In preparation for my first coin show I made a spreadsheet of prices for various grades of the coins I'm interested in. And that would be Morgan silver dollars. I first gathered prices from the PCGS website. Looked up a bunch of on-line auctions to see what recent prices were. Afterwards, I did a spot check on some of them with the prices in the 2010 red book. The ones I checked were the same or a little higher than the PCGS prices. Thus, I decided to just take my 2-page spreadsheet in with me and leave the red book in the car. This worked pretty good. As I went through the tables checking prices and asking what they really wanted, I would write notes on my spreadsheet about the good deals. Question 1 - One of my "good" deals was an 1897 MS65 (NGC slab) for $290. I did not have any auction results for this grade, but the PCGS price is $350. I really liked the coin, so I pulled the trigger. Later I checked my prices for the specific coins I purchased against the red book. Uh oh! The red book price for this same coin is $185. How often does one see such a big discrepency in prices like this? Question 1B - So did I do okay on that price? I just looked up prices at NumsMedia and they have it at $363. So I'm hoping there was a typo in the red book. Question 2 - I had good luck picking up common date MS64 (NGC and PCGS) Morgans for $50 or a little under. But one dealer had one priced at $70 (PCGS is $65 and auctions sold at around $50 for the coin). I asked if that was his real asking price. He said for me to make an offer. I offered $50. From his response, you would have thought I had just insulted his mother! I got a lecture about needing to make a living, etc., etc. Anyway, I moved on. My question here is, how do you all deal with someone like this? Question 3 - Another dealer had a lot of slabbed Morgans. Maybe 200 or more. He had prices written on labels on the slabs. Most were 20% or higher than the PCGS prices. I asked if those were his real prices. He said that they were pretty much except that he could probably work with me a little. I ended up just moving on past his table too. I just did not feel like having to bargain with someone just to get the prices down to the PCGS prices which I feel are already inflated. I mean this guy had common date Morgans $100 or more where PCGS has them listed at $65. What would you have done? Should I have at least asked if he would take $50 on a couple of them? In summary, I had a great time looking. I managed to pick up 10 Morgans and except for the 1897, I think I did pretty good. I probably over paid on a couple, but they were really nice looking coins, so I don't mind. I also noticed that the friendlier the dealer, the less I minded paying a little more for the coin. Is that a trap one has to watch out for, or just part of the experience? Thanks for listening!
WOW, you have a lot of questions that you should have asked prior to going to a coin show. To work in reverse of your questions, yes dealers at coin shows have become really good salespeople. (Can't say saleman anymore you know). They too know that making you feel like a relative will make you purchase more and pay more since how could someone so nice take advantage of you. (Haven't you ever gone to a used car lot?) At coin shows I see about 50% of all coins now in slabs. Dealers well know every one is becoming aware of counterfeits so they have almost everything slabbed. And they well know there are those that collect only slabs and keep them that way. So why not? They just charge more for the coins. As to prices on coins. The more you look into it the more you'll realize there is no true prices on coins. They are what someone will pay for them. All the price guides are just that, guides. There is no manufacturers list price on coins. If you are willing to pay a something for a coin, then that is what it's value is. Even much less a stable price than the prices at a used car lot. Many, many dealers know that the public is going to try to haggle down the prices so they raise all their prices. Many raise the prices of what they want by as much as 20% to 25%. Then they start you out with an immediate drop of about 10% to 15% because 1. They like you. 2. Your such a nice guy. 3. You have that familiar look as if your a steady customer. 4. I need to make a first sale so I know I'll have a good day. ETC., ETC., ETC. Usually if this doesn't work, they will drop the prices a little more until they make the sale and get what they originally wanted.
Thanks JustCarl. I couldn't ask the questions before going because I didn't have the questions until afterwards I already understand most of what you said. I just don't know how anyone expects me to pay $70 for something I can get for $50 elsewhere. Maybe I didn't make that clear in my questions. Are these guys counting on someone coming to the show that doesn't know that?
