Please explain something to me b/c I have had been out of the market for awhile

I was browsing Ebay and I noticed that sellers are asking $400-$500 over gray sheet bid for PCGS MS63-MS64 $5-$10 gold pieces. Nowadays do sellers really expect their coins to fetch $500 over gray sheet? back in the olden days I buy/sell near gray/blue sheet all day long.

 

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On the whole, prices on eBay are inflated. You can score a deal here or there. But remember, sellers on eBay are swallowing a 7-13% fee. If people don't think this is being passed on to the consumer, they are wrong. Also, don't search for listed prices, search for SOLD listings. Just because they are asking $500 over doesn't mean they are getting it.

 

I agree with all of this, and especially the part about looking for actual transactions. There are plenty of crazy people that will ask ridiculous prices for overgraded, low end material.

 

I agree with the other posters. I think of most Ebay nowadays as that idiot table at the coin show, (most have them), that has everything on his table 40% above retail. Sure he will have some nice coins, but that is because no one who is knowledgable ever buys anything from him. Even his run of the mill and dreck is massively overpriced though. I don't even look at BIN except for one or two sellers I know since I am sure 99% of BIN's are overpriced, and why waste time?

 

Also, at lot of them add "or best offer" to their asking price. What coins I do buy from Ebay are the sellers that fall into that category.

 

I still browse eBay all the time, but mostly for most bullion coins. I agree there are many BIN's priced too high. I simply move past them. Frankly, I have found Great Collections to have just as many unrealistic prices on many of their auctions and BIN's. It's the auctions that the starting minimum bid is above market pricing that I'm talking about.

In fairness to GC, they have great customer service and offer a reasonable fee for consigning material to them. I think these "high" initial bids are due to the seller of the coin being into the coin too deep and they (the consignor) refuse to lose money, so the starting bid is too high.

 

I noticed many of GC's prices start out exactly at Redbook prices. Also I think CG's fees are a bit too high as well. But that's just me. Granted I've gotten two coins from there that I have been having trouble finding, and since I don't plan on selling either, I dealt with the fees. I felt I ate it more on the fees than the actual price of the coin. I do understand they need to make money. I am also on the lookout for a 1912 St. Gaudens. That one is eluding me also. At least one I can afford with no defects.

 

Interesting strategies -- in my (stamp) categories, I look at Buy-It-Now first. But this morning about 7 (crazy time to end an auction), I bought $75-100 worth of stamps for $13.

My favorite seller is any guy with 100 listings, where 99 are auto parts, movie posters, or football cards, and just 1 is stamps or coins.

 

I see high prices at heritage, great collections, and at shows. I cant imagine many dealers being succesful selling at grey sheet bid. I know i dont want anything in my collection that can be had at bid.

 

I don't know why anyone spends even 5 seconds fretting over some dealer's prices; there's hundreds of dealers offering thousands of coins in virtually every category of numismatic collectible. Move on, and spare us the hand-wringing. Life's too short!

 

If that were the case then I would not bring these coins to the show b/c I'll be too ashamed to quote someone 40% over gray sheet bid.

 

I encourage you to take the coins to the show, after all, unless you think it will hurt your reputation. It's good experience to be on the wrong side of the trade just a few times, helps clarify your thinking and your dealings with customers.

 

Why? I often buy coins for over 40% of bid.

 

Where were you when I was setting up at coin shows 20+ yrs ago?

 

high school

 

I would consider myself a fair trader/dealer/salesman. Not that I am a coin "dealer" by any means. But I have in fact sold coins before to fuel my purchases. A year or two ago, after a conversation very similar to this thread with a friend who is a full time coin dealer, I listed a coin, a graded coin, for TRIPLE the book value. It was probably worth $150-175 according to NGC. Luckily, there were no others on eBay at the time. So in the title and description, I said that. I said "only available one!".....And, with a BIN at $500 or best offer, I had 3 offers within an hour. AN HOUR. I countered all 3 with the same $475 counteroffer, and I had one accept it within 5 mins.

At the next weeks coin show, I printed out the listing, and the buyers accepted $475 offer for my friend. I asked if he remembered the coin. He knows I paid $75 for it. When he saw the buyers accepted offer, I had to scrape his chin off the floor. There is a term for these buyers. BIDIOTS. Now, I did feel kind of bad, so I sent a common date BU Morgan with it. With a message saying something like "I am a dealer just starting out, trying to get my name out there, please accept this Morgan as a gift of my appreciation"...aye yay yay

 

Why? Were you selling at less than 40% of bid?

Big difference in the statements "I often buy coins for over 40% of bid." and " I often buy coins for 40% over bid."

 

Got it!

 

You can ask whatever you want, but what have they sold for?