For my inventory I need consistency, i.e., I want pricing from the same source. The assumption is that the same source will price the same way, a certain percentage over the real world. Auction results are great for precision but some results will be years old. Or modern coins will not be included (go ahead, find auction results for an MS-65 Red 1992 Lincoln). The greysheet has too many gaps, nothing modern and nothing above MS-65. Coin Values from Coin World covers a LOT more coins but it too has holes. I've looked at Numismedia online and they appear to have the greatest coverage. Is there anything that is better? As for Real World values what I'll do to convert from these somewhat inflated retail sources is to compare what they quote to auction results for the same item. Then I'll calculate the percentage markup and apply that to all of the other items for which I can't get recent auction results. That should at least get me figures that are in the ballpark. Does this make sense? Is there something better?
My thoughts are that you are putting more work into this than I would. However, if you want a single source then you might try something like PCGS CoinFacts since they list a value for every coin. It would be up to you to determine what percentage of "true value" to associate with their proprietary values, but this would give you a single source for US coinage.
Have you looked at the new mondo huge thick "Red Book"? The one retailing for $49.95? It has just about everything (for US) in all the detail you could ever ask for. The adjustment formula against the prices in there is up to the individual. But if you find an important "hole" or "gap", I'd be amazed.
http://www.numismedia.com/fmv/fmv.s...LUGb-0OB1kZmotyVpoN8oWmk9fLGkGRQ5QaAqrY8P8HAQ or http://www.pcgs.com/prices/?gclid=C...WlQhqKR4kwKDWrMqf6mpCjsp3AWFZa3GulhoC4NDw_wcB
Great question. All price guides suck in their own particular way. Numismedia is the best I've found, myself. I'd also be interested if anyone has a half decent price guide for Canadian or world coins (other than Krause, of course).
Regardless of what source you choose, what I would ask is how often are you going to update these values ? And have you considered how much time and work that will entail ? The reason I'm asking these questions is because the coin market is in a constant state of change. The market has trends that may last anywhere from 3 to 10 years, but it is constantly changing, with values either moving up or down. Given that, values are only valid for brief period of time. For example, this is what the coin market has looked like over the past 10 years. Now imagine how many times you would have to have changed and updated your values for each different denomination, in each different series, in each different grade. Now imagine how many hours you would have to devote to doing that, and just that, in order to keep up. Is it worth it ? You may have a different opinion but I'd have to say it is not. So what to do ? What I would suggest is to use one of the free services like My Heritage offered by Heritage. It takes a while to set up but once it is set up values update automatically as the market changes - without you having to do anything. And it will show you 3 different sets of values - 1 your value, set by you. 2 - Numismedia Wholesale. 3 - Numismedia Retail. It also allows to enter some personal data such as purchase price, your own reference numbers and photos. And when you click on My Heritage you see all of this in a spreadsheet format. And of course you can add or delete items as you wish. And it will track those as well. Just an idea.
