A coins worth, do you really understand what a coins worth means? It sounds like a simple question but I'll bet few people really know what this means or at the least may feel the need to re-think their opinion. A coins worth is value plain and simple but it's value or return at the moment of sale only anything else is just a big maybe! 1. Just because it is rare does not make it worth more or less it's just rare. 2. Charts and graphs are just guildlines they do not (by themselves) make a coin worth more or less. 3. It is true that silver and gold have some worth already built into them but it's still dependant on the buyer - he may offer this much or that much, all over the board we see it everyday. 4. Appraisels or insurence may attach a figure to your coins but they are there for one purpose only, replacement value or legal purposes unless stated up front that this appraisel will be an offer to buy. 5. We have a giagantic feel good mentality and that's only natural. We like to think our coins have value and may even increase in value over time. Maybe we will even hit a home run on a coin or two. What a coin is really worth is what a buyer we are able and ready to sell to will give us for that coin at that moment, nothing more. If you can take your emotions out of it you will see that worth is a fantasy for the most part. It's a guide nothing more.
And that's why I collect and don't get involved with all o' the "value" hype. My stuff may be only worth face when it's time for me to cash in my chips, but that's someone else's problem.....
Am I reading that right? A coin is worth only what you sell it for? So wether this guide says this, or that one sold at auction, until you sell the one you have it has only a potential worth?
Well, this definition might slow down some of the complaints we hear about unscrupulous dealers/buyers who offer a pittance to an unknowing person for a coin. If the seller takes the offer, then according to this, it was the true value and the buyer is an OK guy, and the seller got what he deserved? I can't buy that. Jim
When I buy my coins, I pay what I think the coin is worth to me. A guide is just that, a guide. A round about idea of the going price. For example, if I see a coin that I really like but," the guide " tells me the coin is priced $20 higher than the norm. I'll buy it because I like. Put a 1922 no-D lincoln cent in front of me, I don't want it, in my eyes its junk. " The guide ", saya its pretty valuable, thats why its just a guide.
Is it any easier to buy the claim that when some idiot on ebay pays 10 or 20 times the going rate for a given coin that THAT coin was really worth that much ? No, I think not. To me a coin is worth the average of what a group of educated buyers have paid for it.
