Ranking Registry Sets the RIGHT way!

MrEureka

Seems to me nothing is more efficient than the market. If a set is the most valuable, it is the best set. Period. Any other scheme to rank sets is misguided at best. Right?

wondercoin

"Seems to me nothing is more efficient than the market. If a set is the most valuable, it is the best set. Period. Any other scheme to rank sets is misguided at best. Right?"

Andy: How would the "market" rank a set until AFTER it is sold though?

Wondercoin.

cointime

Andy,

I get your point. Let me add a twist to it. I have a dime on the BS&T board. I'm asking $225.00 for it and PCGS says $325.00, which price do you go by? What if it were a super toned eye burning piece of candy that belonged to onlyroosies and Nick was asking $2000.00 for it and the PCGS guide said a mere $600.00 would you be upset to only have it get the weight of any other $600.00 coin?

Ken

haletj

Nah, a set could have one really rare coin but be lousy otherwise. A really nicely matched set gets more credit in my book even if none of the coins are major rarities.

RBinTex

Andy,

You're joking right? That would NEVER fly .What a dumb*ss idea

p.s. Man, you're website is REALLY cool

Justhavingfun

I think Mr. Eureka is right on the money.

Look at the Liberty Head Nickels for instance. I've been collecting them for almost 6 years now and have a good collection of the proofs, good enough to prompt Wondercoin to say I have one of the best collections out there.

But I would much rather have a solo 1913 Liberty Head than either the #1 listed collection or my own entire Liberty Head collection. Wouldn't you?

That discrepancy between value and ranking is a function of what I see to be improper weighting in the series. If they gave the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel a weight of 150, then value and ranking would begin to come together.

Ditto, for instance, for the Buffalos. If they gave the overdate, double-die-obverse, and other key dates, proper weighting, again, you'd have the two ways of ranking the sets beginning to synchronize.

But as long as the 1916 DDO and 1918/7-D are only weighted 10 times the triviata dates like 1936 or '37, we'll get warped results. I mean, is there anybody here who wouldn't rather have a 1916 double-die obverse in MS 65 rather than 10 1936's in MS65?

But don't let it eat you. The Registry Sets are a work in progress, and some of you youngsters out there may live long enough to see them get it right. In the meantime, relax and ...

Enjoy!


Just Having Fun

Stooge

<< <i>Andy,

I get your point. Let me add a twist to it. I have a dime on the BS&T board. I'm asking $225.00 for it and PCGS says $325.00, which price do you go by? What if it were a super toned eye burning piece of candy that belonged to onlyroosies and Nick was asking $2000.00 for it and the PCGS guide said a mere $600.00 would you be upset to only have it get the weight of any other $600.00 coin?

Ken >>


I certainly would trust Nick's judgement over anyone at PCGS any ole' day of the week.

J.H.F., I would take a 1916/16 Buffalo in MS65 over 1,000 1936's in MS65!

You are right as always, the weighting is severly off on quite a few coins IMHO!

Later, Paul.

tradedollarnut

For the sheer pleasure of the collection, at this point in my collecting career I'd rather have a matched high grade complete set of proof Liberty nickels [and the difference in the bank] than the 1913.

The PCGS Set Registry is weighted to reward completeness rather than common date upgrades and/or super expensive rarities. While not perfect, that's just the way it is.

oreville

I don't do numbers for one month after April 15th to preserve my sanity.

tradedollarnut

Too late!

oreville

JHF: The collectors who were born in 1936 or 1937 might not agree with you. They might even be offended that their birthyear is being talked about in such a way.

Sure they might give you lip service and accept the 1916/16 or 1918/7-D nickel for free then sell them to buy 100 more 1936 or 1937 nickels for their multiple birth year sets!

oreville

TDN: You and my wife, both!

MrEureka

Andy: How would the "market" rank a set until AFTER it is sold though?

Mitch - Indirectly. The market drives the price guides. I'm suggesting that the price guides should drive the set rankings.

