Thread: Questioning Price Guides

Originally Posted by Cherd

-Why is the price guide so horribly inaccurate when it would be fairly simple to improve?

First of all it's not simple to improve it, it is extremely difficult. The reason they are all so inaccurate is because of the sources they use to establish the prices.

-The current price guide obviously hasn't been updated for at least 3 years, doesn't this point to an apparent problem?

Yeah, it does. But most people don't even notice that.

-If they are not going to maintain the accuracy of the price guide then why do they continue to post it? It's junk, either put some effort into maintaining it or do the responsible thing and take it down.

Again, simple - because it helps them make money. That and that alone is the primary reason that price guides even exist. Also, it costs a great deal of money to build a price guide with any degree of accuracy. They would rather do what they do than spend that money.

Now then, let me point out another issue. You pick a coin like a '41-S Walker in MS65. Actual realized prices, within the same time period, vary within a range from $575 - $977. Or a '27-D SLQ in MS65 FH, realized prices for that one vary from $1955 to $3737.

What kind of price do you put in the price guide for those ? Answer - you can't. And the reason you can't is because the prices are 100% dependent upon the coin itself because every single coin there is, is unique. Almost all coins, even in the exact same grade - one can easily be worth double what the other is. And that is without any attractive toning to muddy the waters even more.

This is one of the biggest reasons why price guides are worthless.

Originally Posted by GDJMSP

This is one of the biggest reasons why price guides are worthless.

Worthless? No.

They have their use in determining relative value among coins in a series and they're great for establishing value if making an insurance claim (I'm thinking Redbook here)

Yeah, they can tell you that this coin from this series is worth more than the other coins in the series. But they don't tell you how much it is actually worth - which is their purpose. And if they do not fulfill their purpose for which they are intended then they are worthless.

Originally Posted by GDJMSP

Yeah, they can tell you that this coin from this series is worth more than the other coins in the series. But they don't tell you how much it is actually worth - which is their purpose. And if they do not fulfill their purpose for which they are intended then they are worthless.

Sweeping generalizations are usually wrong
As I've pointed out earlier, there are price guides that are fairly accurate (CCN Trends, Haxby, Charlton) as guides for RETAIL prices.
I will admit that the Red Book is just about useless for determining prices in most instances but insurance companies will accept it as a valid reference, so it has at least that use.

Originally Posted by GDJMSP

First of all it's not simple to improve it, it is extremely difficult. The reason they are all so inaccurate is because of the sources they use to establish the prices.

I agree, it would be extremely difficult to produce an "accurate" price guide. But, it would be simple to create a guide that is MORE accurate than the one listed at NGC. Heck, multiply every centavo price in every grade by 0.5 and the resulting guide would be MORE accurate. It wouldn't be based on anything concrete, but it would be a better representation of reality.

Originally Posted by Cherd

I agree, it would be extremely difficult to produce an "accurate" price guide. But, it would be simple to create a guide that is MORE accurate than the one listed at NGC. Heck, multiply every centavo price in every grade by 0.5 and the resulting guide would be MORE accurate. It wouldn't be based on anything concrete, but it would be a better representation of reality.

Shh. That information is extremely valuable. Seriously, its private information like this that one learns through the years that has great value. Benefit from it. You spent the hard work learning it, you should benefit.

The magazine stands near me carry coin prices magazines, Coin World and other numismatic publications.
If a person has more than a passing interest in pricing their coins, the means to do so are readily available.

For pricing Mexican coins???

I'm not saying that my price guide would be truly representative of the entire market, or that it would be based on a sufficient number of documented sales, but it would be more accurate than what is currently available. That to me represents a problem.

No, if you are willing to do the work it represents an opportunity.

I find Cherd's discovery that many of their prices haven't been updated through several publishings to be quite disturbing. I'm suspecting that these subsequent publishings have done nothing more than add the next year to the list.

In most cases that is absolutely true. Why? Because for the most part the prices DON'T change that much or that fast. (Frankly they don't with US either).

This isn't some JoeBob's coin publication or website, it's NGC. Since there is not a Greysheet equivalent for foreign coins, it would make sense for collectors to assume that the NGC website would be a reliable place to go for making price determinations, especially for NGC graded coins. So the specific issues that I was addressing were:

-Why is the price guide so horribly inaccurate when it would be fairly simple to improve?
-The current price guide obviously hasn't been updated for at least 3 years, doesn't this point to an apparent problem?
-If they are not going to maintain the accuracy of the price guide then why do they continue to post it? It's junk, either put some effort into maintaining it or do the responsible thing and take it down.

