Question for dealers/sellers: Blue book prices

Let's compare those numbers to the prices listed in the latest Greysheet. Bid/Ask prices are shown in Red.

1934-S Peace Dollar in AU50

Red Book (your price) $650.00
NGC price guide - $450.00
Blue Book(dealer price)$295.00
Greysheet - $365/$405

1888-O Morgan Dollar in MS65

Red Book- $450.00
NGC - $475.00
Blue Book- $210.00
Greysheet - $525/$575

1949-S Franklin Half in MS60

Red Book- $60.00
NGC- $69.60
Blue Book- $25.00
Greysheet - $45/$50

1810 Capped Bust Half in F-12

Red Book - $100.00
NGC- $ 90.85
Blue Book- $ 35.00
Greysheet -$70

1924-D Standing Liberty Quarter MS63

Red Book- $350.00
NGC- $368.75
Blue Book- $175.00
Greysheet - $350/$380


1859 Indian Head Cent in EF-40

Red Book- $110.00
NGC- $100.80
Blue Book- $ 55.00
Greysheet - $75/$85

It looks to me that the Red Book and Blue Book are not very accurate after all. Just think - you could subscribe to the Greysheet with the money you save on one or two coins that you bought or sold for the wrong price because you relied on the Red Book or the Blue Book for pricing info.

Each to his own.

 

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I am pretty sure that this will not be a popular opinion, but I don't use any of the price guides. When purchasing a coin, I look at the recent auction prices realized for the particular coin and average them. I sometimes compare the average to Numismedia Wholesale as a reference. I tend to purchase most of my coins at auction and have found this method to work quite well.

With rainbow toned coins, I use the Numismedia Wholesale value as my multiplier. Instead of 5X bid, I use 5X Numis Wholesale. Again, works well for me.

 

Ok, so it looks like the Blue book is definitely low right now. Except for the first coin, the Red book is still not off by much. I never said I relied on it for exact pricing.

I agree with you Lehigh. Usually the best thing you can do is watch them sell at auction and you're seeing what people are willing to pay in real time. You can't get much more up to date than that.

 

Let me say this about either the Red Book, Blue Book or just about any other books with prices. I go to about 2 to 4 coin shows a month, every month, all year long, every year for as long as I can remember. I've been collecting coins for well over 60 years now. Only once in all those years at a coin show I saw someone with a Red Book checking prices. I've never seen anyone using the Blue book there. I've been to many, many coin stores and again no one uses either one for prices. No dealers, no customers, no one uses them that I've seen. I've been to coin shows in other states, different cities and all around where I live and no one uses those books for prices.
THINK! If a book is made it takes many months to compile the info and many months to produce said books. Then time to send out to distributers. By the time the Red Book is being sold prices on coins could have changed dramatically. The publishers are only people, not magicians. They have no idea at all what the prices of a coin may, could, should, might be in the distant future. Sort of like me putting out a price list on tomatos or green beans in a few years from now.
Yes, such books are an influence by some but most use such books for info, not prices.

 

Just because people are unwilling to carry a book with them doesn't mean they are informed. How fortunate for dealers that most people at a show will just assume that the prices they have are reasonable.

Back to the 1935 Peace dollar. Are you telling me the red book was an unreasonable guide for this MS-63 coin? It was within $10 of what the seller was selling it for and I doubt they consulted the Red Book first. Is that just a coincidence? That was the first coin show I had been to in a long while and they had a Red Book at the front table and many people used it including myself.

I never claimed that the Red Book is going to pin point prices within 0.50 cents. I wouldn't expect it to. I would expect it to get me within a reasonable price range for a coin. Which I feel it has still achieved for 90% of the coins you want to look up or watch sell on ebay. It's going to let me know that this Peace dollar should be in the 110.00 to 150 range. Not 175 to 200 range. That's all I want to know.
I understand it is not a grey sheet.

 

Sometimes you will find things for Redbook prices. Maybe you found the one person who does price by Redbook prices, or maybe the Redbook just got lucky. But from my personal experience at several shows per year, the coins I am into (Silver dollars, half dollars, etc)
I would say the prices I see are very often 20-40% different from Redbook.

 

I have never owned a Bluebook or Blackbook, and the Redbook has not kept pace with the Lincolns the last cpl years.

By reading what you guys have posted, I would assume the Bluebook price MAY be what you could expect as an unknown walkin thru a B&M or similar type of over the table sale.

I use the Greysheet as a referance for coins of average grade and eye appeal; and instinct , auction records, and other known transactions for the better material.

 

I'm betting you've noticed Greysheet hasn't at times either. I can think of a few instances where Greysheet bid was HIGHER than retail in current magazines and Redbook.

Those are the times I'll pay full retail if I can get by with it as you know what's most likely going to happen to retail.

 

Yes
There are coins I would order right now if the greyshet sold them

 

One thing the Redbooks are good for is to show you where coin prices have been [approximately, of course] over a period of years in the past. Sometimes, the current auction prices for a particular coin can be way out of line with what the coin has been worth and is likely to be worth in the future when compared to similar coins. So for the coins I'm interested in, I like to know where the Redbook put the prices over the past 10 years before buying. It isn't a perfect system but it helps to have a long term perspective.

 

Back in the early 50's when I started collecting, I would buy a Redbook every year, and only dscovered the Bluebook some years later. I remember my single largest purchase... an 09-S-VDB in XF for $60 (paid for by my grandmother, bless her soul). That coin was the talk of our household for many years. It took my father a long time to forgive my granny for spending sixty bucks on a single penny.

 

What one is willing to pay

Unless you are not someone like Stacks and many others. IT boils down to what one thing what one or more folk's are willing to pay U for and the thing your selling "coins to apples"

so Red & Blue book Grey sheet is just paper.

 

Eh, not really. If you really plan on buying something anyway. If the dealer buys at grey sheet, they need to sell at some point higher to make a profit. Its good to know approximately how much higher, because that's limitless.

If a dealer buys something for 70.00, prices it at 100.00 and I'm only willing to pay 60.00, my opinion doesn't matter too much. I obviously won't be buying anything. It would be good to know that I may be able to purchase it for 90.00, but I'm not going to get it for 60.00.

Although I imagine real coin prices where ever you go for the same thing, fluctuate by the sale. But stay within a range that for most, doesn't change too drastically from year to year.

 

True!

 

That's not to say that the price will never come down, if you and everybody else only wants to pay 60.00. If 100.00 or 90.00 is too much for the majority, then the product will sit and eventually come down.

In the over-all picture, if you want something, your hands are pretty much tied, depending on what the rest of your peers in the numismatic community are doing/paying, over time. All you can really do is look for the low end of the price range, and that you need to learn from some type of price guide or recent auctions.