Is there a site you look at first to set the price? I trust auction results the most but find myself looking at several sites to come up with a value. I always come up with a price but the time it takes for a large group of coins gets crazy. Any thoughts?
I cheat. I use the TPG price guide for NGC. I figure that's a defensible # to use for my NGC submission. And it really doesn't matter that much. The breakpoint in shipping cost is $25,000. If I had coins worth that, I could afford shipping.
For common coins I normally use 4/3 of Greeysheet Bid. For coins where Greysheet is all wet, I use multiple applicable auction references, if available.
If you ship USPS the value is what you paid, not what’s it’s worth and you must have a receipt for it.
According to what? The USPS website and my own personal experience with my one insurance claim do not support that. https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/503...TQ2OC4xLjEuMTcyNTAzNTU4NC4wLjAuMA..#ep1233442
If you ship coins even a few times per year, simply getting a Hugh Wood policy at the "gold" level or above will pay for a long way towards your insurance shipping costs. I save $30+ in "insurance" money every time I send Priority mail or Registered mail to CAC / PCGS /NGC when I decline insurance in both directions. In terms of your original question, this then becomes less of an issue when choosing how to value your coins for insurance reasons, although all companies still want you to chose a value even if you decline additional USPS insurance. I personally use the retail pricing on NGC price guides and PCGS prices guides when I need to come up with a number.
At Hugh Wood, I see people are paying about $4 per $1000 of value, give or take - in your experience, would that be for the gold plan? And is that annually, every 6 months, monthly? Thanks in advance.
My Gold plan is ~ $8.50 per $1000 yearly. I would be paying for that anyways, even if I didn't ship coins. I have too often been lazy and paid for insurance TWICE, meaning paid for it from USPS or CAC for instance, when I already had it through HWI. That's the part that really I try and save people money on. The CAC Return Shipping form took me all of 5 minutes to fill out, once I actually sat down and did it. Its on file for life, so its a once-and-done. And declaring ZERO dollars on USPS registered mail/ priority mail for the additional insurance takes no effort. I haven't actually had a HWI claim yet, so this of course is all "buyer beware". p.s. One time I thought I might have a claim, and in dealing with HWI I had a positive vibe, but in the end, I was able to avoid a claim altogether.
Insurance "value" when you ship coins is a JOKE. Unless slabbed/certified, the US post office will only "value" any shipped coins at face value.. Yeah that means your ms62 1793 silver $1 is worth $1 according to US Postal Insurance at least as far as they are concerned.... Or at least this has been my experence in the past with lost coin packages.. Maybe they have changed since then but I doubt it.. DO NOT depend on US postal insurance to pay out jack-crap if they lose you package.
I’m retired postal management. And it’s a battle to try and collect. The local post office can not pay out on a claim until instructed to do so.
I have Hugh Wood now and pay $3.50 per $1000. I called them and a policy that would also insure what I ship was going to cost me an extra $800 per year. That did not work for me.
This is good info. I've read elsewhere of a few instances of people filing claims and having nothing but positive experiences. The insured while in transit is a great perk - I've spent $35 on insurance to TPGs in the past 2 months and that doesn't include what they charge to insure the packages on the trip back to me.
I guess I am the odd man out. I tend to undervalue what I ship. Not saying I don’t trust USPS, but on three occasions I have had corporate checks pilfered out of the mail in the last two years. I am of a mind that if I insure high value pieces, that all I am doing is putting a big “TAKE ME” sign on my package.
I'm looking for ways to increase my speed of shipping large groups of coins to an auction house. My current method is really slow because of the research time to come up with an honest market value. The way it is, First I'm looking up the values that PCGS and NGS publish. Next I start researching actual auction results. I get really close to what they bring at auction but it's a long process. With USPS Registered/Insured. I have one or two dollars in shipping per coin. That works for me. I like @ToughCOINS idea of using Greysheet. I think that may be my answer to speeding things up.
A big advantage of private insurance (mine at least) is that you are required to put a big fat zero for value on the shipping form. Chances are that when a thief is selecting packages to steal, ones with a zero for value on the label get skipped. Cal
This was recently added/ updated by PCGS, thought it was timely. https://www.pcgs.com/news/how-to-determine-the-declared-value-of-your-coins
My agent quoted me a collectibles policy about $6.50 per $1000 in value, that includes transit in the mail, but doesn't include gold or platinum. Or bullion rounds/bars.
