Why is the grey sheet so far off market prices on bust coinage?

Trinketts

Any others you think they are way off on?

Bear

For the Caped Bust series there is definitely a two tier market.

The listed price, is for generally fugly coins for the posted grade.

For spectacular, unmessed with coins in AU you will generally have

to pay BU 60 - 62 money for. The tiers in this series large. Legend

is offering 475 and more for all AU -58 PCGS Half Dollars CBH. The series

has increased perhaps 50% in actual value over the past 2-3 years and

it is getting very expensive to put a nice set together in high grade. The

CBH was the workhorse of money in its day and most of the halves are

pretty worn out. As the popularity of this interesting and beautiful series

increases, prices for the Creme de LaCreme Coins that are almost 200 years

old is bound to continue its increases. We have a similar situation with

the Barber Half Dollars. Nice untampered with VF-30 to XF-45 specemins are

underpriced on the sheets and are getting very hard to find. Most have been stripped,

or are badly scratched, wiped, dinged on the edge or have a fugly unatural color.

Baley

Simply, the greysheet is so far below market for draped bust coins so that when heirs walk in the door, dealers can point to the greysheet, pay "Bid" or a little more, and then sell the choice for the grade pieces at well above "Ask" to "knowledgable collectors with want lists who get first shot at fresh material"

Cladiator

Realized prices are the only way to accurately judge prices of Bust coinage, Draped or Capped. Even doing this can be missleading as there are a myriad of factors that can make any one particular Bust coin valuable or not.

BillJones

One of the problems that the Gray Sheet has it that it is pricing average examples of coins that have been certified. The problem is a great many of the early coins that are in even PCGS and NGC holders suck, to put it mildly. Therefore the prices are “dumbed down” to cover the fact that many certified coins are (pick one or more) cleaned, ugly, overgraded or generally undesirable.

rhedden

The greysheet views coins as commodities, like shares of stock. All 1834 bust dimes in VF are worth the same price to the greysheet. However, that is a grotesque oversimplification in the world of Bust collecting, as others have already pointed out, as these coins are generally scarce and highly variable in appearance. However, the greysheet pricing works great for common items available in huge quantities, like your tyipical untoned 1881-S dollar in MS-64. Those coins are worth somewhere between Bid and Ask, and that's the end of it. That is where the greysheet is really handy.

TahoeDale

The grey sheet, or even CDN quarterly, is way behind(tho catching up) with the market for early Bust coinage(1794 to 1807).

But the PCGS price guides come a lot closer to what is being paid for many of the dates, especially CBH's.

PCGS 64's and 65's that are nice will run just a little under this price guide's numbers, and AU 58's will bring up to 62 money. As long as you know the actual market, the guides are only fair estimates of relative value between grades.

But, coins in NGC slabs still trail, in the MS or better catagories. For AU 50 and below, the difference is not as great.

The question is why? Remember, these are only guides. Be it because of fair to poor for grade, lack of originality, grease stains, etc., there will be lower numbers on grey sheet, and CDN than in the market place for pq coins.