THE MEDIA'S RARE COIN OVERHYPE

Almost every month there’s a new article in the press telling you to check your change in case you have a rare 20p coin worth hundreds of pounds.

Sometimes we’re told to look at notes for specific print runs or to watch out for certain designs on coins that collectors are desperate to acquire.

It’s all good fun; in fact, I’ve written plenty of those articles myself. In a way it’s like a lottery that no one pays to enter but everyone gets to play.

And I’ve certainly spent time rooting through my change looking for a date-less 20p or trying to find the Beatrix Potter 50p that everyone wants.

But because it’s such fun and frankly a rare good news money story, I’d say we money journalists often significantly overhype it.

Here’s how.

Pretty much every newspaper and website wants these coin stories to be as exciting as possible.

‘Coins worth £300!’ is a much better story than ‘You might have a coin that could sell for a little more than face value as long as you list it on eBay within the next few days before the collectors all finally get one’.

Crucially, instead of reading about what these coins are actually worth, we’re instead told ‘such and such coin is already going for £300 online’.

It’s so misleading. Something’s value is not represented by what the owner wants to sell it for; it’s about what it actually sells for.

When a coin is known to be relatively rare or in demand there will always be chancers who list them for several hundred-times their value. And who honestly can blame them for trying their luck?

But this is immediately seized upon by financial journalists and bloggers as further proof of the coin’s value, leading to news stories claiming the coins are ‘going for’ fantastic amounts.

In actual fact, they are being listed for that amount not sold, but that’s rarely made clear to the reader. This is something we at loveMONEY try to make clear in all our articles on rare notes and coins. Ultimately, if something is worth far more than face value, chances are it's going to be really rare.

To read the complete article, see:
Opinion: rare and valuable coins are expensive for a reason (https://www.lovemoney.com/news/73352/rare-coins-value-ebay-misleading-fake-sale)

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