certified coin prices realized database.

coppercoins

I have just started toying with the idea of creating a searchable, indexable database of prices realized on all the slabbed copper sold on eBay. I spent a couple of hours last night and grabbed all of the information from eBay over the past 15 days. PCGS slabs alone, just in the small cents category, came to a whopping 841 items. I intend on grabbing all info for all the slabbing companies that are on the mainstream market : PCGS, NGC, ICG, PCI, ANACS, SEGS, and Accugrade. I am certain there will be wide discrepancies that will be obvious in the price ranges per grade.

My question is...if something like this were easy to use and available free on the internet, is it something that you would likely use? I'm willing to build it if you're willing to come. I intend on only doing the copper, I don't have time for the rest nor do I have a need to collect it for a copper collector's site. What are some things that someone may not have thought of that you would like to see included? I am collecting the date, mint, grade, price realized, number of bids, and date/time sold on every item with bids. I am only collecting info on single items, not group lots. I am tossing out all items that don't have the color specified or other flawed or erroneous info. Since I am only looking at the titles, I end up throwing out some that just say "PCGS certified Lincoln" in the title. No info to go by, so the info goes bye bye.

Anyone with some input?

Tonelover

A monumental task to say the least, but a product which I'd be more than willing to pay for. Please see this recent thread regarding a product similar to what you are talking about.

Thread

It has many faults but it may help get the wheels spinning.

crito

Saw a Krause book at my local "Books a Million" store with relized auctions prices selling for $45. I almost bought it too eBay prices would be even better though would probably need to do a range for each grade, rather than bid/ask like grey sheet. Coins don't trade real-time like stocks. Image a stock broker with a 7 day return policy ain't gonna happen

merz2

CD
It is a monumental task,but a very needed one for the copper collectors.I'd use it.If I can be of any help let me know.I have access to Teletrade prices realized.We could include the Heritage info also.Is there a way to combine the info?

coppercoins

Hmm...interesting. I didn't know about the software being offered. What I have in mind would solve a lot of the problems people encountered with it. My version would not be browser specific, it would not have to be downloaded, it's a web site with search capabilities...of course it hasn't been built yet, but I plan to try opening the doors on it by the first of December. Remember, it's only for copper, though. Like I said before, there's a lot of data to collect and only one person to do it...and my site (and interests) are really only in the copper based issues - so naturally, that's all I will be collecting from eBay. I collected 1,464 items worth of data for 15 days of activity. Spread this out to a whole yar and you come up with 35,000 items in a year, give or take.

If a person wanted to find out what the sales history on a 1943S MS66 cent was because they had intentions of slabbing it and turning it for a profit, this would be the place to go. You could see ALL eBay transactions for the past year for that specific criteria to make your judgement as to whether your move would be prudent. You could also select a range - say MS66 through MS68 for 1943P cents, and you could select all grading companies or just your favorite (or favorite couple)...whatever. Like I said, completely indexable, completely searchable.

Sound like a good idea? Better than that other thread with the software?

Russ

<< <i>if something like this were easy to use and available free on the internet, is it something that you would likely use? >>



There is absolutely no question that, not only is this needed, it would be HEAVILY used. Even I would use it, and I don't collect cents.

Russ, NCNE

coppercoins

Merz2,

I could very much use help and the info. It would validate the whole thing all that much more to have prices realized from a variety of sources. Please contact me.

coppercoins

Here's a "just for example"....all this info was collected yesterday, so it's still a bit raw. But here are all the prices realized for PCGS slabbed 1943S cents since 10/16/02...

date mint company grade price bids closed

1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 1 10/16/02 21:02
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 1 10/18/02 9:41
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 2 10/19/02 1:24
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 1 10/20/02 19:02
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 2 10/21/02 9:24
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 10 10/28/02 18:20
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.00 10 10/31/02 10:34
1943 s pcgs ms67 39.00 9 10/27/02 11:16

coppercoins

Shoot....something happened and changed all the prices to 39.00....I'll fix that...but the idea is there.

wayneherndon

I would love it and would use it extensively. Heritage and Teletrade already have good search engines and this would tap a big remaining source of historical price data. One additional thing that would be great (but would suck up lots of webspace) is images. Maybe those could only be kept on coins over a certain price threshold.

Good luck and do keep us posted.

