My buying strategy

Dennis88

Hello everyone,

Here is an example of how I choose which coin I want to buy, and how much I want to spend. Comments are welcome if you do it the same, or different. (please note this is how I do it with an auction)

First, let's say I want a 1921-D Morgan Dollar in PCGS ms66. I know these are scarce, but not impossible to find...

So first, I check the pops. Then I see, that there are 142 graded with 5 graded higher. With the resubmissions, let's say the pop is 120.

Then, I want to know what normal examples are going for. So I check the auction archives on heritagecoins.com. I notice, that altough the pop, they trade reguraly, say every 3 months, with most of the time several examples soon after each other. I also see that they trade between $800 and $1200.

After that, I check some dealers to see how much they are asking. For this example, let's say I check davidlawrence.com and anrcoins.com. The first one has no avaible, neither the last one. Normally I check other shops to, but not this time.

Good, so now I know what they sell for. Now I need to check the avarage quality. I check heritagecoins.com again, and look on several other sites (like coingrading.com), and a few books. I see that quality is avarage, and some searching is needed for a nice one.

Again looking at heritagecoin.com, I see that they have one avaible at this time Link.

That one is nice enough for me, and now I decide how much I want to pay. That can takes from a few seconds to a few days. I'm not going to wait a few days, so I take now a decision. My max bid will be $1100, for several reasons:

-I like the eye-appeal
-It's nicely struck
-Lustre looks nice
-I really want it

So my decision is made, the coin choosen, and now it's just waiting how my bid will do it!!

Dennis

PS this is just an example. For non auctions, I do it different

Longacre

Is this an actual transaction? I see that ones recently sold for as low as $600 and as high as $850. I am just curious if the eye appeal, etc. of the current coin warrants the additional amount of your bid. I am not a Morgan collector, but I am just curious. [then I will bid $1101; just kidding ]

TheRaven

I have never bid in an auction so can't say what I would do.

I would say that sounds like a very logical and detailed way of arriving at a price and what to look for on a exact coin & grade you are looking for.

Having never purchased a coin in that price range to this point that could be way. My 1921-D is only PCGS MS-63 too.

Dennis88

<< <i>Is this an actual transaction? I see that ones recently sold for as low as $600 and as high as $850. I am just curious if the eye appeal, etc. of the current coin warrants the additional amount of your bid. I am not a Morgan collector, but I am just curious. [then I will bid $1101; just kidding ] >>



See the last sentence

nankraut

What Raven said: I would say that sounds like a very logical and detailed way of arriving at a price and what to look for on an exact coin & grade you are looking for.

Dennis88

I wanted to add that I did this very fast, so there might be some faults

Dennis

itsnotjustme

I would not reveal my max bid before the auction closed. A person of low morale character could place false bids to push you to your max.

Just post here--actual bid is different.... $1,100 was just for illustrative purposes.

Dennis88

Can't you guys read??

It says: THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE!!!

rays

The only potential flaw I see in your reasoning is that each coin is different and has it's own value, independent of the auction prices realized, price guides, etc.

Just look at the lot boxes from any Heritage sig sale and you will see a wide variety of coins for the grade. There are many MS66 and MS65 coins I would not want for any price. The photo supplied by heritage helps but is no substitute for holding the thing in your own hands and looking at the lustre in the light.

mgoodm3

You really bid $1100. Wow.























sorry.

Wondo

I figure out market, and then figure that a PQ piece will cost a premium. Then I pay just about whatever it takes for a tough piece knowning that when I sell, the odds are that a PQ piece will give me the best chance at recouping my initial purchase price.

SFDukie

Hi Dennis,
Thanks for the example. It seems to be a good approach. What does one do for a coin which come up for auction less regularly? As an example, there was an 1853-c $5 Liberty head on eBay recently. I searched heritage, ebay and teletrade and came up with none of that date and mm. Other than comissioning Mr. Winter, how does one determine a reasonable bid for such a coin?
Don

WACoinGuy

Very informative example. I think one interesting corollary is how do you decide that you want a 1921-D in MS-66 in the first place? For my type collection, I'm always looking for something that's going to be a better date and in a grade that I think is appealing and a fair price. So prior to this, I have my own process of looking through population reports, mintage figures, and price guides to get an idea of which possible coins I would include in my type set. Often I'll end up with 4-5 dates that I think would work, but as I start to look at examples of actual sales (as you mention), I see that certain dates may be very difficult to find with the qualities that I'm looking for, and so may not be strong candidates of a coin I want.

TheRaven

I can't speak for him, but when I wanted a PCGS MS-63 1921-D $1, it was because I wanted to get a Morgan from each of the different mints and that leaves me with the 1921 from Denver so.

MS-63 was the grade that in my eyes offered the best bang for the buck at the time.

Sure 65 would have been great but so was the price for it in my mind and wallet.

So the answer to how did you come up with a 21-D in 66 probably would have different logic to everybody.

itsnotjustme

I just bid to knock you up to your max, but I'm leading bidder!

Just kidding!



<< <i>PS this is just an example. For non auctions, I do it different >>

I did read this. I understood it to mean this is how you do it for example for an auction.

boyhowdy

Good plan.

Only thing I do different is list the coin on the want lists maintained by the big boys.
That will give you an idea of the maximum you'll have to pay in reat time numbers.

Steve

michael

a decent smart way to do things

you are off to an excellent start

Dennis88

Offcourse I want this coin, for several sets, like the mintmark morgan type set, the general type set... etc. etc.

Dennis

Dennis88

TTT