I look at a lot of different raw coins on ebay and would like to know what guide is the best to use. I normally pull up 2-3 different guides that come with google search, but notice some prices vary a lot. I know the adage, the coin is worth what someone will pay for it. Don't want to bid or pay much more than a acceptable source has it valued for the grade I think the coin falls in. I don't read what seller describes as the grade, it has to have decent pictures, seen many,many cleaned and polished listed as BU.
For a lot of coins, particularly moderns, there is no good price guide. You just have to use your best judgement. Chris
Use as many references as you can get. Auction and dealer pricing is also a good reference point. If you were to use just one guide I would stick with the Red Book. It has the most publications and is probably used by the seller also. I have done some price guide compilation for some coins I am thinking about collecting the whole series. I found that there was not one price guide that was better than any other. The more expensive a coin was the more fluctuation of prices there was among the various references. There were price swings from guide to guide in the thousands on high end coins. Most price guides for lower grade coins and inexpensive coins were in sync with each other. Those type coins did not vary by more than a few dollars.
I use these just to get me in the ballpark. Why? Because I don't have a clue. Google + eBay + auctions + Red Book + http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/ + http://www.pcgs.com/prices/ + http://coinauctionshelp.com/United_States_Coin_Mintages_Price_Guides.html#.V9RPFbWNOhm + best judgement.
The PCGS Auction Results site, http://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/ , has all of the Heritage archive as part of what it lists, but also adds Stacks, Great Collections and others. Pretty good place to start if what you're looking for is listed there. If you're shopping for things not in that league, Ebay generally has a sufficiently-large group of previous sales still available at any one time to form a fairly good opinion of what people are paying today for the coin. And that is the only real indicator of the price you should pay, what others are paying right now for it, because they're the folks who will be outbidding you if you decide they're paying too much. However, there's a lot of mental filtering which must go along with considering Ebay results, because of the high percentage of bidiots.
