Analysis of PCGS Price Guide for modern proof Lincoln cents

claychaser

Sometimes at night I surf random things on the internet. Last night I was looking at news and documents about the Tulving fraud and bankruptcy. Surfing though the bankruptcy pages, I found that the government seized a bunch of PCGS modern stuff that got graded, but they did not make it into "in the money", and got bulk sold at a dealer wholesale auction. Many of the lots were mixed dates, but here a some of the Lincoln cents that had identical coins:

1992-S PR69DC, 745 coins, sold for $2,225, Average $2.98. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $4.00, Price Guide $11.00
1998-S PR69DC, 246 coins, sold for $ 736, Average $2.99. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $4.00, Price Guide $11.00
2000-S PR69DC, 506 coins, sold for $1,092, Average $2.15. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $5.00, Price Guide $11.00
2001-S PR69DC, 532 coins, sold for $1,150, Average $2.16. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $7.00, Price Guide $11.00
2002-S PR69DC, 586 coins, sold for $1,270, Average $2.17. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $5.00, Price Guide $11.00
2003-S PR69DC, 1205 coins, sold for $2,404, Average $2.00. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $4.00, Price Guide $11.00
2005-S PR69DC, 654 coins, sold for $1,414, Average $2.18. E-Bay sales range $3.00 to $5.00, Price Guide $11.00

Some thoughts here:
1. The PCGS Price Guide values were used in some of the bankruptcy valuation analysis. The bulk sale auctioneer gave an estimate of what the coins would bring which was much lower than Price Guide (around $400,000) and that was pretty close to the actual results, including the average prices shown above. So I would think that at last the auctioneer had a realistic understanding of the value, in this case, around $2 to $3 per coin.

2. I am guessing that since Tulving was a major submitter to PCGS, he was shooting for 70's and these were the coins that missed. The market value per unit was too small to mess with trying to sell them online as individual coins.

3. There is a lot of sales data mined from E-Bay records that supports the retail values of $3.00 to maybe $7.00 on some issues.

Conclusion: The opinion of many is that Price Guide is not accurate on many modern issues. If it is to be a useful tool, reality should be used in setting retail prices or maybe the values could be not reported for now, just auction results.

Just my 2c worth.....

wondercoin

Overall, good analysis I think.

Just looking at your first two dates (for a random search), it appears there were also coins that sold on eBay for $10, $12, $12.50 (and even $25 for an older blue holder). Plus, I believe there were unique factors tied to those specific Tulving coins that contributed to the “low” prices.

So, it is a bit more complicated to conclude the Guide should simply go from $11 to $2 or $3 let’s say. But, I have faced a similar issue in connection with another major modern coin series and do intend to discuss my detailed findings with the PG editor later this year.

Wondercoin.