The thing it NGC is primarily concerned with the grading and encapsulating of the coins. They really have no stake in their values so researching and updating the values themselves, especially for non-US coins would be a low priority for them. Most likely the values are as you said taken almost directly from the North American Coins and Prices book, which in turn are probably lifted directly from the Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins. (Same publisher)

Why haven't they been updated for three years? Simple answer is time, staff, and money. The coin catalogs are a tiny portion of the publishers empire and it doesn't generate a lot of revenue. So not a lot of money is allocated to it. As for time, the staff has to cover and update the information for hundreds of coin issuing entities, covering tens of thousands of different types and hundreds of thousands of values over a five century period. And that has to be done with a staff of about five or six people. And they produce some eight or nine catalogs and maintain the numismaster website. Frankly they are horribly overworked and it is amazing they do as well as they do. (unfortunately it also explains why there are more and more errors in the catalogs than there used to be.)

They do use outside volunteers to help with the pricing so if you can convince them you can do a credible job updating the Mexican prices they may be able to use your volunteer effort.

Cherd,

After reading what you wrote, I would think that you could put out some sort of price guide that would interest people who collect the Mexican coins. From what you and other people have said, it probably wouldn't be any worse, from a stand point of it being a price guide, and may be even better, if you can do so.

Also, from reading what's been said by others here, and other places, possibly the only reason the new catalogs are put out each year, is to get people to buy them. People love to get new versions of stuff, and if you aren't aware that the pricing really doesn't change from one year to the next, you might feel left out when a publisher neglects to put out a new edition.

After reading what you wrote, I would think that you could put out some sort of price guide that would interest people who collect the Mexican coins. From what you and other people have said, it probably wouldn't be any worse, from a stand point of it being a price guide, and may be even better, if you can do so.

Hence my comment about it being an oppertunity if he is willing to do the work. If he can produce a better more accurate guide there may be a market for it.

Heh, I appreciate the vote of confidence . But I'm not in any position to be telling anyone about anything about Mexican coins, and would be horribly overstepping my bounds if I were to present myself as an authority on the subject. I haven't put effort into making myself privy to any information that would not be available to any person that was willing to catalog eBay sales for a while.

Originally Posted by Cherd

Heh, I appreciate the vote of confidence . But I'm not in any position to be telling anyone about anything about Mexican coins, and would be horribly overstepping my bounds if I were to present myself as an authority on the subject. I haven't put effort into making myself privy to any information that would not be available to any person that was willing to catalog eBay sales for a while.

Actually, that would be a chore, and certainly worth the money to find the info from someone who has. One of the reasons is that people do subscribe to services that pull different auction results for years, as well as (obviously) paying subscription rates to mags and the tpgs to have full access to their price guides.

Plus, I just looked at eBay, and it looks as if they have made some changes, one of which is you need to do the advanced search to get completed auctions, and now it seems to be only the past 15 days. That's pretty abysmal. Maybe eBay is getting ready to sell subscriptions to get their own auction results. Hmmmmmmm.

I haven't put effort into making myself privy to any information that would not be available to any person that was willing to catalog eBay sales for a while.

Never said you had any special knowledge and your probably right that anyone else could do the same thing by cataloging the eBay sales, but there is a market out there of people who would like that information and would be willing to pay for it rather than having to reinvent the wheel and do it themselves.

Heh, you guys are making me re-think something. I collect a particular type of antique fishing lure. For the last four years I have been maintaining a spreadsheet for these lures where I catalog every eBay and other auction sale that I can possibly find. Every entry contains pictures of the lure, the description that was provided, and the sale price/shipping/buyer's fee breakdown. The database is huge, and does take a lot of time to keep up with. It has pages for lures, lure boxes, folkart varieties, etc. It contains data on over 200 different types of lures, and probably contains over 1000 individual sale entries. I made it in excel, and the file itself is about 40 Megabytes.

I started the database as a tool that I could use for determining appropriate prices for the lures that I wanted. Since then, through a forum such as this one, I have come to know the guy that literally "wrote the book" on the type of lure that I collect. I figured that he would find my spreadsheet of interest, so I sent it his way. Since that point he inquires about updates to the database about every 6 months or so. Never really thought about it, I just send him the updates. Now you've got me thinking, I'M PROVIDING A TIME CONSUMING SERVICE FOR FREE!!!

Haha, I'm not all that worried about it. The second edition of his book (price guide) is coming out soon, maybe he will acknowledge my efforts in the forward .