Is this site for real? It seems that the prices are highly inflated. For example, it shows the minimum value of a bad condition 1954-S nickel as $2.15 which seems high to me.
Well mate it is just like any coin company prices are very inflated look at littleton coin for example i only bought from their when i started as soon as i started buying a lot of coins i stopped buying from them. Look they want 55 dollars for a 2 cent coin in good condition on ebay it would bring around 5-6 dollars !! Thats how companies roll !!
CoinTrackers is just an informational website, and don't sell or buy coins. That being said, the value estimates seem to even be above Redbook.
I use numismedia.com for most of my pricing. At a glance it seems updated frequent enough and usually has what i consider to be fair prices listed for most series. The answer on this is to always use multiple sources when valuing a coin. Price guides for references and ball park figures, then past completed auctions from Heritage and ebay make for a good starting point when trying to put a *true* value on your coin. Or you can do what i always do and just go by the price guide and always figure about 80% of that is what your coin should be worth in an ideal setting.
+1 for numismedia.com, they seem to be somewhat conservative in their valuations. The best price guide will always be "sold" Ebay auctions IMHO, you take an average of the last 25 or so auctions and that will give you your best idea of what someone is willing to pay.
I would advise using ebay as you suggested and doing a separate average from Heritage. That way you can see if they are close, either way you could average the totals and see where you fall for the ideal best representation. Ebay has a tendency to give you an inflated value due to ignorant buyers sometimes so comparing against one more third party couldnt possibly hurt. With the averages done, I would then double check back to numismedia and verify where their value was at. At least you will know if they are even in the same ball game after a little leg work
I don;t know if they are for 'real' or not. I am frustrated by the lack of a way of contacting them. Their listing of coins is erratic. I have at least one Morgan date/mint variation they just pass over without any mention. Likewise they mention the Morgan Dollar and the Seated Liberty Dollar, so where are the Trade dollars? How can we speak of silver Seated Liberty Half dollars and Capped Bust quarters without any mention of the Capped Bust Half Dollars? 'Barber OR Liberty' dime? I think they are different, but what do I know? Seems to me if the need for the OR was a # of captions limit, then up above somewhere should have been 'Seated Liberty OR Capped Bust Half Dollars'. Regarding their prices, oh my. Me and several other Ebay sellers need to raise our prices. Big time for some coins. Alternatively on some coins I must have gotten very good buys. Oh gee, I overpaid for some too. Their price issue is that they include auction prices in the value. Including the highest auction prices isn't an accurate assessment of the value of a given coin you own. Yeah once every 30 years an idiot throws money at an auction instead of buying a very similar coin at a coin store or even on Ebay for 1/10th the price. That doesn't mean you should include occasional acts of the deranged in your calculations of your collections value. If you did that then maybe your old snot rags would someday be worth zillions to a collector of old snot rags so you should hold them, instead of being something you chuck into the trash. Seriously, the problem prices there are only on a few coins (TG) but when they crop up, oh my. CT com is still, to me, a fairly useful website. A lot of good pictures and a fast info source without a need to register for an account before looking something up, which is of course a total pain in the rear whenever we encounter that.
