If i purchase a set of 100 coins, each with the individual value of $1 per coin, what would the value of the set be? Would it be $100, or would it be higher since it is a complete set?
It may be worth a little less than the coins if sold individually, but it would likely liquidate quicker, which might give you a tradeoff of time vs. money.
Usually a set has more value when broken up. However, I think there are exceptions when extra value is added by the additional pieces being brought together. An example may be my 1908-S IHC PCGS grading set. Given the difficulty of putting the set together, I think that to the right person the complete set of them together might be worth a little more than the coins themselves. Maybe someday I'll find out if I ever sell them. Also, if your set has a few awesome coins and a bunch of average coins, you may get more for the entire set if you force those that want the awesome coins to take all or none. I've seen this happen on raw Lincoln sets or even million dollar + registry sets.
Yeah, the cost of putting a decent set together can be extremely high for any issue. Then, most people like putting together their own set a coin at a time because it's more enjoyable and affordable. There just aren't that many people available who have thousands of dollars to spend on someone else's complete set. Since the buyer's know this, they expect to get a steep discount for purchasing an entire set. Pretty bad deal which is why I doubt I'll ever have interest in selling a complete set.
Actually the value of the coins involve determine the answer to your question. In your example, a 100 coin set made up of coins worth $1 each - there is only one answer. You will make more money selling it as a set. Why? Imagine the time and fees involved in running 100 separate listings for a $1 coin? Unless you are a flea market dealer or sell them one by one on Craigslist, the fees of selling $1 coins will kill you. Most likely, you'll use e-bay (you wouldn't do an auction house for a $1 coin). You'll never escape with anything. In YOUR example, the set has more retail value (in the end) than the individual coins. Now if it's a 100 coin set of $100 coins, then the answer is different.....
If you think about it the whole is always worth less than all the parts. Not just with coins, but with many other items. Look at like this. You take a car to a junk yard and get about $100 for it. Then you decide to fix up another one just like that one so you go back to the junk yard for parts. You find to buy back all the parts you now pay thousands of dollars. This system works with coins too unfortuately. You spend a lot of money and time placing coins in an Album or Folder. You take it to a dealer and get about 40% less than what you thought which turns out to be a lot less than you thought. Regardless that dealer takes out all the coins and sells each one separately and gets many, many times what he paid you for the entire set. Just like the car at the junk yard.
This is true IF you are able to find a collector who wants to buy it for himself to keep. But anyone who would be looking at it to buy and break up knows they are going to have those expenses and the time their money is tied up while it is being broken up and sold. So to compensate they will have to pay LESS for the full set than the sum of its parts.
I've noticed that sets are always, or almost always worth less. Because they are almost never resold as a complete set, but broken up. That is why I have given up on the complete set game except for in a few situations of coins I will keep for a long time. But that is not to say that one should never build a complete set. There is a satisfaction in tracking down the bad boys you need to get those holes filled that can not be duplicated by buying onesies and twosies or random coins.
I think you have a misunderstanding of how a dealer works if you think that they make many times what they pay for their coins.
