The Business of Numismatics: December 2025 Greysheet Editor's Letter

I write this month’s column from our Whitman Baltimore Expo, and the trading has been brisk. There was a solid crowd on the opening day, and the attention that has been brought to the coin business as a result of the gold and silver price is evident. Gold closed the month of October at $4,011.50 per ounce after hitting a high of $4,398.00. At the time of this writing the yellow metal sits at $4,000.15 while silver sits at $48.50. The rapid increase of the silver price has caused premiums to be all over the place. American Silver Eagles, while at first compressing in premium have now started to creep up again. The Silver Eagle, both uncirculated and Proof, are very popular Christmas gifts so it will be interesting to see the impact of this significantly higher spot price. There are still a few major auction events left to go in 2025, with Stacks Bower’s having their November Showcase sale along with the James A. Stack, Sr. Collection in early December. There is little doubt that the best pieces from these sales will be met with strong demand. In conversations with dealers recently, they have expressed that collector coins in the $500 to $2,500 have really started to pick up and disappear from the market. This supply squeeze is great for sellers who are in the position to do so, as their consignments will be gaining in potential value.

In this issue users will notice a lot of activity in a segment that is often dormant from a price movement point of view, although it has always been an important part of the wholesale rare coin business: brilliant uncirculated rolls. Many of the older market makers in this category are no longer active, but we have come to recognize the importance of having a relationship between the price of a single coin and the rolls of that same coin. This has always been a struggle, because trying to determine the optimal grade to use as a multiplier can vary based on denomination and date. For example, a roll of early Jefferson nickels may be mostly MS64 and MS65 coins, while a recent roll of Lincoln cents would be mostly MS67 and MS68 coins. As a result, we have applied some of the same logic that we have long used with modern commemorative and bullion coinage, which is to create a "basic uncirculated" price that is agnostic of a numerical grade. In our online price guide and other digital products, this will show as "OGP." While of course individual circulating coinage does not come packaged, this "raw unc" grade allows us to better match the value of a single coin with its roll value. Nearly all of the adjustments are in cents and nickels and while we put significant effort into deriving these prices, please send us an email if you are active in this area of the market and would like to provide some pricing feedback.

As always, we truly appreciate all who use and rely on our products to conduct their business day to day throughout the year. We strive to provide quality tools to advance this hobby that we all love.

Sincerely,

Patrick Ian Perez, patrickp@whitmanbrands.com