World coin catalogue price variations

How's this for a world-coin price variation?:

The S. Korean 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000 5 Won coin

1) The 39th Edition of the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause Publications lists their prices at .30 (yes, THRITY U.S. CENTS), each.


And then there's...


2) O-Sung K&C Catalogue published in Seoul. Prices below in S. Korean won
[1 U.S. Dollar =1,100 S. Korea Won].

So, according to Krause, that 1999 5 Won coin is worth .30 cents.
And, according to O-Sung, this same coin, at today's exchange rate is $177.00.

Now, I don't put a lot of credence in "catalogue pricing," but I do in realized pricing. From the limited information that I have, I'd say that O-Sung is closer to actual realized prices (not too far off) for these coins when sold at Korean retailers or even online venues that non-Korean use (i.e., eBay).

How and why does Krause Publications keep listing these coins for below a dollar? Isn't there enough evidence for a "necessary correction" to their list price in this case?

 

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Wow--those '95-00 5 Won are low mintages--there must be a corresponding high collector demand for those prices.

I'm not very familiar with S. Korean coins, but I have noticed a similar disparity with Aussie coin values published in Krause, notably the scarcer, very popular, pre-decimal issues. On average, these scarcer coins in better grades will sell in Australia for 2-3X the given value in Krause. I've observed similar disparities for other countries with a strong home collector base. It strikes me that Krause does not research the coin sales in their respective countries, but they make an 'educated guess' based on dealer pricing in the US? That's just what I've seen...

 

...but Krause HAS adjusted to new realities in some cases. They used to list each of the ~relatively~ popular S. Korean10 Won bronze series coins (1966-1970) for under $100 in BU just until recently. Now, the list price is a little closer to reality, as some dates in that series (before the economic recession) were going for $200 to $300 online and inching up to these numbers at coin shows before Krause woke up to the reality. But they woke up!

In the case of these slightly-more "arcane" 5 Won pieces, I chalk it up to:

*Not a lot of these pieces sold in the "English-language" numismatic market
*They had no pricing data (because of the above issue)
*Tracking the fluctuating price of thousands of world coins is a pain
*They're just crappy little brass world coins (so who cares, right?)

But for Australia, really I don't see what Krause's excuse could be. Information is clearly available to them, and in an alphabet they should be able to read.

After a certain amount of time, I would imagine that they will adjust. I just wonder about the curious time lag, and the reason for it.

 

As I said--I know very little about S. Korean coins--I'm simply agreeing that I've seen something similar with Krause "values"--but not to such a large degree.

As for Australia, or older coins from Norway and Sweden which I collect--I also suspect that Krause simply has not closely followed prices in their respective home markets. When I think about it--taking US sources as your pricing guide is far easier than researching sales prices in every country--especially in their native languages. I only know about actual pricing in Norway and Sweden because I understand those languages well enough to read their auction catalogs and results.

 

Too bad there isn't enough of a "business incentive" for a start-up company that collects world-coin price information and puts it in one place. Might have to be a "consortium" that coin businesses and auction houses around the world belong to, and to which they feed information.

That would certainly cause some radical changes in the market, I would think.

 

There are several coins like this in the modern Mexican series that I became aware of when I started trying to assemble the set. The book prices will be $1 or less but when one rarely comes up for sale you see them go for $15-$20. On the other hand there are a lot of coins that Krause says are worth several dollars but you see them on eBay all the time going for way less.

I would have had no idea that these Korean coins were worth so much. I could have seen them in a dealer's junk bin and never known any better. It's almost impossible when you don't know the characters.

 

I rarely speak at all about Krause anymore because they apparently consider any press to be good press and they are simply horrendous. They quit being funny a couple years ago.

If you want to know the value of any modern you'll need to research it and even that won't tell you anything unless it's a coin that has a demand of two or more.

The world coin market is being suppressed like an ember under a soaking wet blanket named Krause. I don't want to say much more because I don'tr want people to buy the book. Anyone thinking of buying it should be aware that old versions can be acquired for next to nothing. The book is worthless and has been hard to use since it was reorganized the first time back in the '90's.

 

Doug, I really appreciate your very comprehensive response. That's kind of you.

This makes me wonder about coinarchives and acsearch: These two sources aren't just listing "heavily" traded coins. They are listing high-priced coins, or "high profile" coins from the higher-tier auction houses that have an online presence. Now, this is nice, and I'm glad there is somewhat of a consortium location online (two in fact!).

I just wonder how "thinly traded" many of the coins I am interested in really are? I don't really know how to get a handle on that...

