Question to dealers, buy offers

I have collected for many years on and off. I have sold a few coins in the past, most were good transactions. I have also contacted dealers to sell and have been offered insulting prices for my coins, of course not selling to those dealers. Offering me 50 % of retail is an insult. $200 dollar coin offering me $100.00 ? come on, what's the real deal here ? If it's in the 50% bracket there is something wrong with this picture.


The question is what is the average percentage a dealer will offer a selling customer under the retail price ? I am sure this varies coin to coin but just average ?

I do not read grey sheets, blue sheets, pink sheets or any other sheets, wholesale prices, bid/buy or any of that, that's not part of my collecting sphere, I don;t mind at all paying retail for a coin I want, just don;t like getting offers to buy from me that are just unreasonable.

I am not knocking dealers, just want to know what a fair dealers opinion on this is.

Thanks Tony

 

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if you don't read anything then how do come up with a $200 value?

 

I read retail price guides... accurate enough for me on that level. Like I said I'll pay retail but offers are pretty poor.

 

The easiest way to arrive at FMV is to use the grey sheet, bid and ask.

A fair price is a %'age off of bid, say, 5% below bid, or 10%.

The dealer then sells at about bid or thereabouts.


So, if you do not use a reference point, then you will never know what a fair price may be.

 

Oh I see, then the Grey Sheet is needed to estimate offers I might get. So there is no % off retail I could use as a guide without referring to the Grey Sheet ? I assume these prices change weekly/monthly ? If I get an offer of 5 or 10 % off Greysheet bid it's a fair offer.

Thanks for the intellegent answer Other Frank........

Tony

 

Not all dealers are the same. Some will pay 50%, some 40%, and then some have buying formula's like Empire.

Key dates & most gold 80-85%
Coins over $100 75-80%
Coins over $50 75%
Coins $10-$50 65-75%
Coins $5-$10 60-75%
Coins under $5 50-60%

It pays to look around.

 

i think any retail guide is going to out of date by the time you get it. most price guides are totally wacked out anyway.

 

Tony:
You are welcome.
the problem with retail (trends prices) is that many of those prices are made in advance (for publication).

The Guide Book, which is probably the best known, is priced way in advance of publication, and in advance of the issue date.

Prices change rapidly in this market.
The greysheet for, say, Morgan $'s is updated weekly.
The monthly Greysheet lists popularly collected sets [Indian Head cents, Barber dimes, quarters and $1/2, and many other sets.].

Then there is the quarterly grey sheet, for less commonly traded coins, like dated early gold, etc.

Good luck.

If there is a particular piece that you are trying to sell perhaps post it here and someone will have a current Greysheet and can help you out with pricing.

 

Guides

Thanks,

Yes I realize guides are not completely accurate and the Guidebook is way out of whack. I would think though that in Trends types of guides it can't be that far off a few percent here and there i can live with. then again I might have had dealings with unreputable dealers too. Like I said all sells were not bad but some,,, wow.
Abe, if all dealers offered me 75% I would be satisfied, I was just curious how they go about their buy prices.
No I am not selling any coins now at all, this has just been on my mind. I do however have a Note I might be interested in selling, Do Note buy and bids work the same? I have seen so many different retail prices for the same note, same grade it got me thinking of this question.
I was asked in the Paper forum to post a pic, I'll work on it today. 1922 $10.00 Gold Cert it is FYI.

Tony

 

Tony, I recently took a coin to a local dealer. Now the bid was $645 and the ask was $700. The dealer offer was 25% back of bid. Of course I did not sell, because he was simply lowballing his offer and refused to get closer to FMV. At any Auction this coin will bring 900-$1000 easily. Your always going to run into dealers like this one. Shop around.

 

In my opinion it depends on when and what you were selling. From my experience talking to some big national dealers recently the bottom is falling out of some of the market at the moment. A good example is 1938 D walking liberty half dollars. These coins are still bid in the greysheet for $90-$120 in lower grades but I personally saw an entire roll of no problem VG-F's sell for $55 a coin last week. Other examples of coins like this are 1921 and 1928 peace dollars and semi key Lincolns. In a strong market a low bid would almost always mean that a dealer is trying to get you... but in a market like the one we are in now it might mean some softness. This transaction was dealer to dealer so there was no buying from the public involved here. It's just what they are worth right now. Don't get me wrong there are some pretty crummy people in this buisness but sometimes a low offer has to do with something that the general public doesn't understand and that they dont write about in any publication.

 

I agree LD. I failed to include in my previous statement the dealer stated that it is a bad market right now. While that may be the truth of the matter, the current grey sheet reflected that the bid/ask is still strong for this issue ( 1928 S SLQ MS65 ) and nicely toned to boot. Auction prices are very strong as well.

