Last bump....
If the 25BTC coin is not sold before
BTC hits $1000......the holo gets it!
Noooo....
There are only ~350 Series-2 25BTC coins still active!
My theory on the 25BTC coins is that they're likely to enjoy their day in the sun as high-premia collectibles down the road - hence, I'm holding mine. They go relatively unloved today because they're kind of an odd duck in terms of design, and more critically, they're high denomination....and since Bitcoin hasn't broken into the mainstream of numismatics where collectors have serious money, the market consists mostly of fellow Bitcoiners for whom it's hard to pay 2x,3x,etc premia on a coin with a >$10000 face value.
But a big part of the theory behind Casascius collectability at all is not appreciation due to selling to other Bitcoiners; I'd argue that the bull-collectible-theory is more contingent on the success of Bitcoin overall, leading to much stronger interest from more traditional numismatic circles. And look at the premia over "face" or "bullion" value that collectors place on certain gold-coin issues... Some gold (double|half|etc)-Eagles can go for 6 or 7 figures when they technically have <$2000 worth of gold in them. It's ultimately almost all about history and rarity.
The 25BTC coins have that history and rarity. They're 2011 dated, and show up as cover photos in hundreds of media stories about Bitcoin. They are intimately tied to Bitcoin's history, possibly more so than any other physical-bitcoin issue, Casascius or otherwise, a relative few were made to begin with, and they suffer the largest redemption percentage of any Casascius issue (besides the 1000BTC, of course). Those history and rarity factors are the most important qualities for eventual desirability.
But if you really want to kill the coin, I guess it makes mine non-trivially more valuable long-run, given the relative few of them out there.
