I am really a rookie at the coin collecting deal. I was surfing through ebay and ran across some mercury dimes for sale (in the ms65 to ms67 range) I found a couple of pricing guides online and descovered that the coins for sale on ebay were running anywhere from a half to a third of the guide value. How can these guys sell coins so cheap. I've done enough research to be familiar with the grading process and the coins I was looking at were NGC certified (which I'm told is excellent. So... what gives? How come so cheap?
There is no single answer, but a few of the many possibilities are: Some sellers start all their auctions at very low prices. Usually these are for widely collected coins, where the seller can reasonably anticipate getting multiple bids to drive the price up to market value. Other sellers overstate what they are selling - claiming that a replica is an MS65, for example. They too start low, hoping to catch one of the folk who paid P.T. Barnum an admission fee in order to see the egress! Occasionally a seller is legitimately ignorant of the value of what he's selling (yeah, sure ).
Welcome to the forum! I would advise you to be careful on the high end Mercury Dimes. Demand for these coins tends to fluctuate wildy and the price guides never reflect the reality of the market. If you want a more accurate weekly price guide to give you a general idea of what the Mercs are going for, check out the Coin Dealer Newsletter at http://www.greysheet.com/. It costs money, but it is well worth the investment. Check your prices in the CND "Greysheet" and then take a look at the realized prices on eBay. This will give you a feel for what they really sell for on the open market. And, BE VERY CAREFUL about purchasing any high end MS64+ material online that is raw as opposed to certified by PCGS or NGC.
If the coins are graded by NGC - the problem isn't with the coins selling too cheap. The problem is with the price guide listing the values too high As cdcda said - the Greysheet is the price guide that comes closest. But what many collectors fail to understand is this - not all MS65 graded coins are equal. You can have two Morgan dollars - same date, same mint mark, same grade, and same grading company - but one sells for $100 and the other sells for $150. There is a lot more to learn than just buying the plastic slab
One other thing to really pay attention to is who says it is MS-65. As you will find many times on this forum there are many grading companies, and many people who claim to be able to grade. Look for the big four: NGC PCGS ANACS ICG All raw and other companies should never be bought at premiums, until your grading skills are very, very good.
I consider myself very fortunate to have stumbled across this forum Thanks for the info! I can see I have a whole lot to learn, but I've found a really great resource. Lincoln64
