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Would the average auction price of a coin in a certain grade be beneficial?

davids5104davids5104 Posts: 805 ✭✭✭✭
edited April 14, 2019 4:53PM in U.S. Coin Forum

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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Answers

  • Skrill90Skrill90 Posts: 264 ✭✭✭

    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.

  • jmlanzafjmlanzaf Posts: 35,753 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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.

  • Cougar1978Cougar1978 Posts: 8,716 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Toners bringing lots of money would skew that. I look at last, high, and low to try get consensus.

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  • amwldcoinamwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 15, 2019 7:44AM

    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.

  • davids5104davids5104 Posts: 805 ✭✭✭✭

    @amwldcoin said:
    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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  • tradedollarnuttradedollarnut Posts: 20,186 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 15, 2019 10:36AM

    Average? Useless. Bell curve showing the range with the mode as the center? Perhaps

  • AotearoaAotearoa Posts: 1,529 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @tradedollarnut said:
    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...

    Smitten with DBLCs.

  • coinkatcoinkat Posts: 23,758 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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

    Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.

  • davids5104davids5104 Posts: 805 ✭✭✭✭

    @coinkat said:
    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

    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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  • david3142david3142 Posts: 3,582 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Aotearoa said:

    @tradedollarnut said:
    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...

    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.

  • RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 15, 2019 5:07PM

    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....)

  • amwldcoinamwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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!

    @davids5104 said:

    @amwldcoin said:
    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

  • davids5104davids5104 Posts: 805 ✭✭✭✭

    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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  • amwldcoinamwldcoin Posts: 11,269 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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!

    @davids5104 said:
    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.

  • oldabeintxoldabeintx Posts: 2,339 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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.

  • ad4400ad4400 Posts: 2,149 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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.

  • 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

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