Help a newbie understand why the Red Book has the value at $21 and you can buy them for $6-$7. Thanks
I don't think this is neccesarily the case. I'd say their actually pretty close to the sale prices I see, and often pay for nice grade examples in this series. To date, I've hand selected hundreds of Washingtons in MS grades. Dealers aren't straying too far from RB prices for nice examples. Don't get me wrong, their quick to offer crap coins at a discount....and ebay...well.... I think there's obviously something to be said for examining a coin in hand. Their prices are generally lower because confidence is far lower.
is it graded by ngc, pcgs or even anacs? if so then yes, don't trust the others and always buy the coin not the slab. does it look like an ms-65?
Learn to grade coins and grade the coin yourself. Pay what you think the coin is worth, not what the slab dictates the coin should be worth.
exactly what ltrain said. yea, if you paid $7 and its not a 65, its not a big loss. but if its just in a 2x2 or some generic slab and says ms65 by sgs or joes smoes world class grading company etc.. without knowing how to correctly grade a coin, you could be buying a cleaned coin or a lower grade then advertised, and anything below MS in that year is worth about a quarter. even the top grading companies will sometimes let a coin get passed and into a higher grade slab then they should, so if you want a nice example you should learn what the coin in the grade you want, should look like. could you get pictures of the coin you are looking at buying? edit never mind about the picture. i wouldn't pay $7 each for what you are being offered!
What happened to "always buy the coin not the slab"? They are in the original rolls. What would a typical coin like that grade out at? Thanks for you advice.
They could grade anywhere from MS60-MS70... there's such a degree of variance that I couldn't possibly tell you what they'll grade out at... Average I would guess is about MS63 or so. The reality is slabbing a coin costs money, and lends credence to the condition and value of the coin. Plus, when we say buy the coin, not the slab, that means judge the coin on it's own merits, not what the slab says. Think about this... you buy a hot dog at the ballgame, and you get a MS condition 1987 quarter in your change. Do you put it aside? I don't... they simply will never carry a big premium with so many made. For the record, they made 1.055 billion quarters in 1986. That's 1,055,000,000 quarters.
You'd be buying mostly 63's and a 64 or two, beat up ones to boot. As I suspected, you weren't being offered 65's and would have been taken for a ride.