 

OK guys I see what you mean. Definately selling to a collector is the way to go I see in all cases. A collector like myself is willing to pay retail of slightly less for a coin, bill he might want I guess. Just doesn't seem to make sense to sell to dealers if you can find a collector instead. I'd much rather see something of mine in a collection instead of on a dealers table.

I understand the economy and the coin market is in a slump, but I would think that is taken into account before Trends/Greysheet is published. If not those values are useless. I sure don;t see dealers discounting anything due to the bad market, might be wrong though.

Tony

 

That does make a difference... I still like the SLQ market right now. It is off a bit (they just dropped the bids on some of the 1916's. some more then $500) The mid range stuff I think is ok right now tho.

 

Interesting discussion.

Thanks for your comments, LD.

Any other dealers' comments out there?

Any other opinions on the market?

 

Thank you for your insight. I really have no intention of offering this coin for sale at this time. I was simply testing the market and the dealer. $500 back of bid, WOW!

Thanks again LD.

 

One of the problems here is the usage of the word RETAIL PRICE. Unlike auto's, dishes, notebook paper, boats, staplers, etc., there is really no such thing as a retail price on coins except the face value. With a car you can look up a manufacturer's suggested retail price. Same with most products you see in stores. Theses are suggested but seldom actually used but at times are. Those are in reality are a retail price. Coins do not really have that.
There are numerous price GUIDES out there. They are just that, guides that someone made and may or may not have anything to do with actual prices. The famous Red Book is an example of that. So is the PCGS web site. The Red Book's prices are what may be someday, maybe, could be, might be. PCGS prices are raised to attract individuals to have their coins slabbed.
The Grey Sheet also is something that people make and many dealers use but is similar since it too is just a guide.
At coin shows many dealers I know have raised thier prices about 15 to 25% or more over the Grey Sheet since they know coin shows are like a flea market where customers haggle prices. Thier first reaction is to lower the prices by about 10%. Then as haggling continues, they lower the price by as much as the 15 to 25% and end up with what they originally wanted.
This entire hobby is like buying and selling houses. Start out way, way high and allow the purchaser to haggle it down to what everyone wanted in the first place. Such things makes all price guides just that, guides.

 

This is a difficult and complex subject, and there's non way to reduce it to a simple formula like, with all respect, "sell to a collector." As has been noted, there is an enormous disparity in accuracy between the between various prices guides (RedBook, GreySheet, CoinValues, etc.), and an enormous variability in the accuracy of those guides from series to series. For example, Grey Sheet prices on "tough date" Seated dimes are ludicrously low, but on Morgan dollars, still kind of high given current market conditions, which make the problem even harder by being very volatile (just look at silver prices this week).

As one Tony to another, I think the best advice you've received so far is to take every case individually and to do you homework on each item you wish to sell, especially those in the higher price range. Although it might seem like a pain in the butt, at some point, correctly pricing the item for the current market becomes part of the fun of collecting.

 

Thanks GD, Carl,

I know both of you are knowledgeable collectors so I take your advise seriously. I think my main point is either I bought a coin for a certain price, or the dealer has it in his case for a certain price, I think that's what the coin is worth, right? If I paid 100 bucks yesterday for a coin and today the dealer offers me 50 for it, there is a problem here, to me anyway, this has nothing to do with guides. Yesterday it was worth a hundred and today not ! ? Just don't get it, the markups. Guess like many people I am sick of paying high prices for everything I buy. If those guides are off so much they are better off not being printed then I think, that's crazy, then they are useless right ?

I do understand that everyday collector coins are common so the dealer might not want to offer a good price for them, then I think he should decline to give a price. I feel they look at sellers as suckers, may be wrong but....

I guess haggling is the way of the beast Carl. I have to remember that when I am at shows and I see something I like, offer peanuts like the dealers do and haggle on from there, as I have no idea how much his stuff is marked up. Is he a fair guy or a PT Barnum.

I see that the low offers might be fair offers, but it just kills me that I can lose so much on a purchase in a very short time, I guess it's like everything else, once you buy it it's worth something only to you, to everyone it's junk.

Just saddens me that in everything including hobbies it's all about making a buck. I guess I will be hodling on to my feeble collection for a long time as I see I'd lose my shirt if I ever tried to sell anything. I think this is why collectors become "dealers". buy at wholesale for their own collections, must be nice. How many hacks like that are out there ?

Granted I am very opinionated but I am by no means degrading dealers, but I prefer a dealer that was a collector first, someone that really likes coins, not a guy in the coin business just to make bucks. I'm sorry it just turns me off in that it has become a business like any other instead of a hobby where people are treated fairly. I am thankful to the few dealers I have done business with, quality dealers.

Thanks Tony