when i bought my $20 liberty head gold coin (mid to high AU grade) it was when gold prices were at about $490, now the gold prices is almost $100 over what it was when i bought the coin. i've purchased the coin for $600 and noticed on ebay the same coin in same or higher grades still sell for around $580-$600 at most. i didn't buy the coin in hopes for a profit but still, something is wrong here :rolling:
If it's a common date/MM, when gold was at $490, you probably paid a bit on the high side for it (maybe not too much, but probably on the upper end instead of the lower end). The common date coins in XF/AU mostly trade just a bit above melt. Also, if they're unslabbed coins, I would think that people might be a little bit leary about paying big prices on e-bay, so they may be currently going for a hair less than they would if they were slabbed by a reputable company. Also, your coin that you bought is now a pretty good deal at current gold prices, so count yourself okay. :thumb:
vision, I'll bet that tcore is probably correct. Knowing the date/mint mark would help out a lot. Common date DEs in XF/AU could be had for as little as $475 when gold was at $450 an ounce. Those same coins now sell for $590-$600 with gold at $565 an ounce.
I looked at this problem about a year ago and studied the prices of common date $20 liberties in relation to melt value over a number of years. There is variation from year to year, but this is what seemed to qualify as close to "average" pricing over long periods of time. VF - melt plus $50 XF - melt plus $75 AU - melt plus $100 [so your purchase price was reasonable] low MS - melt plus $150 Lower prices seemed to be bargains, higher prices seemed to be overpaying. The lowest prices achieved seemed to be about $50 per grade lower than the above prices, and probably are great buy prices if history is any guide. So if you can buy an AU coin now for $600, you probably should grab it because it's probably a tremendous bargain at the low end of the price range. I havent' seen any that cheap personally, and I wouldn't trust EBAY claims about grading. There were a couple of times when VF coins actually sold for almost double the melt value in the past, which turned out to be a terrible time to buy but a good time to sell. Interestingly, when gold prices were rising, the premiums seemed to fall most of the time. Maybe more people rush to sell when prices move higher than they were in the recent past, I don't know. So I would say your AU is now worth about $660 with gold around $580. Whether you can get that price is another matter. If you can't, wait awhile and there is a good chance you will if the price of gold holds up. All markets are unpredictable, including coins. Keep in mind that this is my personal guideline based on a study that I won't claim is scientific or statistically valid. I'm more of an investor than collector, so keep that in mind too. My opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it. But it's what I use.
When you allow yourself to buy VF specimens of these, you really are not getting them for much over melt, and the markup is just a bit higher than that for an AGE. Nothing like a 130+ year old bullion piece
Along the lines of what Cloud wrote..... On April 1, 2005 I bought the exact same coin you have. It is a solid AU-53, raw. The 2nd London fixing for gold on 4/1/05 was $427.15. I purchased the coin for $499. So, Cloud's estimates are pretty close, at least in this case.
