Would the average auction price of a coin in a certain grade be beneficial?
davids5104
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Would you all use the auction houses average hammer price for each coin and MM? I was looking at auction prices, and I was wondering why if they can tell me the hammer price and the grade why cant they tell us the average MS-66 coin price if the volume was high enough. they do for All grades, but as far as I know not for each grade.
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I think it would be beneficial, but trading volume on some coins is thin and years apart between samples being sold that it may not be accurate.
This is pretty well known for widgets. It is worse than useless for thinly traded coins.
And these days with some of the bizarre premiums paid for certain old holders and for unusual toning, you would still get a pretty broad range on widgets.
Toners bringing lots of money would skew that. I look at last, high, and low to try get consensus.
It might be beneficial if they could differentiate A,B, or C quality coins. In my opinion one of the biggest drags on the coin market is there is such a wide range in quality for the same grade certified coins now. The original concept of certified coins facilitating sight unseen trading is now a joke! You would be surprised how many people find a C quality auction result and expect to pay the same price for an A quality coin.
I agree, perhaps the average gives us the B quality in which to make judgement
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Average? Useless. Bell curve showing the range with the mode as the center? Perhaps
The mode would appear at the centre of the bell curve only if the data distribution is normal. The same could be said for both the mean and the median. That is unless I've forgotten my statistics...
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Coins at the same grade are not equal. So to create an average for the grade just re-enforces a mentality that is one of the root problems in numismatics
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This is a very good point! I will say as an argument though, the information available currently is the average price for all coins of the date/MM irrespective of grade. This would at least give the coins with large enough volume average price within a grade
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A normal distribution (without skew) certainly has these properties but so do many others. Of course many of them are not “bell” shaped but the distribution of coin prices might not be either. It will almost certainly be skewed.
No. Grades assigned by various "grading companies" are not equivalent; and neither are the same grades by the same grading company" consistent over time. Grade inflation and inconsistency, coupled with lack of standards, makes your suggestion unworkable. (But it would be nice if it could be done....)
I would like to add....There are many coins in holders I would give a D or an F! C coins are supposed to make the grade....what about those that are overgraded or should be in a details holder? That kills the average concept off the map!
So, to be clear, no one seems to think average purchase price of a coin in a specific grade is a useful tool. Is more better than the PCGS price guide? or better than the average hammer price of all coins of a specific date/MM? Both of those are obviously available, but not used for pricing of coins per se. I would like to say, I would prefer the average price, recognizing the toned, or CAC coins drive the average up and the "undesirable" coins pull it down. I think it may give a better starting point.
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The biggest thing it misses is most of the nice for grade PQ quality coins in many series never hit the auction block. They are privately traded. I can attest to this in my series...Barber Half's. I know several folks that will pay double or more than your average price for a PQ original key date Barber Half. The auction results show that but they are considered outliers! I wonder why? Why? Because someone who controls the price guides wants a rip!
Reviewing auction prices over time, making a judgement call based on the available photos, one can try to arrive at a reasonable guess at a bid price, ideally after a viewing. As said above, for thinly-traded coins an average would not be useful, other than maybe getting a ballpark number for budget purposes.
I think that ‘average auction’ can be used as ‘price guide, only closer’. Of course each purchase/ sell decision is made on actual merits of coin under consideration. As far as getting into the ball park I’ll take auction results over price guide all day.
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I sometimes look up selling prices on eBay, where many coins are traded in sufficient volume to offer useful price data.
Completed auctions can be looked up for 60 to 90 days after close.
I disregard the highest and lowest prices (final price NOT including shipping) as outliers and find the median price as being representative of an average coin of that date, type, and grade.
Slabbed coins often vary widely in prices realized with attractive AU58 common dates sometimes selling for more than unattractive MS64 coins of the same date, type, and grading service