[larrydreher]

Hello to everyone.  I just wanted to drop a quick note to introduce myself.  My name is Larry Dreher and I've been collecting Panda coins for about 5 years.  Colin from pandausa was my mentor in many ways and I want to thank him.  I was very active in ebay and as part of the panda community for several yeats but I needed to drop out of the market in August of last year for personal issues.  I had a mostly complete collection of graded coins including gold, silver, platinum, & palladium but needed to sell everything except the silver coins last year.

Anyway, I'm back and looking forward to participating again.

[PandaCollector]

Welcome Larry! It's great to have you on board. For everyone else's benefit, Larry and I "met" through eBay years ago and have intermittently corresponded about Pandas. I consider him to be a very knowledgeable and thoughtful collector and I'm sure his presence here will be a big plus for us all.
Best wishes,
Peter Anthony
www.pandacollector.com

[KonaJim]

Great to have you here.  What do you think of the price escalation versus the last 5 years?  Do you think it sustainable?

[larrydreher]

Thanks Peter for the welcome.

On the topic of price sustainabilty, I'm going to have to say I don't know over the short to medium term but over the long term, I think yes for sure.  My short term pessimism is driven more by my prediction of a slowdown in the US economy in 2011.  Panda collecting is a hobby and I think that will suffer in a US slowdown.  Over the long term though it won't take many more collectors in the market to cause a dramatic spike in some of the key date silver pandas.  You are seeing that already in other chinese coins and in some of the pandas.

When I started collecting, many of the larger (5oz 12oz, KG) pandas were completely ignored by the market and could be picked up for reasonable premiums over spot.  All the platinum pandas were right around spot too.

So my bottom line is thast long term silver panda collectors / investors will be just fine.

[coinhawke]

Larry,

Great to see you back here....many of us see you as a mentor in Pandas. I certainly do, and have enjoyed the coins I bought from you in the past.

Looking forward to your imput here, and best to you.

btw, the camera you sold me works great!!

Bud

coinhawke

[larrydreher]

Good to hear from you Bud.  I forgot you bought my camera.  I'm glad it is still working for you.