What if it were a super toned eye burning piece of candy that belonged to onlyroosies and Nick was asking $2000.00 for it and the PCGS guide said a mere $600.00 would you be upset to only have it get the weight of any other $600.00 coin?

Ken - Fair point, but the current set rankings are no better in that regard.

tradedollarnut

Fair point, but the current set rankings are no better in that regard.

True, but are they any worse? Why go to all the trouble to change one [somewhat] inaccurate weight to another [somewhat] inaccurate weight?

And if you base the weightings on FMV and then FMV changes every which way for every series, how often would you be having to update weightings?

And what are the FMV's of rarely traded coins, anyway?

Justhavingfun

"For the sheer pleasure of the collection, at this point in my collecting career I'd rather have a matched high grade complete set of proof Liberty nickels [and the difference in the bank] than the 1913."

Dear "Trade Dollar Nut"

This concedes my point. That between the matched high-grade complete set and the 1913 nickel, you'd much prefer the 1913 nickel. Who wouldn't? It would take a extra $2.8 million or so to equalize the two in you mind (or mine).


Dear All

The other questions are valid: how do you value coins, including "super-toned eye-candy Roosies"?

And how often would PCGS have to mark-to-market the rankings? Every week/day/hour as new pricing information came in?

Another question: How do you evaluate one-of-a-kind coins, like the "super-toned eye-candy Roosies" or the 1913 Liberty Head?

Those are technical questions for which I'd expect answers from PCGS to evolve out of trial and error. They'd have to work that out to their own reasonable satisfaction over time, as they try one thing and then another.

But the difficulties inherent in marking-to-market the rankings doesn't change the reality that the rankings are out of touch with reality.

-- That the 1913 Liberty Head totally dominates the rankings for the Proof Liberty Head Nickel collection; and that virtually any collector would rather have the solo 1913 than the first two "Best Known" Liberty Head Nickel collections combined.

-- That most Roosie collectors -- myself included -- would rather have to have a beautiful, super-toned eye-candy Roosie set in MS66/67/68 (whether or not in full-band) than my current #1 set, which is a mixed set of white and toned dimes.

-- Or that a Buffalo Nickel collector could theoretically could put together a 10-coin Buffalo set that would dominate the Buffalo nickel rankings.

Again, it comes back to the weightings: How can anybody dream that a proof 1912 Liberty Head Nickel in Proof 66 should be ranked 10% of 1913 Liberty Head in Proof 66?

Or that a 1927-S Liberty Standing Quarter in MS66Full Head is worth only 7 1930 quarters in the same grade?

Like I said: These Registry Sets are a work in progress. PCGS started something and maybe, hopefully, over time they'll get it right.

In the meantime, my thanks to Mr. Eureka for starting this interesting thread which gets into one of the reasons I think the Registry sets -- as currently set up -- are hokum, bumcombe, and bosh.

And my thanks to all the rest of you for your fascinating challenges to his (and my) ideas on the topic.

Enjoy!


Just Having Fun

tradedollarnut

I assume you would argue that the NGC Registry, which is market value based, is a hands down superior weighting system? But the fact is that the 1913 Liberty nickel [and just about every other major rarity] at NGC is display only - not counted in the set rating. So in fact it's even worse across the street in some instances.

Neither Registry will allow a single high market value coin to dominate the set ratings. They each do it in their own way - display only at NGC and less than realistic weighting at PCGS.

It's not perfect, but neither is it as flawed as is being argued. Keoj and I did a study and compared the trade dollar set ratings between PCGS and NGC. The order of sets was exactly the same between the two, the only difference was in how far apart the sets were shown to be. If one cannot be satisfied by being ranked properly, but instead must be head and shoulders above the crowd, then I truly must question why one is showing one's set!

