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Making sense of the price guides
ccex
Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭
I have read quite a few posts here about deciphering the various price guides for U.S. Coins. Some have been started by newbies with a price guide purchased fresh off the newsstand. Others cite coins which always sell for more than the published prices, if available. I hope this thread might gather consensus about how to interpret the wide range of published values for U.S. coins. Let's assume that we are collectors or dealers who know how to grade the coins we want. Which price guides are meaningful, or close to accurate.
Most of us have a Red Book, which helps show relative rarity, mintages, and some information. An annual price guide can not be trusted, however, since the coin prices have probably fluctuated between the publishing deadline and now. General consensus is that a collector bringing a Red Book to the bourse is an obvious mark in the eyes of most dealers.
When I go to a show, I rarely see dealers consult price guides other than the Graysheet (Coin Dealer Newsletter, or CDN). CDN bid seems to be the benchmark for more coin deals than any other publication or database I know of. Unfortunately, when it coimes to coins I need for my collection (better grade Barbers, type, or odd commemoratives), I can seldom get a properly graded no-problem example for CDN ask, let alone CDN bid.
The PCGS online price guide is readily accessible, and estimates retail values for PCGS-slabbed coins. However, it has become the source for citing very optimistic prices from sellers of raw coins or coins graded by less respectable grading services.
Coin World Trends (now "Coin Values", a magazine which comes with a Coin World subscription) has been accused of "shilling for dealers". I find these prices usually optimistic and high, and use them as my benchmark for full retail value. However, there are a few coins I need which I have not been able to find without problems for less than these prices. Most of the time, though, I'm happy to sell a coin I no longer need for 70% of the Coin Values price, and can hardly ever get that much from a dealer.
Numismatic News publishes a similar price list, which appears on newsstands as "Coin Prices". These prices are usually even more optimistic than those published by the rival Coin Values, but are easier for a newbie to fnd on a newsstand. I learned how to grade and started buying CDN soon after I moved to a big city where the closest coin dealer sold me coins (according to his grading) at 80% of Coin Prices.
If I collected more slabbed coins, I would spend more time checking out past auction results from Heritage. I often check out prices of completed auctions on eBay, but the grades listed in the titles and descriptions there are often meaningless. A search of prices realized on Heritage is more meaningful.
It is impossible to compile an accurate price guide, given the differences of opinion in grading, the fluctuating market, and differing buy/sell spreads. Still, I ask which price guildes you use for the coins you collect.
Most of us have a Red Book, which helps show relative rarity, mintages, and some information. An annual price guide can not be trusted, however, since the coin prices have probably fluctuated between the publishing deadline and now. General consensus is that a collector bringing a Red Book to the bourse is an obvious mark in the eyes of most dealers.
When I go to a show, I rarely see dealers consult price guides other than the Graysheet (Coin Dealer Newsletter, or CDN). CDN bid seems to be the benchmark for more coin deals than any other publication or database I know of. Unfortunately, when it coimes to coins I need for my collection (better grade Barbers, type, or odd commemoratives), I can seldom get a properly graded no-problem example for CDN ask, let alone CDN bid.
The PCGS online price guide is readily accessible, and estimates retail values for PCGS-slabbed coins. However, it has become the source for citing very optimistic prices from sellers of raw coins or coins graded by less respectable grading services.
Coin World Trends (now "Coin Values", a magazine which comes with a Coin World subscription) has been accused of "shilling for dealers". I find these prices usually optimistic and high, and use them as my benchmark for full retail value. However, there are a few coins I need which I have not been able to find without problems for less than these prices. Most of the time, though, I'm happy to sell a coin I no longer need for 70% of the Coin Values price, and can hardly ever get that much from a dealer.
Numismatic News publishes a similar price list, which appears on newsstands as "Coin Prices". These prices are usually even more optimistic than those published by the rival Coin Values, but are easier for a newbie to fnd on a newsstand. I learned how to grade and started buying CDN soon after I moved to a big city where the closest coin dealer sold me coins (according to his grading) at 80% of Coin Prices.
If I collected more slabbed coins, I would spend more time checking out past auction results from Heritage. I often check out prices of completed auctions on eBay, but the grades listed in the titles and descriptions there are often meaningless. A search of prices realized on Heritage is more meaningful.
It is impossible to compile an accurate price guide, given the differences of opinion in grading, the fluctuating market, and differing buy/sell spreads. Still, I ask which price guildes you use for the coins you collect.
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity" - Hanlon's Razor
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Apropos of the coin posse/aka caca: "The longer he spoke of his honor, the tighter I held to my purse."
<< <i>To me, price guides are superfluous when you have access to actual sales info from auction archives. I want something specific like actual transactions to rely on. >>
and for beautiful one of a kind choice usa federal coinage with extra special qualities are totally off base
and if the coins as per the above even widgits are in huge rabid demand even more off base
and for example
pre 1835 silver and copper coinage with above average eye appeal and surfaces and totally original NEVER dipped cleaned bring multiples of sheet and are in huge demand better varities say the overton 128 small head flwoing hair half dollar of 1795 you cant buy anywhere near sheet let alone ever see one for sale at any price
wildly colored choice to gem ms/proof pre 1915 century coinage are also not available for sheet prices if you even see it for sale at all
many more examples too numerious to list on here