Lenin.

[Pobeda45]

Hi guys,

Question for the veterans who have watched prices for Order of Lenin over the last few years. Is the current value of Lenins directly driven by their gold/platinum content? In other words, if gold/platinum were to decrease would Lenins decrease proportionally?

This is kind of a selfish question as the Lenin (and of course the Gold Star) are my holy grail, but I have my spending limit.

Thanks!

George

[CtahhR]

An Order Of Lenin is worth c. $1400 just in scrap right now.

[Agresto]

I'm one of the farthest things from an expert but I would think it would be directly proportional to the rarity and the cost to produce.

The price of every award is going to increase as time goes on from either the awards being lost or private collectors holding on to them. Add in the price of gold and platinum and you have a very expensive award that will just keep increasing in price and difficultly to find.

Very respectfully,

Michael

[Bob]

Unless you go down the route of super low serial numbers or extremely rare variations though, Lenins are very easy to find. Not surprising given the amount awarded.

[Agresto]

I was saying over a given period of time there are going to be less on the market as sometime in the past. The number produced matters in the grand scheme of things but as the market starts to dwindle the prices start to rise. It's the whole supply and demand market, at least in the math sense of the idea.

[Pobeda45]

Thanks gents, all good feedback. :thumbsup I agree, they are going to be more desirable over time, but I do mean the run-of-the-mill variety, many of which come from the looted USSR "ordenskiy fond" in 1992. There were over 400,000 awarded like Bob says, so post-WWII ones are not rare.. Interesting to see the actual figure of around $350 + melt value for a run of the mill Lenin.

Regarding rarity, there were a lot fewer "October Revolutions" awarded, but they are a lot less valuable on the market too.. So to me, it does seem to be directly related to the gold/platinum content. Interesting discussion. :thumbsup

George

[CtahhR]

The scrap value of the Order Of The October Revolution is currently just under $27.

[Eryk]

Collectable prices/values are notoriously volatile, because collecting is completely discretionary and tends to follow fads. The commodity value should be looked at as a floor, beneath which the price shouldn’t fall. Below that price it’s a bargain, at that time at least. For medals it’s even more interesting, though, because the underlying commodity price is also volatile. Gold and silver have fluctuated massively over the past few decades.

Rarity figures in, but more important is the size of the market, the number of folks interested in collecting. Soviet awards didn’t get any more rare in the 2000s, yet prices went through the roof. Completely a function of the number of people wanting them and their willingness to pay.

Prices have fallen, a lot, from their highs. This doesn’t reflect any increase in supply, but a lessening of demand; collectors are fickle and the next fad is always out there. For that reason I don’t know that prices will always rise, though over time the awards will indeed get rarer as attrition removes them from circulation. I’m not confident that we’ll ever see a rise back to the highs.

[deValcourt]

Then there is the pesky problem of purity. Weight is no longer the deciding factor in selling gold and platinum for "scrap." Sure, the order may have 24k gold, but when purity falls below .999 (and that includes .990) the price scale shifts.

As for prices going up and down, they always will and I think more has to do with "disposable" income than anything else. There may be millions of people out there who would love to buy a screwback OL if they had the money to spare. In the late 1990s and the early 2000 decade, many more people were making money far above what the economies around the globe should have allowed and those people who got into collecting as a pastime or a way to "invest" their money saw no end to their incomes and since the prices kept rising on the Soviet awards, they assumed that they always would rise. All of such assumptions have proved to be false.

Collecting may be an addictive habit, but most people will pay their mortgage bill over buying an OL rather than the other way around.:)

Phillip

[CtahhR]

I've missed many a meal to be able to afford a medal or two. If someone offered me an Order Of Lenin screwback and to do so I'd have to go without eating for a week I'd get that order! Mind you not everyone is as nuts about hoarding as me.