"Houston we have a problem....."

Went to purchase a new book at the local store and noticed an immediate difference in two well known books. The 2016 Red Book and the 2016 Blue Book. Both are pictured and I went to a specific area, Morgan Silver Dollars and wow. What a difference in price of the same coin at the same grade. There is a huge swing in the price not only on Morgan's but every coin in each book.
So question, do you trust these books, if so which would you use or do you just stick with the 'Gray-sheet' ?

 

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You do know, I'm assuming, that Blue is buying and Red is selling and the difference is profit?

 

Apparently being a stupid newbie got the best of me. Where do we draw the line in the difference of the two when we purchase coins ?

 

The Red Book has a lot more information and gives the prices that the coins sell for. The Blue Book is the values the dealers will pay.

 

And both are long out of date by the time you buy them.

 

Somewhere in the Purple book region as near to Blue as we can get!

 

This is a learning experience, but both are out of date ?

 

It takes so long to create and print the book that by the time they do the prices in them have changed. Prices change often so a book printed once a year isn't going to be accurate.

 

So then I should go by 'gray sheet' ?

 

I believe so. Others can correct me.

 

The bluebook is utterly worthless, even for its supposed purpose. Anyone, dealer or otherwise, using it as their sole buy price reference isn't worth your time unless, perhaps, for the most common of widgets. The Redbook certainly has redeeming qualities due to the other information provided within. However, the problem with listed values has nothing to do with being outdated, but is because of how the values are determined. One cannot simply go back to the time they were compiled and say that at that moment in time, they were valid.

 

I use completed auction results, ebay is handy for lower value material, Heritage is nice for other stuff. For ancients there are a couple searchable databases of completed auctions.

 

so burn the Blue Book ?

 

It's a better option, yes, but no price guide is absolute, and depending on the types that interest you, the CDN can, and often is, as unrealistic as others. Or, perhaps I should say this is how it has been as they're now under new ownership, and there have been concerns expressed about how values will be determined going forward.

Knowing your market is key to determining value/prices, wholesale or retail.

 

The Red book will always be an important reference source but the prices are not realistic. I stopped buying both a very long time ago and use mostly online resources. I am surprised that the Blue Book still is worth printing at all. Even Numismatic News monthly coin prices is more up to date than most other publications, especially when new varieties are found, even though it should only be used as a guide and not an end all resource. The same goes for Coin World, IMHO.

 

A dealer I trust said that data for the 2016 book starts being gathered in early 2015 so the quoted prices are that far out of date.

 

Please, do not consider yourself stupid. You were (past tense) uneducated in this area. Now you know so learn from this experience and put what you have learned to good use. I could say more but that has already been said by others.

 

Newbie again I spent $14 on the book

 

And that's exactly why I quit buying them..... now to get rid of the few I do have