Hey CTers, I’m not used to evaluating the prices listed in the NGC World Coin guide. For a 19th century European coin with a “list price” of, e.g., $800, would this be regarded as full retail? If you wanted to add it to your collection what percentage of that value would you offer and not have it considered a lowball offer? Thanks, Steve
Those prices are the electronic versions of the Standard Catalog of World Coin books. I would say that they provide a good deal of info about particular coins and the prices provide relative comparisons of coins within a series. As far as basing any offers or deals on the prices listed, I think you would be better off checking auction records and pricing. The prices are above or below the market in some areas and you would stand to lose money just going with an offer relative to the NGC/Krause price guide.
Just in my experience with NGC World Coin Prices... They are full Retail in most cases. I agree with mrbreeze... to check Auction Records or EBay sold listings in order to come up with a real valuation. As a general rule, I always say "I can get half of the NGC Retail Price" when I'm figuring up numbers. It is not necessarily always right... as sometimes I get less, sometimes more. It really all depends on the audience looking to buy.
Ever look up a coin on Heritage and then scroll down to see what all the different price guides say the coin is worth ? Heritage lists about 8 or 9 different price guides for you. Point is, all of the prices listed, for the very same coin, are always different. Sometimes widely different ! And rarely if ever will any of them match the actual sales price recorded by Heritage. What this should tell you is that price guides, ALL OF THEM, are pretty much worthless when you are trying to figure out what the real world value of your coin is !
Hopefully you can get ideas of RELATIVE values of different coins WITHIN a guide. That's all I use any guide for. If one is listed at $100 and another at $150, they probably are worth lower numbers but still about the same ratio. When I'm at a local auction, I take whatever some guide says, and I take XX% off of that, depending on the guide and the material. More mundane material gets a higher XX than truly hard to find stuff does.
I consider the Krause guides to be useful for identifying coins, mint marks, weight, precious metal content, and the like. The prices also provide a clue to relative value, as others have mentioned. However, I would caution that simply reducing by X% may cause problems. As someone mentioned earlier, current market value may be below or above the Krause price depending on the particular coin or series and how long it has been since that guide was published (whether to print or web). It may also be far below the Krause price such as after the bubble bursts on massive market upswings for certain countries or series. Tracking sales yourself for the particular series you collect remains the best way to get a sense of the range in which you can feel comfortable buying or selling. If you are new to collecting a particular series then a quick search of online auction records for the same coin (date + mint) and same condition you are seeking is a good start. You may additionally consider asking in forums such as this what other collectors of the series have paid and if any pricing trends are apparent (ie is it really high or low right now). Hope this is helpful.
