Don't fight the market!

When I look at the exceptional medal of the Royal Suite with a depiction of Sigismund the Old from our upcoming Auction XI, I fully understand the success of the contemporary series of Treasures of Stanisław August.

https://snmw.onebid.pl/…/monety-medal-ze-suity…/1561370

Whoever came up with the idea to "copy" it and present it in an accessible version, such as a modern product, bearing a denomination, deserves a solid bonus.

Personally, I don't agree with the price ratios between the two series. Until recently, at just over 10,000 złoty, there were few takers for the original Suite in silver. Today, the market has corrected its underestimation, as evidenced by the record-breaking price for a Suite at our 10th Auction, a medal featuring a depiction of Stanisław Leszczyński, with a final price of 38,080 złoty.

https://onebid.pl/…/medale-medal-ze-suity…/1340994

Nevertheless, especially the last copies can still be purchased for just over PLN 20,000.

If the above-mentioned prices were compared to the most sought-after, though not rare, piece from the series of Stanisław August's Treasures, i.e. Wenceslas of Bohemia, then the prices in the range of PLN 20-30 thousand do not seem excessive, when the contemporary market valued the product (until recently) at PLN 7,000-8,000.

Don't fight the market, says one of the most popular pieces of advice among financial market players. However, this doesn't mean you can't try to understand the processes that influence the prices of both issues.

In the case of the Treasures, this is undoubtedly demand, demand from individuals whose experience in numismatics is usually short, who most often fell into the trap of NBP's issuance under unknown circumstances. Our daily experience confirms that such individuals rarely become long-term players lasting several decades. The success of the Treasures stems not only from their beauty, based on the Royal Suite, but above all from its availability and the easily predictable scope for collecting.

What is currently an advantage of the Stanisław August Treasures series will become its disadvantage the moment it ceases to exist. To survive, a collection must have a purpose; when that purpose is gone, often within a few years, or even sooner, it ceases to be enjoyable. When it ceases to be enjoyable, it quickly returns to the secondary market. I wouldn't be surprised if the Stanisław August Treasures series shared the fate of the 2 złoty Nordic Gold coins, which flooded the market with avalanche the moment the issue ended, significantly lowering the prices of the entire series.

The opposite is true for the Royal Suite, where the price is determined by supply, extremely low, based on incidental quotations over many years. While there are many fewer buyers than in the case of the Stanisław August Treasures, they are more persistent and conscious, so the chance that their collections will die due to lack of purpose is negligible. It may not sound elegant, but the owners of the collections fade away before their collections. The Royal Suite is so rare and challenging to collect.

The medals of the Royal Suite are very rare coins, the one in our Auction XI is even more special because it depicts Sigismund I the Old, the first one by JJ Reichel, signed with the initials IIR on the obverse.

Medals by JJ Reichel can easily be considered rarer than the earlier ones by IP Holzhaeusser, but this is known only to a small group of people who have undertaken the daring task of completing the entire series.

On March 4, 2023, during the Premium session, we will see if there will be any more brave people willing to fight for the first, one of the most difficult to obtain copies of the Royal Suite.

I have a vain hope that a handful of passengers will transfer from the pleasant, comfortable train called the Treasures of Stanisław August to the cramped, uncomfortable and long-distance train called the Royal Suite, as long as the Trans-Siberian Railway.