Grey Sheet and a sale.

SilverBaron

This weekend I sold, to a dealer, most of my "non-core" numismatic holdings.... The deal took about a 1hr.
The items included Au Seated $'s, MS-67 Classic Comm's, early dimes and quarters and misc. MS Merc's and Barber items. Yes, we both poured over the sheet AND looked up items in the Heritage's archives.
For the lot, we agreed to bid + 30%. Cash.

We both agreed that the sheet has gotten to the point that it is only good for Morgans, Peace $'s, Merc's, Walkers and modern items.

It has been discussed here before that the sheet keeps the bid/ask of the early items low so that dealers can rip the unsuspecting.... no comment.... I will say that in this age of dealer websites offering coins for sale... archived auction prices... Ebay.... and internet auctions going live.... for the owners of the sheet to keep mis-reporting the true value of so many series and types only serves to make the sheet look more & more out of touch.

gecko109

I wish someone could simply explain why sheet IS so out of touch on so many series then. I mean its not like it comes out once a year, its a weekly guide. IMO, the editors and others responsible for the sheet's publication are simply not doing their jobs. Maybe its time for some sort of new weekly price guide.

Blackhawk

As a completely wild guess, I'd say that the "sheet" continues to be the "gold standard" because the publishers have close ties to someone in the coin world.

With the advent of laptop computers, internet auctions sales, and major auction sale information available almost immediately, there's really little reason to carry the sheet around unless you're trying to use it to lever a sale/buy in some way.

ilikebuffaloes

It is my understanding that the prices on the sheet are from participating dealers. So if only 1 or 2 dealers put out a bid price for an item, it might be low since that is what they are willing to pay at that time.

Some coins are not bought and sold on a regular basis, so the prices won't be very accurate. It is great that this dealer looked at recent auction prices as well and made a fair offer for your coins.

I don't think the intent of the sheet is for dealers to rip people, but it is a pricing guideline for dealer to dealer sales. If you want to get a fair price for your coins, look at the auctions sites and get the average retail price. The subtract the selling fees from the sites and then subtract a profit for the dealer (which you can negotiate) because they are in business to make money. The problem with this is it assumes that the dealer is going to sell you coin at retail. If the dealer sells the coin wholesale (Greysheet) then he will offer a price of sheet - X% in order to sell to another dealer and still make a profit for the transaction.

I'm not making excuses for dealer pricing. They have to pay to open their store and need to make something on each transaction. If they don't think that they have a retail market for an item, then they are going to offer a lower price.

You will make the most money on a coin by selling it yourself in the retail market, but there is risk involved (just read about all of the eBay posts) so many will take less money for a no risk cash transaction.

Walkerguy21D

You had a dealer pay 30% over sheet for a broad range of material? Out the saint!

PS - re: the 'sheet' and walkers - I would agree that it is reasonably accurate for the later dates in series, maybe even a little high. Way off (low) for most of the earlier dates graded F and higher.

OKbustchaser

Of course, the problem your dealer now faces is that if he tries to sell those coins at a reasonable markup to what he paid many of the people who post here would come onto the boards and crucify him for actually daring to charge more than wholesale bid.