Greetings from a newbie poster. I have a question on the Red Book if I may. Does anyone know what are the basis spot prices for gold and silver, for the 2017 book? I've always found it odd that they don't have those in there, at least from what I can find (if they're there, they seem to be well hidden). A google search doesn't seem to turn up anything. Thanks.
First, welcome to the neighborhood! It would be useless to include spot prices in the Red Book since it is only published once a year, and the spot prices can change from minute to minute. Chris
Kind of like how stock prices fluctuate. A printed guide for the value of penny stocks would be worthless, as such stocks like GST an go from 80 cents to $1.20 in a week.
I think the Krause catalog of world coins has a spot price table, or it might have been another US price guide I've seen. In that table, it showed a group of coins' melt values at different spot prices, like 10 an ozt, 15 ozt, 20 ozt, etc. Such a table has its uses if you don't have the internet, but it's probably easier to just look online at coinflation or somewhere else
In the 2017 Mega Red Book, page 1256, there is a spot value used for bullion pricing. Silver($17/oz.), gold($1200/oz), and platinum($1400/oz). I did not find bullion spot price in the smaller Red Book edition.
All the pricing info in the Red Book is out of date BEFORE the book is even released. Lag time is anywhere from 6 mos. to a year. The only reason for the Red Book to even publish bullion spot prices is so that the reader can get an idea of the basis for the published values of bullion related/influenced items.
If you want current spot prices. Gold: http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html Silver: http://www.kitcosilver.com/charts.html
For most series after about 1850 you can look at the lowest values listed, and those are the ones that are based pretty much just on the metal value. Coins that have a higher value have some numismatic value too. Coins that are significantly more valuable have primarily numismatic value. So you might see double eagles listed $1,300 1,350 1,400... that's primarily the gold value with a tiny premium. Then you'll see a Charlotte piece listed at $5,000 and that's primarily numismatic value. Is today common date double eagles are selling for $1,500 then you'd expect the common ones to be about $200 more than in the red book. However the Red Book prices - besides being dated because of the book's publication schedule - are high retail and not really a particularly good price guide anyway.
See pages 440 & 441 -- Tables of Bullion Values for silver & gold U.S. coins. These are NOT numismatic values. They are just the value of a coin's silver or gold content -- at different spot prices. Very handy for determining prices for "junk" silver.
Wow - thanks for all the responses! My replies/questions: Yes I realize this - I'm not expecting to get the *current* spot price in the book; just what was used as basis to help determine the prices on coins that have a lot of bullion value. Usually I'll check a site like kitco to get the current spot price. Yes this is why I was wanting to get it. Yes that's pretty much what I figured. As such - it seems like the closest one to "pure bullion" would be the American Buffalo (I just now realized), which is $1,350 for Uncirculated (page 369). That would seem to indicate that the spot price at the time of publishing was somewhere $1,320 - 1,340 or so, if one figures say a few $ premium for the coin itself. Yes - this is what I'm looking for. Guess the standard Red Book (463 pages for 2017) doesn't have it. $1200 for gold seems to indicate that the Mega Red Book is very different than the "standard" Red Book, which seems to have a spot basis somewhere around $1300-1350 or so. So then for instance if I wanted to buy a 1912 VF-20 St. Gaudens - that shows a value of $1,300 (page 287). If I knew that the "base spot price" of gold at the time of that $1,300 valuation was say $1,270, that means the coin's generally worth (retail) about $30 over the per-ounce price of gold. So if I went to buy next month, and at the time gold was say $1,400 spot - then I would expect to have to pay $1,430 for that coin. No one would sell it for the $1,300 shown in the book, because price was determined back when gold was $1,270; gold's now gone up by $130 an ounce so the coin would go up by roughly the same amount (perhaps a bit less, since it's not quite a full oz). So anyhow - like I say I'm guessing spot was around $1,330-1,340 (?). It'd be nice to somehow know for sure though. I wish they would publish it in this book like they did the Mega Red Book. (Same principle applying to silver etc. of course)
I would say they still used the $1200/oz as spot for the gold coinage as well. A 1912 St. Gaudens VF-20 lists at $1300 in the Mega Red Book also. Anything of lower grade would command spot price of gold. As a side note, the first edition Mega Red Book used the same values for bullion pricing. The question is does the coin in higher grades also go up in pricing proportionally with the increase in bullion spot values as the lower grade does? There is not a lot of difference, value wise, between grades on a lot of gold coins. Maybe the margins between grades shrinks as spot rises and vice a versa as spot falls. I don't have enough references for that answer.
Wow that's remarkable. I looks to me like the prices in the red books are seriously high, at least for bullion-type coins. Would you agree with that? To use the car analogy - seems like that's the "list price"; but anyone who actually pays that price is a fool - you should be able to get them, from a retail dealer even, for far less. And likewise if you were selling some you probably wouldn't get anything near the prices shown in the book, even if you sold them to someone who generally operated on a thin margin. Taking the buffalo for example - I've typically bought those for about $15-20 over spot. (I say typically but it was really just a couple times, a few years ago) But the book shows them $150 over spot (if spot basis really is $1200). Those pretty much have zero numismatic value though of course. (Side note - I usually don't care that much about bullion-type coins; right now however I'm looking to sell some for a relative. I've bought a fair amount of coins before, for my own collection - both numismatic and bullion; what I haven't done is sell coins. So I'm kind of feeling my way in the dark, and I do appreciate the help from folks!)
Ebay and auction house completed listing for what was actually sold is your best source for the vast majority of pricing for selling. Red book is solid as just a general informational guide but just ignore all of the pricing information in it. The only good any of the pricing does is show you where things are more valuable then others but the actual prices might not be within spitting distance of the real prices. For pure bullion coins with no numismatic premium at all you are probably better off selling to a local store if they have decent buying prices. The fees and shipping costs of ebay or another online selling front will often eat up any pricing difference even if they sell for more online without a wide spread between the online prices and the shops offer
