baltimore…and man, I’d love to cross Rosemont off of the upcoming list too, but that’s not to be right now. However, we have a few events coming up. If you’ll be at the PCGS Philadelphia Show, the November Baltimore, or the PCGS Las Vegas in December, let us know. We’d love to see you there!

As for now, I have to get home from Rosemont where we’ve been the past few days scouring the trading rooms for coins. We’ve got some really neat pieces to bring with us and a really cool group of Red Carpet Rarities Sales coming up…so we’ll report on those as soon as we get our CAC Stickering submissions back!

Thanks again for reading this week and we hope to hear from you about your collecting experiences in the near future!

Numismatically Yours,
John Brush and Your Friends at DLRC

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