WH

coppercoins

Do you think it would be of any use to keep the information on coins that did NOT sell? The ones that didn't receive any bids? I could have those come up in red to signify they were priced too high....just a thought. Like I said, I'm working out the wrinkles with your help.

merz2

CD
I think you should (highlight) PQ coins,and not ones that didn't sell.

coppercoins

A rehash and recollection of data, and the 1943S cents look like this:

1943 s pcgs ms65 21.50 - 10/29/02 17:00
1943 s pcgs ms65 21.50 - 10/28/02 7:46
1943 s pcgs ms66 34.00 1 10/16/02 21:02
1943 s pcgs ms66 27.00 1 10/18/02 9:41
1943 s pcgs ms66 24.99 2 10/19/02 1:24
1943 s pcgs ms66 21.99 1 10/20/02 19:02
1943 s pcgs ms66 21.99 1 10/20/02 19:02
1943 s pcgs ms66 28.00 2 10/21/02 9:24
1943 s pcgs ms66 32.00 - 10/30/02 9:15
1943 s pcgs ms66 27.00 - 10/28/02 14:12
1943 s pcgs ms66 39.99 - 10/27/02 19:26
1943 s pcgs ms66 23.06 10 10/28/02 18:20
1943 s pcgs ms66 19.99 1 11/2/02 19:14
1943 s pcgs ms66 24.99 - 10/27/02 18:21
1943 s pcgs ms66 20.50 10 10/31/02 10:34
1943 s pcgs ms66 27.00 - 11/1/02 7:43
1943 s pcgs ms66 27.00 - 10/28/02 8:38
1943 s pcgs ms67 123.50 9 10/27/02 11:16
1943 s pcgs ms67 75.00 - 11/1/02 7:12

Those are the right numbers.

BSqr

database desgn and creation is the easy part

data entry over time would be the time consuming component unless one could d/l the data directly from eBay data source

Dog97

coppercoins that would be really useful. I like the product that Tonelover linked but it's hard to turn off & on and it makes my browser run slow. It's distracting because you click on an auction and the page loads then a few seconds later the prices load up which makes the window resize itself.
I've often wondered about prices realized on eBay but getting the info is a monumental task. Tonelover's link has shown me some patterns that I knew about but couldn't prove. For example, when I'm looking for Morgans it shows but does not figure into the average price coins that sold at extremly low or high prices. If I'm looking at $45 Morgans it rejects most of the PCI & SEGS slabs and shows their prices to be around $20 then moves into the higher priced ANACS slabs then NGC & PCGS are higher yet and then it rejects the highest prices which are ALWAYS PCGS & NGC toned coins which sold for $200-$600.
This does skew the average price somewhat but gives a great idea on what coins bring in the different holders. Maybe if it had a feature where you could look at all ACG coin prices or all NGC toned coin prices or prices for all PCGS, ANACS & NGC combined prices but it has a link to PCGS & Numismedia price guides site but we all know how accurate price guides are.......

newbiecollector

Well, for one, jumped on the "free download" link provided and installed the program. I then tried a few e-bay auctions and it poped up very fast.

Now........ it does not pop-up at all!!!

What's up?

coppercoins

To respond to a few in a nutshell, the re-ask a question...

Wayneherndon - Keeping images would be far - WAY far - more work and hassle than it would be worth, especially considering the quality of the general majority of the images used to sell items on eBay. I don't have the disk space or time for it, and even if I did, I am dealing with closed auctions only...a lot of people remove their images from their host as soon as the auction ends. What I'm working on is a database of text info...that would be outside the scope.

Merz2 - "I think you should (highlight) PQ coins,and not ones that didn't sell." - Does this mean that I shouldn't collect info on no-bid items? I'm also very uncertain how to determine a "PQ" item....the ONLY thing I have time to deal with are the auction titles. I can't see the slabs so I have to go by what the title says. If they mention it, fine. If they don't mention it, it is missed...and if they stick it in the title but it's not really on the slab, it would be erroneously counted. I think it's best to stick with date, mint, grade, price, and company slabbed. That with the date and time the item sold should give people plenty to formulate opinions on.

Bsqr - Collecting the data is no big deal the way I'm doing it. I re-did all of the date collection for the past 15 days last night, and it took me about three hours to come up with useable info on 15 days worth of activity - about 2,000 items.

and again....this is NOT a piece of software. It would be a web site. There would be nothing to download, it would work basically like any web search engine. It's not browser dependent, there wouldn't be any taxing bells and whistles. Just a bunch of data with a rather simple interface to extract info a person wants to see. Any more input? Much appreciated!

