Reliable Coin Pricing sources

Not really b/c I always pay too much on Ebay.. I've been using the CDN for many years as a guideline to buy coins.

 

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These dealers are B.S.ing you. I have been able to buy PCGS 64/65 commems below CDN bid during the past 6 months. However, I'd agree that silver commems are under priced.

 

And what I to rebuttle that is that the last few shows I've attended state wide, I see more and more dealers turning to Ebay for pricing. A handful have told me they don't bother with CDN anymore.

 

That depends on what type of coins. I have notice that most gold pieces on Ebay sell for above CDN bid while most silver commems sell for below CDN bid.

 

Sure, I'd buy it on Heritage. But if there is a pool of willing buyers willing to pay $350 on Ebay, I would say that I underpaid for it because it would have liquidity at a higher price even after Ebay fees.

If there are two or more venues selling coins at consistently different prices, how can we say that one is valid and the other is not? Education or lack thereof shouldn't have anything to do with it. In fact for me Ebay is more pertinent because with the small amount of selling I do, Heritage wouldn't be an option.

 

[/QUOTE]Sure, I'd buy it on Heritage. But if there is a pool of willing buyers willing to pay $350 on Ebay, I would say that I underpaid for it because it would have liquidity at a higher price even after Ebay fees.
If there are two or more venues selling coins at consistently different prices, how can we say that one is valid and the other is not? Education or lack thereof shouldn't have anything to do with it. In fact for me Ebay is more pertinent because with the small amount of selling I do, Heritage wouldn't be an option.[/QUOTE]


Now let's reverse that and say it is $225 on Fee-bay and $350 on Heritage. Is trust (or distrust) of a site worth that much?

 

Now let's reverse that and say it is $225 on Fee-bay and $350 on Heritage. Is trust (or distrust) of a site worth that much?[/QUOTE]

Definitely not for me. Buying is not the issue, selling is. Some of us don't have high enough value material to sell on Heritage.

For coins $200 and less I've gotten just as good if not better deals on Ebay. I think the example of $225 vs. $350 is exaggerated. Maybe there are statistical outliers with that spread but if it is commonplace I want to know about it so that I can make some money reselling on Ebay. The value of any coin still depends on how much people are willing to pay for it on a consistent basis.

 

Is Heritage prices really that much cheaper than Ebay? I am not a member of Heritage.

 

Thank you very much for these excellent responses. I am having a difficult getting into Heritage and looking for prices. I am a doofus. Any advice?

 

You need to join Heritage to see prices but it's free.

 

Oh yes, I'm aware that Red Book isn't a good guide all by itself, so I try and use it with other items just to get a range or scope of the price of something. The book pretty much says so itself in the "how to use this book" section, in that prices quoted come from contributors two months before publication. I would never go by Red Book, or probably any other price guide, alone to determine market value. I think of it as one of the many tools in the toolbox.

Speaking of books with colors, what about the Blue Book? The Red Book claims that it "contains average prices dealers will pay for these coins..." How accurate is this? I've never picked up a Blue Book. Not to mention the other color guide, the Graysheet, which others on this forum have said is presently in a (hopefully) temporary state of chaos.

 

So, just as a quick example of the reverse, would the same be true for someone selling to a hotel buyer or some craigslist schmo? Is some laughable lowball all "that particular coin is worth at that moment in time" as well, or does one party's lack knowledge play a very big part in the price paid?

It's easy to defend eBay as a fine valuation tool, and in some cases it can be, including for dealers. However, the fact remains that there are a lot of people using that site who end up paying wholly too much, and more often than not this is due to a lack of knowledge, experience, or understanding of what it is they're buying. Sure, some of these people will buy from the other sites (Heritage, Stacks, etc) as well, but they simply do not exist in the numbers they do on eBay, where they can and do effect average prices, sometimes to head-shaking levels.

 

Ebay just makes me nervous in general unless I already have done business with a dealer displaying wares there. One example of just what can happen when new instances of Ebay Tulipmania break out is the 2012 Skip Schumacher "Rally Squirrel" baseball card that featured a limited edition alternate photo.

I watched the first card posted to Ebay rise from $0 to over $600 overnight (I do admit that I wanted one because I'm partial to squirrels). It went for an extremely exorbitant sum that I'm sure the buyer regretted - unless someone was waiting in the wings to buy it for more and now that person regrets it. In any case, someone somewhere must regret that auction. The seller sure doesn't. Given the rapid and frenzied bidding it looked like people were completely caught up in the moment and just kept bidding higher and higher amounts to "win." Fueling that speculation was also the uncertainty at the time of just how many "Rally Squirrel" cards actually existed. What looked like irrational bidding ensued and it definitely made the card seem far more valuable than it actually turned out to be, because over the next week or two "Rally Squirrel" card auctions were ending at $200, then $150 and three years later they hover between $50 to $100. If they ever fall to $20 I'll buy one.

Impulsive and frenetic events such as that one, though admittedly rare, though not as rare as they should be, make me cautious of using Ebay as a price guide, at least all by itself. So perhaps an "educated buyer" is someone who wouldn't succumb to such crazed speculation and allow the market to calm down before buying? I don't know. Of course none of this would apply if it turned out that Topps had only minted a single "Rally Squirrel" card, but that's sometimes how the roulette wheel of the collector's market goes. People who invested heavily in Barry Bonds' rookie cards probably feel similarly.

Regardless, if someone wanted to buy a "Rally Squirrel" card during that first auction and used Ebay as a guide they ran a serious risk of grossly overpaying for it. That's why Ebay sometimes - often - makes me nervous.

 

17.5% buyer's fee?

 

The difference is - Ebay is considered a retail outlet. Most users are collectors, and will pay end-user prices.

Heritage, and many of the other major auction houses, are often considered wholesale prices. Many dealers buy at these major auctions. Sure, some collectors do as well, but these tend to be the savvy, educated, higher end collectors who have it figured out.

For example, I can't count the number of times that I've seen a coin sell on Heritage, and then a couple of months later it will show up in a dealer's inventory on Ebay for a higher price.

 

I totally agree that a single case of "bidiots" driving up an auction price should not be used to predict future prices. My earlier comments are predicated on there being a consistent trend for a price range on a particular coin. And when there is such a trend, people like you and me have a strong likelihood of selling our coins on Ebay at that price range.

BTW I wish that Ebay would allow viewing of auction archives further back than 3 months. Perhaps that is a marketing strategy to encourage "bidiots"? In any case we should never rely on a single source to determine prices.

 

Well, I got access to Heritage and the information was impressive. I also agree with GDJMSP, you certainly do see serious fluctuations on coin prices. I saw this just on the Heritage site, and I have not even brought up Ebay.

 

I've looked at 3 so far: common date Seated Quarters and Halves in AU and Standing Liberty Quarters in MS63 (not FH). The example you gave was more than a 50% spread. I didn't find near that much difference with any of them, although Heritage in some instances, but not all, shows somewhat better deals. Realized auction prices on Ebay are closer to Heritage, whereas with BIN listings the sky's the limit. I've gotten better prices myself with BIN/Best Offer so other sellers probably do too.

Also, is it just me or do the lowest priced coins for a given grade on Ebay sometimes look uglier than the low end coins on Heritage?

I stuck with problem free coins in the first go round but maybe I should check out details grades. It seems like those might be more inflated on Ebay since some people really like to forget about problems when they are bidding.