In my experience I know quite a few dealers use the grey sheet as a price guide. But some of us cant justify the cost of some publications due to the small amount of coin purchases we actually make in a year for example. I was just wondering what publications or coin price guides have proven to be most helpful and/or reflect fair market coin values so as to be able to make informed decisions on prices paid for coins.
There will never be a single coin pricing guide that will give you accurate numbers. It is best to use several different sources. I’d recommend Heritage Auctions Records, PCGS Auction Records, eBay, and the NGC Price Guide.
https://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/ This doesn’t get everything as I think some didn’t want to be included anymore but it’s a pretty good source too.
PCGS and NGC to get close. Not a lot of good pricing sources for low end Lincolns so mostly by feel on the low end. But I don’t sell so if I price them it’s just for fun! All part of the hobby I guess I should enjoy that part more. Thanks for the reminder. Reed.
Coin World also has a free guide on line but their prices often are a bit low. All of the sources cited above are good.
My rule of thumb for NGC coin explorer/PCGS Price Guide values: PG -20% for an average coin, PG value for better coins (great eye appeal, luster, some toning, etc.), PG +20% for superb coins or rainbow toners. E.g. a 1945-D MS 66+ 50C is at $250 (PCGS) or at $270 (NGC) respectively. I paid about $280 for an outstanding PCGS example with rainbow toning and a CAC sticker. I wouldn’t have paid $200 for a white coin w/o CAC sticker and I found some PCGS graded coins which sold for less than that in 2017.
Pcgs CoinFacts for a more retail price and I use the auction records link on it. I have it on my phone and of course the greysheet
It depends on the coin(s). To save time I go straight to Grey Sheet For something common . . . for something scarce or rare I use auction records. Caution . . . using auction prices realized without opening up the auctions and actually looking at the coins is ill-advised.
Can’t agree more. So many times a coin that sells cheap is ugly and one that goes high is original eye appealing and cac approved
US coins? I primarily use Numismedia, though I usually cross-reference that with the PCGS priceguide and the Red Book. For World Coins, I primarily use the NGC World Coin Price guide, which gets its data from the Krause Standard Catalog. For Ancient Coins, I really should be using ACSearch like most savvy collectors seem to do, but what I actually do more often is compare the retail prices of similar coins for sale on the VCoins online mall, and rely an awful lot on gut instinct and my opinion of a coin's eye appeal. For Exonumia, one really has to use past auctions for a reference. I've been a collector of love tokens in the past, and used a lot of gut instinct there when bidding. One could say I pulled my own numbers out of the air, and kept my own counsel in that category. I do "fly by the seat of my pants" quite a bit.
For mid- to high end, PCGS auction prices realized. It will get most of the big guys, like eBay, Heritage and StacksBowers, and some of the smaller, like Scotsman. It's not comprehensive though. For example, they don't include Great Collections prices for some reason and don't cover sales of US coins in Europe. It sometimes has errors and omissions though. CAC designations are often missing. A nice feature is the quick sorting (price, grade, date of sale, etc.) and click-through links to auction company listings. The data will copy over nicely to a spreadsheet too (paste as text, not HTML). Cal
EBay and Heritage. For commonly traded coins I lean more toward EBay because that represents the price range I would be most likely to sell the coin at. Of course the earlier posts about looking at the actual quality of the coin within its grade are spot on. I wouldn’t expect to get a premium coin for an ugly coin price.
