I searched up this site with price guide for Bust Halves. http://www.numismedia.com/fmv/prices/bsthlv/pricesgd.shtml How accurate are they?
I consider Numismedia as a high retail example of prices. I would suggest using several sources to determine value. Numismedia is one - CoinWorld Trends ( Retail ) - RedBook ( Generally a starting point for retail prices realized, however somtimes out of date as the market moves quickly ) - PCGS ( High Retail ) - Grey Sheet (Dealer Bid and Ask) Then do a search on eBay to see what people really are paying :?
Aren't eBay prices lower because of the rip offs and over gradings? So, if I get this Grey Sheet then I will know what the dealer has in the coins? Then I can price him down to a minimum profit level?
I have had an overal good experience with eBay. It's always buyer eware though wherever you buy, there are many reliable people selling both raw and graded coins there. I would not say that it was a ripoff, etc. Getting the Grey Sheet would give you an idea of what a dealer bid for a coin would be. It would not tell you what t dealer has into it. As far as pricing a dealer down - you are on your own there ...
I think they are a little high. I would look at e-bay and other auction sites to see what the coins sold at.
Just remember that price guides are only guides and this is especialy true for Bust Halves. There is a great deal of variation whithin the different grades. An outstanding eye appeal for the grade coin will bring a premium over listed prices while a rather pedesterian coin will be less than published prices. You will also find that coins graded by PCGS, and NGC are usually close to retail prices.
My experience from EBAY is quite negative. It may be useful for common date Bust halves in the AG to VF grades but for mint state specimens, it's basically unusable. Ebay is excellent for buying used "Geotrax" train components but I don't know about higher end coins. Thus I don't know how useful this would be for a price guide.
Yeah, except for one thing. Eleven years ago you could use ebay as a fairly reliable resource to check prices. Today that is no longer true. Today if you want to check prices you better stick to the realized prices from the auction houses like Heritage and Stacks to name a couple.
I dislike it greatly when folks post to threads that are so old. For one thing, market conditions that were in play when the thread was started may no longer be the same. Additionally, it isn't uncommon to respond to folks within the thread and to perhaps expect an additional response. However, with threads this old many folks are no longer active on the site. It seems to me to be a better strategy to simply start a new thread with any insight that might be added to such an old thread.
[FONT=&] [/FONT][FONT=&]My response was mostly to the subject and not the posts themselves, but you both, of course, have made fine and valid points. I do agree that starting a new thread would be beneficial to present participants, and offer my apologies for any misunderstandings. [/FONT]
What happened is that I wanted to see some other threads than about silver rounds or state quarters from change so I inadvertently clicked this thing for showing threads and it displayed the oldest 1st. I then responded to the 1st one about a real numismatic subject: e.g. Bust Halves.
There's certainly nothing wrong with what you did. Some folks just don't like to see old threads brought back from the dead. 'Course, some do. So to each his own.