 

Generally speaking, I might also suggest looking into dealers and auction houses in their respective countries for the most complete data. For instance, Bruun Rasmussen (in Copenhagen) seems to be one of CoinArchive's few sources for sale prices of older, popular coins from Norway. Oddly, this resource has excluded many other auction houses in Scandinavia to the degree that any results for a lot of otherwise popular coins are nowhere to be seen. Of course it's all relative--older coins from Norway and Sweden are indeed thinly traded in the US (or even perhaps Denmark), which is why one needs to dig deeper to get a perspective on value.

 

Here's a case in point that kind of interests me. The current Krause data for the Mexico 50 centavos of the 1950s:


In some older copies of Krause (mine's from 2012), the 1955 is listed at 80.00 in MS60 and 40.00 in MS63. In other words, those values were clearly swapped, but when they got un-swapped they were also deflated by a factor of 10.

My own casual observation is that the 1955 is still treated as a key date and goes for $30 or more in BU. We can all agree that Krause is irrelevant, but in this case I wonder if even obsolete printed copies are haunting the market.

 

I think the reality is if Krause had full time staff researching prices, it might be a different story. Unfortunately they will have to make do with what they have and update prices where possible / practical. As much as it may sound envious to work in a numismatic related company - I cannot fathom the volume of work to compile. To add on top of it, there's always new coins around to be added on a yearly basis.

Perhaps there may need to be a more efficient database to record and track historical sales but at this point of time, it can be difficult to justify tracking every single coin sales.

 

IMHO it matters little what values are listed in various sources if a seller is not able to access those markets. I sell on eBay so I just check recent sales results on eBay. I use Krause to get an idea about a starting price. My experience suggests Krause is 50%-75% high relative to reality on eBay. I'm selling world coins dated from the 1600s to 1973, but just to U.S. buyers; so I realize that limits the market interest. Interestingly, I'm seeing a pattern of buyers with surnames associated with the country of origin for the coin. Of the countries I've sold so far, Denmark stands out as the lowest interest. My research found that people there are the happiest in the world, so few have emigrated to the U.S.. Most of the coins I have are relatively low value and not worth shipping globally.

 

If they got a computer it wouldn't be necessary to white out the price in every individual catalog and write in a realistic one. They could just update the price in the computer and then use the data in typreface to print thousands of catalogs.

 

Another factor that lends to true value confusion is the local demand for world coins. It is always greater in the country of origin. The South Korean coin will sell for more in South Korea than in any other country. This is true in the U.S. as well. You have a better chance of buying a moderate to better U.S. coin for less money in Europe than you do in the U.S. Therefore world coins researched outside the U.S. (Especially in their own country) will appear to be worth more than U.S, publications, or our own auction houses, show. High end coins have their own markets and values. There may even be a "go between" involved in those purchases. Many are done privately without published records.

 

I really appreciate the views being expressed here. Lots to think about.

I think that seller might want to know what values are listed in various (international) markets, even though they don't have "access" to them. However, international markets DO have something to do with what happens here, locally.

Case in point: I noticed that some Korean buyers on eBay, and just a handful of Korean-Americans who have frequent travel or commerce in both the USA and S. Korea, have been making nice profits for a decade or more by purchasing high-grade examples of Korean coins in the USA for "lower-than-Korea-prices" and reselling these coins in Korea.

The interesting thing is that many of the best-grade examples of these coins exist in North America. If a seller of such coins at an online auction site knows of the wider, international market for them, they may wish to adjust their prices for their gem, key-date Korean pieces. Emphasis on gem and key date. Anything else that isn't both gem and key-date almost always goes for a pittance, even in S. Korea. It would behoove such a buyer to know the larger market and adjust their prices to account for this (yet list the price low enough to make a sale), instead of just getting cherrypicked by a Korean buyer who could turn the coin around for 3X the price in S. Korea.

We're still pretty isolated, but we don't live as isolated as we once were...

 

The market that I was referring to was the market in S. Korea, esp. those coins sold at online retailers there, almost exclusively to Koreans. Most importantly, the largest auction house that holds important numismatic auctions in S. Korea (Poongsan Hwadong), which by the way is also NGC's submission center in Korea, doesn't provide data to either Coin Archives or acsearch. Not that I have seen anyway...

I notice that the term, "Non-U.S." in North America usually means "European." This flawed view is going to bite us in the hind-end some day... (I'm suggesting that it already is). There is major movement in numismatics in East Asia. It's time we paid attention to it!