I'm looking at Morgans and i have the 3 references that I use frequently and I would appreciate some perspective on my interpretation. Red book Blue book this weeks CDN 1891 $40 ** $22 ** $30 - 33 bid-ask 1891 S $40 ** $22 ** $30 - 33 1892 O $40 ** $22 ** $30 - 33 1982 S $325 ** $155 ** $110 - 120 1893 $275 ** $135 ** $195 -215 These prices make some consistent sense except for the 1893. I assume this is because more of these coins were transacted this past week vs. others on this list? sorry if the post has all the numbers jammed together, this isn't how I typed it!
My advice to you is to ignore the Blue Book entirely and to ignore the valuations listed in the Red Book.
Tom is correct. The CDN is the one and only price guide that should ever be considered as anywhere near accurate. No other price guide, no matter who publishes it or puts it out, including those found on the internet, is worth the paper it is printed on.
I'm starting to wonder why the red book even bothers having a price guide. I suppose if you are one of those not so honest dealers selling a 1893 Morgan you can list it as $ 225 and claim it is a great deal because the red book says it is valued at $275
The Red Book has values listed because of tradition, because many new collectors don't know of the other sources and this is their primary source and also because if they removed the prices then their sales of the book would likely plummet. Of course, there may be other reasons, too.
I am starting to wonder a few things too... Perhaps you can tell me why the above example means a dealer is "not so honest"? I realize it was a pretty generic claim, but wouldn't you agree that this is much more "honest" than say offering coins at prices likely at or top of red book while making iffy grade claims and providing horrid one-sided photos? If you're going to point the "honesty" finger, at least be reasonable about it, don't judge a book by its cover, and choose your battles wisely.
Back to my OP: I'm assuming the first 3 coins and the 1893 are typical as the CDN valuations fall between the "retail" Red Book valuation and the "wholesale" Bluebook valuation. The other 2 valuations vary due to market fluctuations the previous week i.e., the 82S volume was lower than typical? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
JB, have you ever read what it says in the Red Book itself about the prices listed within the Red Book ? "Coin values shown in this book are retail prices figured from data supplied by listed contributors ......." If you look in the front of the Red Book you'll find a list of those contributors, they are coin dealers from around the country, there's about 50 of them. The publisher of the Red Book asks those dealers what their current prices are for the given coins. Now not every dealer has ever coin, so the data provided is somewhat limited by that. Dealer A may provide his price for a dozen or so, dealer B a dozen or 20 more, and so and so on. What you also have to realize is that it is extremely common for dealer A to be asking $250 for a given coin in a given grade. While dealer E is asking $150 for the same given coin in the same given grade. As a general rule, price guides, all of them not just the Red Book, will only report the highest price they receive when they gather their data. Now it's pretty easy to see where the flaws in that system are and why the reported prices do not reflect reality. The CDN however gathers its reported prices from the aggregate electronic dealer networks. To find the current price of a given coin in a given week the CDN takes the highest Bid being currently offered on the networks, and couples that with the lowest Ask currently being offered on the networks, from all of the dealers in the country. (not just a few of them like the price guides do) And that establishes the Bid/Ask reported in the weekly CDN. In simple terms, the price guides use the highest asking price they can find, while the CDN uses the lowest asking price they can find. At which price would you rather buy coins ?
At which price would you rather buy coins ?[/QUOTE] I'm going with "lowest"! Thanks for the expert advice....I love this forum!!