Your price for the 1897 MS65 was very good. Only $10 more than CDN Bid. Forget the Red Book for prices. Buy the time the book is released it is 6-12 months out of date. IMO don't pay more than PCGS, Coin Values or NumisMedia. Think at least 20% under them. Be careful with single auction results. They can be all over the place. Let them be a confirmation of other figures you've collected. Don't forget Teletrade and Heritage as a pricing resource.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but aren't the redbook prices for RAW coins? That may be why you saw such a price difference. I think you did fine by passing up dealers that did not wan to deal. The only reason to pay their asking price is if the coin looks stellar for the grade and you can't find something with a similar look for less.
I checked recent auction records. They varied a bit, but tended to bunch up around $195 - $230. Plenty of recent data points. On "commodity" coins in strong supply like 1897 S$1 MS65, prices tend to be pretty consistent. Occasionally a truly exceptional coin may sell a little higher, overgraded coins drop low. Thanks for asking ! Good questions.
You handled it just fine. Always be polite and simply say "I think I'll pass today, thanks." $50 is on the low end, but if the seller doesn't like your offer they should counter-offer or politely and simply say "I think I'll pass today, thanks."
Yeah, I assume their posted price to be on the high end and my offer as buyer would be on the low end. If $50 is too low, they could have responded with $65 or whatever. I did not expect anyone to be offended. I certainly did not intend to offend anyone.
If the dealer had a long day, week or month they were probably just tired of having everyone lowball them and they get grumpy. If the dealer had a good day, week or month they probably would have been honest and nicely countered with a number they were comfortable with. Granted, scenario one would not bring any new customers in and all dealers should avoid being grumpy. Unfortunately it's just human nature.
Thats a good point. By the time I was ready to go back and purchase some of the coins I had seen, some of the dealers had already packed up and left. I missed out on getting a couple of good coins because of that. Next time I'm going to try and arrive in the morning.
Another scenario, the dealer could be having a bad couple years. The economic crisis has eliminated some buyers and caused other not to buy unless the dealer is going to take the money crunch into account. The handwriting is on the wall but that dealer may not be reading it.
I think you did pretty good and I agree don't look to the red book go with PCGS. And as the old saying goes if you like it thats all that matters. Bob
I'll jut respod to #2. That dealer sounds like a jerk. That wasn't an insulting offer. In fact, I have a dealer who will sell me common date MS64 Morgans for less than $50 all day long.
Answer to question one. A good resource is Coininfo.com under silver dollars. That will give you a general idea what dealers are paying.
It was. Typical for coin shows; they're high. It was. Reasonable move. Yep. They shouldn't have been. I'm sure that's so. You were very reasonable.
No, it wasn't a very good price at all. Several NGC MS65 examples have sold for below $200 in auctions recently. This is just another case where published prices aren't necessarily accurate.
Yep, I learned a lesson. I went prepared for MS64 Morgans but I had not done enough research on auctions of the MS65 grade. Am I missing something here? It says "Pre 1921 MS65 --- $100". They don't provide more specific info than that?
In my opinion, while all of them have drawbacks of one type or another, the best single source for values is the Heritage auction archives. If you are not yet familiar with it, it's free and you can find it here:https://coins.ha.com/common/register.php
You would be amazed at how many people go to a coin show thinking that is the cheapest a coin could sell for. As I said, dealers know this and raise the prices sometimes to the point of laughter. As an example at a coin show about two weeks ago a dealer had a 1944S Walking Liberty Half in a PCGS slab, graded as MS-65 for over $400. Same dealer also had a 1916S LIncoln Cent graded MS-65 in a slab for also over $400. I remembered those since I was looking for those. I smiled at him, almost laughed, started to walk away and he said he could drop those prices by about 20%. Now imagine a person caught up in the coin show massive amount of coins being sold and actuatly paying something like that. Yet it does happen and when those get home and look up what they ended up with, they usually are to ashamed to tell anyone. And the dealer couldn't care less. He is out to make as much as possible, knowing full well he may never see that person again anyway. Coin shows have massive amounts of passerbys that do not return. A coin store has a lot more to worry about with a steady cliental. Many dealers I've met at coin shows appear to be amazed to see some customers more than a few times. This is really normal for a coin show that is infrequent or the really large ones where dealers come from all over the country and will not see the same person again.