BSqr

so how are you capturing completed auction data?

coppercoins

I'm importing it into MS Excel - probably the simplest way possible. Since the exact syntax of the titles are not regulated, that part has to be re-entered by hand no matter how the information is gathered. There are no specific categories for each of the different slabbing companies or each of the different grades, so I end up having to create columns for that info and extract the info from what I'm given in the auction title. I also have a "notes" column for extraneous information such as mint mark type, date size, doubled die information, net grading info, etc. If the auction title isn't complete enough to extract the data, it is deleted...so technically I am not gathering the info on ALL items, just 95% of them. Once the data is imported and massaged to fit the columns necessary, it is saved as a tab delimeted flat file and imported into the database with a single load statement.

I will be working on the data tables on the server today. I believe I will create a separate table for each of the companies - that's the way it looks right now. If I leave everything together in one table it could easily end up having over 100,000 rows, which would slow it down. I'd rather do six queries (using a "for loop" in my code) and query six tables if necessary than have all the NGC and PCI info in a single table with the PCGS info when I know quite a few people will more or less only be interested in the info for a single company.

As for columns, it's pretty simple...date, mint, grade, slabbed company, price realized, date and time sold, number of bids, notes. Of course with good code, customers will be able to search using any combination of these criteria plus a keyword search.

By the time this month is out there should be enough items in the database to do everyone interested some level of good. I am figuring between 5,000 and 7,000 items. That's my target date to at least let people test it - Dec 1st.

BSqr

Thanks for the answer but I should have been more specific.

You said you're starting with Excel. Where/How are you getting the data to use in Excel. From where is the data being imported? Do you have some way of performing a bulk download from eBay or are you using some other thrid party software or service? THanks in advance.

dpoole

Chuck,

That would be wonderful. Auctions are handy, but for gauging the ebb and flo of interest and activity in a series, Ebay is a much more timely and sensitive thermometer. Of course, it would be Heaven to have Heritage and Teletrade info gathered in the same place, but those are readiuly accessible as it stands.

I would definitely sue such a website regularly.

Thanks for undertaking such a massive undertaking. Of course, I'm already familiar with your prodigious talents and generous devotion to free and quality numismatic information for everybody, from your great website!

coppercoins

<< <i>Where/How are you getting the data to use in Excel. From where is the data being imported? Do you have some way of performing a bulk download from eBay or are you using some other thrid party software or service? THanks in advance. >>



Well, I sort of stumbled into a back door way of manipulating a particular URL at eBay to get it to return exactly what I want. Since I understand a good deal of web development code, I know what a lot of the stuff in their rather lengthy URLs is for, and can change a thing here or there to get it to do what I want it to. Once I have the pages loaded with the data I want, I just use Excel's "external data" query to do a query on the URL. It pulls all the items on the page into a spreadsheet. I can manipulate the data from there to get the columns described earlier, then cut and paste to append it to information already gathered. I am going to save the files onto CD by company, by month in the Excel format in case I need to use it for anything...such as "102002pcgs.xls, 102002ngc.xls, etc."

It does take some effort and some time, but it's not all too painful - not compared to some of the other time intensive things I do for the visitors of the site. Actually this project will be one of the simpler and easier ones I have taken on.

BSqr

right gotcha. Is there anyway I could get you to PM a sample URL for bulk data query. If you give me a sample URL then I can figure the rest out too.

BTW, that a nice lookin site you've put together. I liked this, "Netscape users will experience problems trying to view this site. For best results, switch to a different browser." Browser independent development can be a real pain in the arse.

relayer

You should always give a difficult task to a lazy person because they'll find the easiest way to do it (unless they are truly lazy like me and it won't get done at all)

Regurgitating the collected data is easy - obtaining it and classifying it is just a little more work.

1) On a daily basis, your program queries ebay for new listings in each of the categories you want to track. You interrogate each link returned and parse each response into your Auctions table.
- Auction ID
- Category
- Description
- Date
- Mint
- Grading Service
- Grade
- Ending Date Time
- Opening Price
- Seller ID
- S/H

My guess is you should be able to parse the date/mint 85% of the time and grade and service probably 50% of the time from the listing title. Those that you can't either have to be discarded (version 1) or handled manually (version 2) or start parsing the description (version 3). Trying to understand what a human is communicating is not so easy by a program because it's not consistent.

Then in a separate daily process, you go through your auction table finding closed auctions and query ebay on those items. You get a fixed HTML format that is easy to parse and just move the fields from your auction table into your SALES table along with the number of bids and final price (let's not be capturing the winning bidders ID OK?) and delete them from your Auctions table.

