Because of the coins I'm looking for, about 90% of my buying is done at shows. And about 80% of my show buying is done through one dealer which is no surprise since he has my wantlist. Buying at or below greysheet rarely happens for me. But I find the best prices at shows. TeleTrade and Heritage often have coins I want, and once in a while so does eBay. But taking into account buyer's fees and S&H generally means my bid is not enough to win items. As far as I'm concerned they are part of the cost of a coin. My actual bid is my MAX bid minus the seller's overhead. As nearly as I can tell most other bidders don't take into account the overhead when bidding. As for my max bid: MAX BID = Greysheet + (Coin Values - Greysheet)/2 Of course if one of the two (generally CV) appears out of whack then I have to make adjustments. Adjustments in CV prices are also made on the rare occasions that I bid on something not covered by the greysheet.
Since my current sole interest is Peace Dollars, I was able to purchase the most recent greysheets containing Peace Dollar pricing for $4. I took this to a recent show, where I purchased 2 Peace Dollars for between Bid and Ask, saving about $30 combined off of the dealers original asking price. The document paid for itself and then some.
Ok I got the Greysheet intro deal and I was just looking through it. They are pretty off on any clad coinage (if you compare the prices to prices that are paid on Ebay). The other prices seem hit or miss with some high and some low. Do they use Ebay in calculating their prices?
I am not sure if they incorporate ebay auctions into their results. As for greysheet accuracy, they seem to compare favorably (lower) than pcgs prices, which is good for buyers. Going to a coin show without the greysheets is like a one legged man going to a butt kicking competition.
state quarter rolls go higher except for the ones that are pricey (IL, TN) which they list are much higher than Ebay prices. Also typical year (post 1995) rolls go higher than they list.
No they do not use ebay. And that is what I have been saying for years - we should not use ebay prices either ! They can be too low, too high - they are just all over the place. And the reason they are all over the place is because the majority of the people buying on ebay don't have any real idea of the value of coins.
This is perfectly correct - as for Greysheet you really need to earn This is perfectly correct - as for Greysheet you really need to earn the right to buy and sell with it - if not a dealer and you do not buy and sell a great deal with other dealers you cannot in all honesty resonably expect to get those kind of prices or buy at those levels. After all folks it is a Coin Dealers Newsletter - just because you can buy it does not mean you can resonably expect to use.
I may be wrong but it seems that more coins change hands on Ebay than any other venue. For example they have about 180,000 US coins listed right now and a large percentage of those will find buyers. Everything I offer on Ebay sells. For clad coins (especially recent ones) Ebay seems to be the real place that sets prices, also for newer coins from the mint (for example the Lincoln dollars) it appears to be the place where prices are set. As for older coinage with established price an history I agree with you.
Ebay is not about real coin prices just, just eBay prices! eBay is not about real coin prices just, just eBay prices! Which are somethimes high, sometimes low, sometimes even, sometimes steals, sometimes rips - dealers and seasoned collectors must get much closer to true coin values than anything like eBay. I know very few (less than 20% of collectors) and 5% of dealers who continue to buy on eBay in the long run.
eBay as a pricing standard :stooge: To me, the problem with eBay pricing is that you don't know the condition of the coin and the "grading" according to the seller can be laughable. I assume that Greysheet pricing assumes a correctly graded, problem free coin. I would accept eBay pricing for properly slabbed coins, but any others :headbang:
It seems to me that the sort of coins that I am talking about (recent coinage) change hands on Ebay with more frequency than in all other venues combined. Have you tried to find specific date high grade recent clad coins at a show? Dealers often consider them "junk" and dead weight. Also Ebay has changed pricing in every field of antiques, it has been discovered that many items once thought to be rare are super common and items once thought to be common are in fact rare (for example much Disney memorabilia that was considered rare has been found to be common and the prices reflect that discovery).
I agree, I have seen some really out there grades on raw coins on Ebay. But the feedback system helps a little with that. For example look at this guy (I don't know him and I have not bought from him) http://shop.ebay.com/greatsoutherncoin/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340 He has 99.9% feedback on over 21,000 sales. I bet his grading is ok.
If there were some way to verify that the buyers on ebay were knowledgeable buyers - then and only then would I have any confidence in the realized ebay prices. When you have people paying hundreds, even thousands, for coins that just about anybody on this forum would recognized as being a counterfeit - how can you have any confidence in that price ? When you have people paying 2, 3 & 4 times as much for coins or sets - than they can get them for by going direct to the US Mint - how can you have any confidence in that price ? When you have people buying coins that are obvious problem coins, and paying full retail for them - how can you have any confidence in that price ? When you people paying outrageous prices for coins in NTC, SGS, ACG and any of the other bottom teir grading companies (and they buy them by the thousands and thousands) - how can you have any confidence in that price ? Beginning to get the idea yet ?
With some segments of the market, I don't think you're terribly off base. I think a good number of auctions do in fact reflect a fair market price. On most of what I bid on -- I bid a bit under graysheet (after taking into account that the vagaries of grading -- i.e., discounting the raw coins because the seller usually grades a bit too optimistically), and I lose the auction because the winning price is a bit over graysheet. Sometimes more than a bit over. To me, that tells me that a good number of ebay sales do, in fact, reflect a fair market value -- with some overpaying, some underpaying. (Occasionally I win: because (a) I took a chance on a poor picture where I couldn't tell the grade; or (b) the auction ended at a bad time (10am on a Tuesday); or, (c) every once in a while, it seems to be overlooked and/or I got lucky and/or I musta computed something wrong and overpaid).