RegistryCoin

Neat subject-
Any truely accurate ranking system is a function of many and various and changing market activities (dynamics). Coin evaluations are "moving targets", not good for much, other than giving general relative values. Since most rarities and most sets are not sold, in like kind, often enough to have real, established values, prices cannot be published with any long-term reliability. To me, it's like real estate or collector cars, a value will be determined only when a buyer and a seller agree to a transaction, and then is only a general guide to future similar transactions. Rank, therefore, has to be determined by market price, plus the many other, sometimes, undeterminable factors.
A great deal of time and money have gone into the ranking systems we currently have, and they're the best available. Rankings probably could become more accurate, for a particular point in time, but never for any length of time.
Plus, the dynamics make for great forum discussions.

Proof

If I put a MS set of Morgans together in 1989, I would have spent at least three times as much as the same set today, so the highs and lows of the market has too much of an influence for this idea to work.

Justhavingfun

Dear Proof.

Yes, cost of purchase doesn't work for the reason you put forth, and others as well.

For instance, if PCGS were doing it that way, you'd have dealers giving phony, inflated invoices to their cherished customers.


Dear Trade Dollar Nut.

I don't follow the NGC registry set business but it's obviously not value-based when all the great rarities are excluded. The NGC registry sets have all the problems of the PCGS Registry Sets and a major added one, i.e., that it includes (not surprisingly) NGC coins as well as PCGS.

And you ask why I register some of my sets? That's a good question and I'm not sure I have a good answer.

The first Registry Set I put up; my STanding Liberty Quarters -- I put up as a favor to Rare Coins of New Hampshire (Warren Mills and Jon Rosenthal). They helped me build it and I was happy to turn around and give them (and Mitch Spivack and David Schweitz) credit deserved.

The second Registry Set I put up; my Jefferson Nickels -- I put up as a favor to Mitch Spivack who helped me build it. Again, he helped me and by posting it, I was able to return the favor and give him a well-deserved boost.

I put up my US Philippine Registry Sets for an entirely different reason: because I was immensely proud of it and wanted people to see that it was indeed possible to get a complete set in uncirculated condition. It's the funnest collection I ever did (and probably ever will) and I wanted to share that fun with the rest of you collectors.

There is one other reason important reason I put up my Registry Sets; and list them openly: When I do that, dealers and individual collectors contact me with elusive upgrades. Often they're priced to market and I just scoop 'em up.

Other times they're overpriced. But usually people are rational, and when I explain why I think it's overpriced, they'll come down and I end up getting the coin at a reasonable price.

The ones that I don't get? Nothing lost: Those were coins I wouldn't have gotten anyway. So the open listings of the Registry Sets helps me keep improving them.

Enjoy youselves!


Just Having Fun

tradedollarnut

I have often wondered why the Registry was set up so that an upgrade in quality for a common date condition rarity counted much less than an upgrade in quality for a rarer date. [for example, upgrading an 1875-S trade dollar from MS67 to MS68 at a cost of $80k receives one tenth the benefit to the set rating of upgrading an 1873-CC from MS61 to MS62 at a cost of $6k] But as I've seen the pressure on prices due to the Registry, I've come to accept that perhaps it's a good thing. After all, if a 1963 proof cent can be bid up to $40k despite its piddly weighting, just imagine the price pressure that would occur if the coin was weighted at or near market!

oreville

TDN: Answer: I believe PCGS did not want to set the high condition rarity market anymore on fire than it already has been.

Quite frankly, it would also be difficult for coin collectors to deal with a moving target of registry set weighting. That would be just as annoying as the inaccuracy already built into the sets.

Has any ever thought about PCGS purposely keeping the registry set weighting just the way it is so that we have something to argue over. If it were perfect then we would have nothing to discuss; hence a dead coin forum.

You all have to pay homage to RegistryCoin for seeing it the way it really is.

WaterSport

I think there is a distinct differance in sets. There is a gap between the haves and have nots moneteraily speaking that reflects in the lack of transitional scores. Those in the top 20, do not hold a candle to the top 10 period. Therfore I look at the top sets as mere fanatsy.

WS