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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2852807, member: 112&quot;]When I first started posting in this thread it was to state that a slab does not increase the value of a coin. And it doesn&#039;t. The slab merely makes it easier to sell, and the reason it makes it easier to sell is because it gives potential buyers the confidence they need to actually pay what the coin is worth.</p><p><br /></p><p>But then things switched over to what coins are actually worth. And it was claimed that a coin is worth whatever somebody will pay for it. So I gave examples of where that statement simply cannot be true. And in every example that I have used in this thread, that&#039;s all they are - examples. And they are all valid examples, things that actually happen in the real world.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, at no point have I ever said that statement is <u>never true</u>. Of course it&#039;s true sometimes ! There&#039;s lots of coins that are bought and sold at their true value every day - and most of those are bought and sold by dealers. But there&#039;s also a whole lot of them that are not - and most of those are bought and sold by collectors. And that&#039;s what I&#039;ve been talking about.</p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s also been questions about what actually is a knowledgeable person ? Well, I defined a knowledgeable person in regard to this discussion - A knowledgeable person knows the market, they know what any given coin in any grade is worth. They also know how to grade accurately, and they know how to authenticate the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>And there have been questions about what is the true value of a coin ? And how do you find out what the true value of a coin actually is ? There&#039;s a couple of ways to do that. One is to do the necessary research by checking realized auction prices at the major auction houses. And then comparing the coin in question (the one you&#039;re thinking about buying) and comparing it to the coins (of the same grade) that have been sold. And that will give you a pretty accurate price range for the coin. And I say range because there never is any set number because no two coins are identical - every coin is unique.</p><p><br /></p><p>The other way to find out what the true value of a coin is would be to check the current Bid/Ask on the electronic dealer market. And that price varies from day to day, week to week, month to month etc. But it does tell you what the most knowledgeable people (as a general rule) there are in this business are willing to pay for a given coin at any given time. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now the arguments will come that dealer prices are wholesale so that doesn&#039;t count. But it does count. Why ? Because when push comes to shove wholesale is the true value because that is what you can sell it for to knowledgeable person at any given time. </p><p><br /></p><p>Sure you can go out and shop a coin around, look here and look there trying to find the one person who will buy your coin for the most money. But that might take you a week, a month, or longer. But you can sell it in 5 minutes at wholesale - all day every day because that is what a dealer will pay you for it.</p><p><br /></p><p>What people don&#039;t seem to understand is that dealers buy and sell about 8 times as many coins as collectors do. And they do it on a daily basis. The dealer market IS the market. It is what sets the value of any given coin in any given grade on any given day. And that is why the coin market moves up and down - all the time. The value of coins isn&#039;t set by collectors, we&#039;re just passersby in the market. The value of coins is set by dealers and it always has been. And it always will be. If it wasn&#039;t for dealers the coin market would collapse and cease to exist.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for the ebay vs auction houses argument: the reason you use the auction houses realized prices is because the majority of the time their buyers are dealers, and knowledgeable collectors. So you can place a greater degree of trust on what they are willing to pay because they know the market far better than the average buyer on ebay. </p><p><br /></p><p>And if you want to point out that there&#039;s dealers on ebay, sure there&#039;s dealers on ebay - lots of &#039;em ! But where do you think they get those coins they&#039;re selling there ? I can tell ya, they get them from auction houses and other dealers. And then they sell them on ebay, to buyers who lack knowledge, because they (the dealers) know they can get more money for them that way. </p><p><br /></p><p>And then of course you&#039;ve got to throw in all of the private individuals who have figured out that they can do the same thing the dealers are doing on ebay.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s why you don&#039;t want to use realized prices from ebay to establish value !</p><p><br /></p><p>Now that&#039;s reality, that&#039;s the real world that we all live in. You can believe anything you want but that doesn&#039;t change reality.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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