Is "Bid" the same thing as "Wholesale Market Value"?

MrEureka

If not, what's the difference?

MidLifeCrisis

Wholesale market value = that price point at which a dealer believes he can buy a coin and still sell it again at a profit.

Bid = a price point determined by the CDN (or other price guide?) that attempts to define wholesale market value by series date or type, thus treating coins as if they are identical commodities with no consideration for the individual coin.




Did I win?

291fifth

"Bid" like so many things in numismatics is essentially meaningless terminology. The dealers in my area don't pay "bid." They pay as much as they can below bid.

So far as "wholesale" goes, it is also essentially meaningless. The term has been misused for so long that it no longer has any real meaning. (This applies far beyond the numismatic area as well.)

Zoins

Theoretically, if dealers acquire inventory at wholesale and should be able to make a profit at bid, wholesale should be below bid.

mrpotatoheadd

If bid is the same thing as wholesale market value, then it seems obvious that, unless a dealer is planning on selling what he buys to a retail customer, he's going to have to offer less than bid or he'll go out of business.

RedTiger

"Bid" is often short hand for the bid price listed in the Greysheet. As many other threads have pointed out, and almost all veteran collectors realize, sometimes that sheet price can be way too low, sometimes too high, sometimes it is close to current market price. Some dealers use the electronic CCE network, where there is an actual cash "bid" for coins. The CCE has more weight because there is an actual buyer at that price for actively traded coins. The CCE bid would be closer to actual wholesale pricing than any other guide. A dealer that is offered coins from a collector, can buy back of the high CCE bid and flip the coin for a real cash profit. This is far different from the prices greysheet, which doesn't buy or sell any coins. That old cliche "then sell the coin to the greysheet" has a different reality on CCE, because a dealer or a firm can actually sell coins at the quoted prices.

For coins that don't move very often, "bid" is generally not of much use. For the less common coins, the overall quality and how motivated the potential buyer and seller are, become bigger factors than any price guide.

SeaEagleCoins

"Bid", as I understand it, is the amount that is offered by a dealer or dealers on the CDN for a given coin in a given grade... "ask" is the amount being asked for by dealers wishing to sell a given coin in a given grade.

No transaction needs to actually take place...


"Wholesale Market Value" is the actual amount of a sale to a dealer who will then (hopefully) turn around and sell it for a profit...


"Wholesale" is a relative term in the coin market... many factors come into play... i.e. is it for stock? is it to fill a want list? how hard is it to find said coin? quality? etc...

An example of disparity between "bid" and "wholesale" ... recently, I won a coin in auction for more than double "bid"... and then sold it almost immediately for a 10% profit...

OTOH... there are items such as "modern" proof sets, that you can buy for 40% behind bid and then have a hard time even finding a buyer, let alone making a profit...