Published Price Guides

Okay, for example, a 1937D WLH in XF grade in one magazine is priced at $18, but jumps to $120 in AU50. How does that happen?

 

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I’d say that with a mintage of 1.6M, in XF and lower, the 37-D WLH is not worth much over melt value. Starting at AU, prices go up with every grade. Nothing unusual.

NGC’s price guide for the 37-D half dollar:
https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-explor...f-dollars-pscid-42/1937-d-50c-ms-coinid-16602

Note: realized auction prices are often
- slightly higher in XF as the PG value
- slightly lower in AU as the PG value

It seems there were so few certified low grade examples sold in the past years that there’s not much data.

 

Dealer to dealer isn't exactly real world collector relevant pricing. If collectors want to start buying sight unseen with no returns then sure, but there are plenty of retail aspects to get an idea for collectors

 

Price jumps by grade are extremely common and that's a very small price jump in the grand scheme of the market. The simple way to put it is higher grades generally cost more. It's like why does 80/20 ground beef cost less than a ribeye steak

 

I like to pay blue book.

 

I guess my confusion comes as to the values published in coin magazines. I find it hard to believe they just pulled numbers out of the air, but that's what I'm hearing here. I would expect them to draw the data from the same sources we do, auction sales and other online sources.

 

For a long time that was absolutely true. However now we have more than enough price transparency on various sales venues that most things its not necessary to know wholesale nor would most people want to sell for that price. It's very easy to see what you would get from most coins if sent to auction or sold online, you don't need to know wholesale to know the approximate price of a steak at the store this is no different.

They aren't

 

There are a lot of collectors who have a grade floor for their collections, i.e. a grade, below which, they are not interested in a coin for their set. This floor depends on the series or rarity, but for many series, a floor of MS60-XF45 is quite reasonable, as there are enough coins available to complete a set above those grades. The difference you see between these grades then, in part, is due to a sharp dropoff in demand below AU50. In addition to this, and as others have mentioned, for many series, coins of XF and below are simply more plentiful than AU and above as well.

So now you have a very high supply of XF coins, coupled with a sharp decrease in collector demand. This pushes the price down in this grade. The AUs may be much rarer, and add to that significantly higher collector demand, and this pushes the price higher, creating the spread you see.

 

The supply-demand-grade thing is complicated.

For example, Barber halves aren't nearly as popular as, say, Lincoln cents or Mercury dimes. There are quite a few Barber halves with mintages under 1,000,000 that can be had for melt value in low grades. Just try to find a 1921-D dime or a 1914-D cent for the price of a common date, even as a cull.

Get up to VF or higher, and suddenly there are no cheap Barber halves. As a whole, the series worked hard, and half a dollar was quite a lot of money to set aside just because it looked shiny.

Barber quarters are yet another story. There, the three keys have really low mintages, and will cost you dearly even as culls. Even the semi-keys seem to get more of a premium in low grades than the correspondingly low-mintage halves. On the other hand, most coins in the series don't spike in value until they get up past XF.

 

How is any of this different from the old Greysheet that you seem to like so much? Bid $100 Ask $200 doesn't tell me anything at all about who's bidding and who's asking these prices, where to buy the coin, or any other thing about it. Because it's based on sight unseen prices, it doesn't even tell me how much I should be expecting to pay for PQ coins with great eye appeal within the grade.

 

My microeconomics teacher was one the most dry boring people I have ever met in my entire life. The information I learned has proven useful throughout life, but sitting through those lectures was tortuous.

 

Although price guides are a quick research tool, valuing coins is not their best feature. All of these price guides gather information from sales online, specifically Amazon and Ebay which many buyers are NOT paying retail or real market value for these coins. Here is a quick note to ponder, if you are researching graded coins and the population of your grade is below 500 according to NGC & PCGS, triple the value they show as they are not accurate. I have a few dimes with mintages of 2,800,000 and population of 70 is 189 but, because some people purchased the same coin recently for far less, NGC values it at what the latest sales are which is incorrect and wrong.

So, use these guides cautiously and rely on populations more. These are true and real.

 

I only look at auction prices realized and then at specific lots for premiums etc. I watched all of Heritage Live auction last night and most lots went for way under price guide. The toned coins and top pops were the outliers, some going for many times price guide.
For example - there's a particular Morgan coming up for auction soon that is valued at 140$ pcgs price guide, but with CAC and toning will go for a lot more. Every coin but one in its category went for under 200$. The only coin I can find like this one went for a hefty and somewhat insane 2,300$. (I'm almost sure the bidder on this last coin made some sort of electronic error.)

 

4 figures or more is standard for the right toned Morgan’s especially with CAC.

 

@kanga originally asked:

From there, the thread seems to have gone onto opinionated explanations as to why none of them should be used or how dealers should set up their retail pricing schemes accordingly. Personally, I'm fine with that, but that is not the focus of the OP's original posting. He also pretty much gave the reason for asking:

(emphasis added)

Those two things pretty much stuck out at me when I first started reading this thread a few minutes ago. Yet, a lot of the responses have centered around using the very methods that were ruled out in the beginning.

Randy and cpm9ball both referenced the use of CDN publications as helpful. Santinidollar mentioned he used two of the publications you do "as advisory". I believe imrich gave great advise with:

I believe GD gave the best adivce for you right off the bat:

I would suggest that you can put your own notes directly on the guide of your choice since I would assume it is something that you intend to carry around with you as you go to shows or your LCS or flea market, etc. You know what it is you are on the hunt for, so I would suggest "doing your homework" each month at your leisure for those particular coins and putting your notes in your guide accordingly.

You can do something like highlight each coin/series by trend with fluorescent highlighter. Pink shows an historic downward trend, green an upward. These trends do not necessarily reflect current market liquidity, but gives you a pretty good idea. This can help in bargaining.

Jotting down some real world realized pricing on your guide for those coins you know you have an interest in (I would use percentages of your guide's published price) can help you get a feel for the current market in the series. This can help you get a ballpark of what you might expect with other coins within the series that you did not actually research.

Of course, especially at a show, if the price is not within expectations from your "homework", walk the bourse and get real time pricing from the many dealers that may have the same or similar coins. Always take notes.

The only true price of a coin lays in the agreement between the one who is asking a price and the one who is willing to pay a price. But your guide can most certainly be used as exactly that...a guide. Let it guide you in the direction you should go, but remember, it is not written on stone...only paper...and that paper is probably worth more than that which is written on it according to some.

 

True, I've seen the recent Ms63s on here going for close to and above 1k. The one I'm talking about was 64 prooflike with beautiful, golden obverse and highly colored reverse. Went pretty high, but not as crazy as the 63s above.

*crazy just meaning high, not actually insane.