"True market value" for Canadian numismatic products

shirohniichan

As a Royal Canadian Mint numismatic product junkie, I look to the cheapest place to get my fix for questionable coins with fancy packaging.

I have noticed that while Charlton provides a decent idea of coin values for older Canadian coins, it and other price lists can be far off of what I consider "true market value" for less than popular items. This raises the question of how market values are determined.

What shall we rely on? Dealer price lists? Dealer buy prices? EBay?

I purchased a set of 3 Canadian Folklore 50 cent pieces for less than half of retail price via eBay, but I wonder what the true market price for them is. Are dealers even willing to buy them? Apparently the biggest holders of these coins are dealers, not collectors. The same is probably true of many specimen dollars from the 1970's until now. There are plenty more available than demand can handle, so they go from dealer to dealer and from dealer to collector and back to dealer again. There never seems to be any shortage of them.

IMHO, dealer buy prices are the best test of a coin's market price, but the spread between wholesale and retail on these oddball RCM products can be astounding.

laurentyvan

What the retail buyer will pay, not necessarily what the dealer would pay (or attempt to sell for) would govern my thinking. E-bay is certainly going to give an individual piece the maximum market exposure possible. A specialist might pay more for a certain piece, that's always true...
There are a couple of Canadian Coin clubs on the web who publish market prices (their version) which might be some help but I never saved them to my favorites.

MyWorldCoinTypeSet

I think of recent eBay action as the market price, and Dealer sell price as the retail price. Dealer buy price is normally heavily discounted as the item has to be held in inventory for a period of time, sometimes very long for unpopular items.

shirohniichan

I wonder how long these recent RCM wonders sit in dealers' inventories. I've seen coins sell on eBay for a fraction of the prices asked by Gatewest and Colonial Acres, yet I'm sure both of those big retailers must be selling the same coins at their list prices.

Is eBay too unreliable an indicator? Perhaps I just need to average out eBay hammer prices to take into account those who pay far above retail for the same coins.

newsman

FWIW, I tried to find one recent Canadian mint special product on eBay, but kept getting outbid, and finally just bought it for less from Gatewest at their retail price. It was the 1998 90th anniversary antique set, mintage 50,000. I was surprised the price was so low.

canadiancoinguy

Try selling those to J&M and you'll get thrown out of the door and permanently banned. Seriously, nobody I know of would touch the misc. (non-sets and S$1) stuff since it takes up space with little/no hope of any return.

cladking

It's a shame what most modern Canadian coins sell for. Many are available for face or melt
and sometimes even less. These are occasionally made in fairly small numbers yet still have
nominal values. Their day will come but until then one is wise to pay as close to wholesale as
possible even if he feels like a thief in the process. There are many dealers who are motivated
sellers of these so it isn't especially hard to get them cheap.

docday2003

<< <i>It's a shame what most modern Canadian coins sell for. Many are available for face or melt
and sometimes even less. These are occasionally made in fairly small numbers yet still have
nominal values. Their day will come but until then one is wise to pay as close to wholesale as
possible even if he feels like a thief in the process. There are many dealers who are motivated
sellers of these so it isn't especially hard to get them cheap. >>



I agree