Best Way To Determine Market Value

Banemorth

I understand there are a million-and-one variables (toning, CAC stickers, Grading Company, etc) but when you're trying to get a basic idea of what a coin is worth which of these methods do you employ?

PennyCollector

Auction prices

lasvegasteddy

2,3 and 4 apply
toned coins and guessing value...i'm lost

ranshdow

An actual, real-live sale, either private treaty, on a bourse or at auction, of that coin at the time you're trying to sell. That's the market. All else is a proxy, and possibly a flawed proxy at that.

derryb

ebay's realized prices tell me what the majority of buyers are willing to pay. Their prices realized also seem to generally be the most recent.

A seller must ask himself "where is my largest competition and at what prices are the competition selling?"

19Lyds

Wow.

Market value is meaningless without the right buyer. Finding the "right" buyer requires expertise in the market and proper marketing.

The PCGS Price guide can be worthless since they are updated sporadically at best. It covers thousands of coins "specific to the grade" and will NOT make radical movements in either direction. One auction could be high with the other very low. In that case, the only thing that CAN occur is noting what the sale was and what it sold for within the cert verification page.

eBay can be a literal "killing ground" for coin prices since the buyers are all looking for below value prices. Most do not even consider anything at PCGS Price Guide or Greysheet.

So, the question of "Best Way to Determine Value" is a balance of all 4 selected items with some being better at times while others could be worse at times. It's all about how the coin is "marketed".

RedTiger

On the Antiques Road Show, two terms often used are replacement value used for insurance purposes, and auction estimates. A person wanting to insure an item uses the higher replacement value, which is what a collector might have to pay to replace a given item. The auction estimate is almost always a range, and the collector might get that amount when selling minus any fees. A third value never mentioned on that show is wholesale value, which is what a dealer might offer. This third number might well be 10% of the replacement value for some items on the TV show.

So it is with coins. Market value? For replacement/insurance purposes? For quick liquidation such as many estates are sold at? For auction? Buying or selling? Who is doing the buying, who is doing the selling?

As well as the resources in the poll, soliciting cash offers from dealers, and looking at dealer retail asking prices, are two other data points which will sometimes be outside of the ranges of the other resources. As always, an individual coin might sell for a wide range of prices. depending on so many factors. For rare coins, the perceived quality of the individual coin counts for a lot. Whether a person is buying or selling, how quickly a person wants to buy or sell, and what the venue is, how well the two parties know each other, might all be factors.

For generic coins in bulk, there is a cash market, a live bid/ask on the CCE (certified coin exchange). The CAC also makes a market for popular generic beaned coins.

Unknown

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Banemorth

Great answers guys. I use HA/Ebay realized prices personally. I just posted this as a solid discussion topic. Red Tiger I especially enjoyed your write-up.

NumbersUsacom

Personally I look at all the above and the other auction houses ie Stacks, Goldberg and others as well as numerous individual dealer sites.

It gives you a remarkable degree of understanding as to why certain coins seem to fetch this or that and then sometimes you can do your homework and it will be blown out of the water or sunk in the mire.

breakdown

If I see a coin I am interested in buying, it's usually a two-step process. Go to CoinFacts and check the PCGS Price Guide price and then launch right into the auction archives provided there, most of them from Heritage.

PerryHall

Why limit yourself to one source of pricing information? We need an "All the above" option. E-bay is a good choice for commonly traded coins and HA would be a better choice for more expensive coins.