I purchased 2 gold coins in sealed boxes with fancy hologram seals in 2003 from [not sure I am allowed to mention a dealer name]. According to the dealer - they are worth 40% LESS than I paid for them eight years ago - to HIM. Any ideas what happened to these coins - or is his "worth now" value way low - or did I get screwed on the purchase I'm a new Coin Talk member [yesterday] ... thanks. [TABLE="width: 400"] Year Coin Grade paid in 2003 Worth in April '11 1854 $5 Liberty NGC AU 58 $985 $600 1855 $10 Liberty MS 60 $4250 $2400 [/TABLE]
Dealers always buy low and sell high. That's how they stay in business. NGC has a price guide for their graded coins.
Technically yes a coin can go down in value if you bought it when that series was hot and at the top of the frenzy. When you bought them I think you may have over paid and while now your trying to sell them he (the dealer) is giving you his buy price, remember he needs to make money to stay in business and pay his bills to. With that said dealer to dealer wholesale price is $825 for the 1854 and $3750 for the 1855 $10. If your looking for full retail do a completed search on Ha.com,Teletrade,and Ebay
That is correct. Expect a dealer to pay you less than those figures. Unfortunately it appears you overpaid when you bought the coins. If you had not overpaid you should have realized a profit thanks to the HUGE increase in the price of gold over that time.
As we all did at some point or other you probably overpaid. Even though the spot price of gold has increased the dealer buy back prices are at a multi-year low.
Shoot Jim, ya had me goin' there for a second with that "fancy hologram seals". Almost thought I was listening to "coin vault" segment. Then the epiphany......you're talkin' slabs. Sheesh, nothin' gets past me. I've nothing more to add except to say Welcome to the forum.......
[TABLE="class: cms_table"] 1854 $5 Liberty NGC AU 58 $985 [/TABLE] Back in 2003 this coin was selling in a price ranging from $630-$775 depending on how nice the coin was for the grade. [TABLE="class: cms_table"] 1855 $10 Liberty MS 60 $4250 [/TABLE] In 2003 this one was selling for about $2700. So as already stated, the problem is not what the coins are worth now - but what you paid for them back then.
This is a graphic illustration of the "rare coins are a bad investment" concept. It's not that the coins themselves necessarily lose value, although they certainly can. It's that most people can only buy such coins at prices well above their "value", and can only sell such coins at prices well below that value. If you can only work with a local dealer, based on what I've heard here and elsewhere, there's something like a 40% spread between buy price and sell price. And if you've got a not-so-nice dealer, the spread could be much higher. In other words, if you've got a good, honest dealer, you can buy a coin, hold on to it until it's appreciated 40%, sell it back to that dealer -- and you still might lose money. If your dealer is a bit greedier, you might need to wait until the coin has doubled or tripled in value, which may or may not ever happen.
But that isn't true at all, nor is it the problem. The problem is that people don't take the time to educate themselves before they buy coins. They buy coins having no idea at all what the coins are really worth. It's very easy to find out what coins are really worth, and it's very cheap as well. Anybody, anywhere can buy the necessary copies of the Grey Sheet for about $20 to find out the current value of any US coin. They can also access all of the Heritage records - for free - and look up the realized auction prices for any US coin. They can go to any coin forum - for free - and ask about the value of any coin. But people don't do that. Instead what they usually do is buy the coin, THEN they go and try and find out what that coin is worth. And that method is completely backwards from what they should be doing. Yeah, there are unscrupulous dealers out there who take advantage of people every day. But it takes two to tango. And nobody can take advantage of you unless you let them take advanatge of you. If you go and buy a coin or coins and pay too much for them - it's your own fault and nobody else's. You and only you are responsible for your own actions.
