My local coin shop offered me only $195 for my 1925 Qtr. eagle Indian. the latest CDN bid ask spread for VF20 grade is 245-270. I did not sell, of course, but whats with the disparity? Just my guy or would you all consider this a typical offer as of yesterday afternoon?
I don't have a single quarter eagle in my inventory that I paid so little for. Then again, I don't have as much overhead to support as a brick and mortar store does either.
CDN lists dealer-to-dealer prices. Non-dealer prices may vary, but will usually fall below CDN Bid. A 10-20% variance is par for the course for many B&M's. Chris
A lot of collectors have the misconception that they can buy and sell at CDN bid/ask prices which is not true most of the time. A local coin shop, and most dealers I know, will typically pay no more than 20% under the bid price. That way they can still sell to another dealer at a wholesale level and make a profit. What you were offered for the coin was about what you can expect to get by selling it to a dealer. "Normal" retail is about 10-20% over CDN ask price but, again that varies considerably from dealer to dealer as factors such as eye appeal and other things can affect the price upwards or downwards.
I assume from that I would be smart to try to sell to other collectors and avoid the shops? eBay prices always seem closest to the red book, no?
What does your coin look like? Does it have problems such as a rim ding, a wipe or perhaps has it been cleaned? If so, then that could be a very fair price. If not, then it appears they attempted to lowball you.
I'll preface my post by stating that I've never bought or sold to a coin store but seeing the price offered to you I didn't see anything that seemed out of line. Sure it is under the stated "CDN" value but you gotta factor in the dealer's overhead and whatever else so that he can make a profit. In reference to ebay being the closest to redbook value I would remind you that you need to factor in all the fees associated with ebay. Once you factor those in, you may end up worse off than if you sold to a B&M.
Coin stores have to make a profit and are never going to pay retail value for anything they buy; if they did so they'd be out of business. You could probably get more if you sold the coin to a private party yourself, but that seems like a fair price for a store to pay. I've watched a lot of Pawn Stars and tons of people with items to sell end up not making a deal because they don't seem to understand the difference between retail value and what a store, needing to make profit on the resale, will pay. Long story short, CDN prices are not really reflective of what dealers will buy at.
That depends on the dealer, and the coin. I've known many dealers that will buy and sell to collectors at Greysheet. But when buying the coins have to be solid, good for the grade, or of course they won't do it. And when selling some of them will only do it for repeat or regular customers, others will do it for anybody. But yeah, I do agree that there are plenty of dealers who will not.
