Jeff Starck

St. Louis

Market Analyst at Active Interest Media

World coin researcher, writer, book contributor. Writing about art, history, politics, investing, and economics, as they intersect with numismatics.

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Articles

Starck Reality: Precious Metal Pricing and Tariffs Inject Volatility into the Market

1 month ago | numismaticnews.net | Jeff Starck

Anyone following the market in recent weeks has endured some serious whiplash. The price of precious metals, recently driven downward by the implementation of tariffs, is experiencing gyrations that make tracking the value of one's coins difficult. Simply put, volatility makes pricing more difficult, as the values of many world coins (and even U.S. coins) are primarily driven by their precious metal content.
Keeping Up With Volatile Markets is Challenging

2 months ago | numismaticnews.net | Jeff Starck

As anyone who has paid attention to the precious metals market in recent weeks can tell you, the market gyrations are hard to keep up with. Gold continues to gain momentum on previously unreached, unadjusted for inflation and price levels, and silver steams ahead to stronger numbers, too, for 2025.
Starck Reality: Provenance matters… and doesn’t when it comes to pricing.

2 months ago | numismaticnews.net | Jeff Starck

We were recently tasked with updating prices for multiple Italian coins from the 1800s and 1900s. At some levels, the listed values were below the silver melt value of the coins. In doing this, I took the occasion to review all the market prices for the 5 lire from 1869 to 1875. This example is cataloged as KM 8.3. While reviewing past sales results, the price realized for 1872-M silver 5 lire, sold in a Heritage auction more than 10 years ago, jumped out at me.
Starck Reality: Pricing is an Art, not a Science

Feb 18, 2025 | numismaticnews.net | Jeff Starck

The last and only time I shared my market analyst musings , I suggested that the sale price can reflect the sales venue and the presentation of the coin, and that can be factored in or excluded in our pricing on the NumisMaster website. In the first column, I highlighted the silver florin (2 shillings) of Ireland, issued from 1928 to 1937. Using this same coin type, let’s look at the 1934 Irish florin, the key date to the series since it is the most challenging to price.
Starck Reality: New Kid on the Block

Feb 12, 2025 | numismaticnews.net | Jeff Starck

As the new Market Analyst at Active Interest Media, I bring 20+ years of professional numismatic experience and more than 30 years of experience as an active collector. While I have learned an enormous amount, the world of coins is so large that I will never learn even one percent of all there is to know. But the pursuit is what drives and engages me. That’s one reason I took this job.
1711 gold 5-guinea coin of Queen Anne soars to $180,135

Jan 9, 2025 | coinworld.com | Jeff Starck

A rare British gold coin soared to nearly double its pre-sale estimate during Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s auction Dec. 11 in London. The 1711 gold 5-guinea DECIMO (edge inscription) variety was from the Frank Waley Collection of Hammered Silver and Milled Gold Coins. It realized £144,000 ($180,135 U.S.), including 20% buyer’s fee against a pre-sale estimate of £80,000 ($100,075 U.S.).
Rare bronze grain token from India in Album sale

Jan 8, 2025 | coinworld.com | Jeff Starck

A rare grain token from a famine in India in 1876 is one of the highlights of Stephen Album Rare Coins’ auction No. 51, scheduled for Jan. 23 to 26, 2025. The uniface 1876 bronze half-seer Relief token from British India, without a hole, was struck for use during two years of famine affecting southern India in the 1870s. The Great Famine of 1876 to 1878 struck India under British Crown rule. It began in 1876 following an intense drought that resulted in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau.
Monday Morning Brief for Jan. 6, 2025: New year changes

Jan 6, 2025 | coinworld.com | Jeff Starck

Note: The new year brings change as Jeff Starck, senior editor and staffer for 20-plus years at Coin World is moving on to other opportunities. We devote the space to his thoughts:The turning of the calendar page to a new year often prompts reflection and decisions to do better in the coming year. Not much for New Year’s Resolutions, I resolved in 2024 to read more books (instead of simply devouring magazine and online articles, and newspapers), and I managed to succeed in that goal.
Germany closes out insects series with rock bumblebee

Jan 6, 2025 | coinworld.com | Jeff Starck

Germany has concluded its colorful series of €5 coins dubbed the “Wonderful Word of Insects” with a coin depicting the rock bumblebee. The 2024 coin is the ninth and final release in the series issued from 2022 to 2024. The series brings into focus a particular group of beings that make up a significant part of the world’s natural heritage, against a backdrop of advancing insect extinction.
Saturn from Titan coins for Niue now available

Jan 5, 2025 | coinworld.com | Jeff Starck

Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, is renowned for its awe-inspiring rings. Most people can glimpse Saturn’s splendor only through a telescope, but now coin collectors can experience Saturn from an unparalleled vantage point — the surface of its largest moon, Titan. Two Saturn from Titan coins from Niue follow the earlier release in this series, the Mars from Phobos coins. The Proof .999 fine silver $1 and Proof .9999 fine gold $100 coins, both dated 2025, are cosmic creations full of color.