National dealer

Here is often one of the most confusing aspects of the coin market. Many different price guides are available to the coin collecting community. Some are online and some are published.

Guides are exactly that. A guide. No price is set in stone, and each will vary depending on the current market cycle.

When searching for a price guide, it is best to use one that is current and up to date. Price guides such as the Red or Blue book are only published once per year. The coin market changes very frequently.

Dealers around the US use the coin dealers newsletter. One issue is issued for raw coins, certified coins, and currency. Published once per week, and also online.

http://www.greysheet.com

This publication is used by and for dealers. Collectors will not be able to buy and sell coins based on these prices. However, since this is the dealers price guide, you will be able to make wiser purchases knowing what dealers are paying for their material.

Another good price guide is auction prices realized. Most online auction firms and regular auction firms list prices realized from their sales. This allows you to regularly look up what specific coins are bringing in the market place.


Please take into consideration that most prices are based on knowledgeable buyers and sellers.

Just Carl

Now here is something that should be published and shown all over the internet, coin shows, coin stores, etc. People just don't understand this concept.

MintWorth

bookmarked it. good stuff. thanks for the guide.

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illini420

Very good advice to look at auction prices realized. Unlike the price guides, the basis of which can be unclear and/or outdated at times, auction prices realized are clear and direct evidence of what a given coin in a given grade brought on a specific date.

In looking at the Greysheet or one of the online or printed price guides, it can be difficult or impossible to tell when the last time the price was updated. Are you looking at a price from this month, or has the price not been updated for several years?? Also, are the prices in these guides based on dealer bids for the coins or are they retail prices? Each guide will be different in that respect and the prices can be very different too.

That said, before I purchase any coin worth over a certain amount, I research the recent auction prices so that I know the general market value of the coin before I buy. I usually will check the Heritage auction archives and the Teletrade auction history, both of which are free after you sign up on their respective websites.

Looking at auction prices realized works great for relatively common coins that trade frequently, but for very rare coins that do not trade frequently or for coins that are very high grades with none graded higher (top pops), you can pretty much throw a price guide and prior auction prices out the window It then becomes a matter of how bad you want the coin and how much you're willing to pay so that you don't have to wait until the next time it is offered for sale (which may be never for certain coins).

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mpcusa

As a dealer and collector in Military payment certificates i can tell you
The Value guides out there, Which is really only one "The Green sheet"
Is a great tool but you really have to do your research as well!
Including pop. searches and of course auction closing prices!

EggyJ

I buy the greysheet and use it all of the time, along with prices realized at auction sites.
I had one dealer in Minnesota who told me not to come in his shop with the greysheet, so I never went back.

mpcusa

What a jerk, Some dealers just want to take advantage of the uninformed!!
I would not go back either!!

Duke Kavanaugh

From my experience Grey Sheet get's universally accepted but when I pull out Green Sheet 20% like to complain that I cant get it at that...

mpcusa

Does the "Grey Sheet" have both coin and currency?

I though that the "Grey Sheet was for coins" and the "Green Sheet"
Was for currency? If thats the point you were trying to make?

Please thread me back, Iam interested since i have always used
The Green Sheet

Duke Kavanaugh

Yes It's the same company CDN "Coin Dealer Newsletter"
They have Grey for Coins and Green for Currency and Blue for Graded Slabs.
But not all are accepted as much as the others...

mpcusa

That,s strange, Would think they would be universal since they basicaly
Come from the same source!