In spite of current and well-publicized difficulties erupting in the nation's economy, the coin market is both healthy and active.

One of the primary challenges, though, in the coin market continues to be finding enough of the right coins, the coins buyers are seeking.

This challenge is true both for the highest levels of collecting prized condition rarities and for problem-free but common circulated coins. At the top level, five- and six-figure priced coins are trading daily – when they can be found at fair prices – just as more common coins are being sold when priced for collectors with average budgets.

While most coin prices have been rising steadily for about five years, there have been a few areas of disinterest as well as several normal price corrections.

One area really stands out as having been ignored by the market in general – and that's in the early commemorative series, minted from 1892 through 1954. Except for very high-grade and colorfully toned examples, the Mint State 63 to MS-65 early commemoratives have virtually stood still in price during this lengthy bull market. Many of these commemoratives have very low mintages. People tended to keep them as souvenirs rather than spend them. Many still are valued at just a few hundred dollars apiece.

Some 20th-century coins and "modern" issues have seen small corrections.

Series such as Indian Head 5-cent coins, also known as "Buffalo nickels," have shown price resistance at times during this bull market in grades from about MS-63 or MS-64 and higher. Yet their circulated counterparts have continued to steadily advance in price during the same time period.

Other coins that have shown price corrections include some modern "registry" coins, such as commemoratives minted from 1982 to the present, as well as modern coins currently used in daily commerce. Some of the perfect, or nearly so, coins, such as Proof 70 State quarters and smaller denomination coins, have been softening in price as more coins are graded at that level.

Other than some normal price-resistance here and there, the coin market remains bullish.

It's a market tuned to times of inflation.