Build your front end to query the SALES table and you're all set.

Depending on your expertise and available time it seems like a project you could do in less than a week. But get rid of the manual collection of data - you can spend your time much more wisely especially if it’s used to learn how to code the process I described above.

coppercoins

Or just pull the info once every two weeks like I'll be doing the way I described before and spend a couple of hours with it to make sure what goes in the DB isn't a bunch of useless garbage. Really...what I'm talking about doing here is technically under control. I can do it. What I was asking about is whether people would use it, and what they think would best be included and how. It's a lot easier to develop the whole thing in the beginning than it is to try adding something to it later. That was the point of the original post in the thread. The method of gathering data and turning it into useable information is already pretty much decided upon.

BTW, I'm far from lazy - I don't mind doing it a harder way than is possible to ensure I'm collecting the data I want to collect and how I want to collect it. I've been working on data, coins, photos, or code for this site just about every day of the year for the past three years, and I have about five more years of it to go - and it's not collecting a dime in revenue...it's an undying passionate love for the hobby that fuels the fire, definately not laziness. Regarding data collection, there is a LOT that cannot be coded for in any reasonable way - for instance, 1955 DDO#1, 1955/55, 1955D/D, double 1955, 1955/1955, 1955 double die, 1955 doubled die - are all the same thing, depending on who's doing the typing - and there's no plausible way to strip out what they're talking about using code alone. It takes a human eye to catch these things and separate that from the $10 slabbed 1955D/D RPM another person is talking about.

As for shipping information, is that really important? User names are a complete no-no. I will not collect that information, nor is this information in the title of the auction anyway. Auction ID? Why would that have any bearing on anything? Once the auction is over, that's only important to the buyer and seller. What about a year after the auction is over? Then it's completely useless. I don't want to spend all day and night every day collecting more information than is needed. I think a date, mint, grade, company, price, number of bids, and closing date/time are plenty...

Apache

Great idea. Great way to learn too.

JamieB

You should get a handful of people to do the other denominations. It is understandable that you cant do it all.

Is there anyway to write a script to do the collecting? Anyway, let me know if I can be of assistance.
JAMIE

relayer

Copper-

You're ambitious; I'm the one who's lazy.

In the design I outlined, you need the auction ID to know which items to fetch after the ending date/time has been reached. After that it's not needed.

I think the S/H charge would only be useful information on lower priced items since the actual cost to the buyer is the total of the two, but you could also find the averages (mean, median and mode) for S/H fees.

The fun part of the project (for me anyways) would be the ability to categorize the listing correctly using AI models. But then again, it comes back to me being lazy.

So in answer to your question, Yes I think an ebay price history would be useful and I would refer to it.

It would be more accurate then taking the CU price and multiplying/dividing by the error factor for that particular coin then averaging the Teletrade numbers and the prices from Numismatic Media Fair Market guide along with an old copy of a grey sheet; and then factor in how much I like the coin and that becomes the price – which the current method I use today.

nencoin

Maybe most of you already know about this site, but for those that do not, check out www.ecoinage.com. It is a fairly extensive prices realized archive going back as far as the 80's, and I believe it does reflect some early 2002 prices realized.

Chris

onthespot

I would like to see the auction number included, if it was not too much trouble. That way I could jump to the auction for more information if I wanted to... Just a thought. I am working on a database driven website concept myself, (not coin related) and I was stoked to see this thread.

oreville

dpoole:

Your quote:

<< <i>I would definitely sue such a website regularly. >>



Amazing how such a mispelling of a single word such as USE can change the sound of your entire posting!

DanC

Great idea - absolutely saleable as well.

PERL could easily mine the auctions for suitable input. It can logically all be scripted, made nice and tidy, and wouldn't be a tall order to slap into SQL. With a nice front end, it could be dynamite.

You're going to outgrow Excel before you start. I'd suggest planning big now. If you need anything 'bigger or badder' than SQL, you'll be able to afford to have consultants port it to Oracle.

One possible problem... would ebay have any complaint regarding use of this information? It may be proprietary.

Secondarily - Perhaps ebay would be willing to simply transmit the requested data, or make it available for download in some specified suitably delimited format if you can show a mutual benefit to them. What you propose is a good idea. Partnering with the source, might just get you the leverage you'd need to make it happen. Anything that increases their business is likely to recieve consideration in a much better light.

I just happen to know a couple of PERL guys that could likely pull this off btw...

perfectstrike

I'd definitely use it. Add in the certification ident to allow us to track some history.

perfectstrike