Is there a more accurate price guide than eBay completed listings/HA Realized prices?

Grey sheet, Blue sheet, EBay, HA, etc. are close approximations of the average coin values. The one variable many people overlook is what your local market area thinks what a coin is worth. Some areas, a coin may go for more than average market value. The key words here are average market value.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

It is like a revolving door. I see completed listings as the most accurate/up to date, but at the same time those listings are reflective of what the current greysheet prices are. What I mean is that many people have the greysheet right next to them when online cruising right? I'm making assumptions here. I don't know what you all use for references.

 

Great point about the average for the grade, I should have mentioned that as well.

Point is, its hard, and sometimes unexplainable as well. How do you interpret someone paying $1000 for a 65 CAC stickered coin that greysheets for $500? One explanation could be a high end 65 is going for that, another would be the market is moving up on a 65 of that date, a third possibility is "auction fever", while a fourth could be if there was toning on the coin. Any of those four could be the explanation, and is really impossible to tell. This is where multiple data points, and dealer knowledge and experience comes into play. Coins are not commodities, each is individualistic. Like I said you are lucky you are learning on US coins, probably the most commoditized coinage in the world. I can see three VF ancients sell for between $100 and $1000 or even wider. A fairly common Roman bronze expected to go for $5k went for $100k last year, with seemingly no explanation from experts. Two bidders just HAD to have it.

Chris

 

Well you can build your own reference price guide for items' selling in ebay. Ebay only keeps history for items sold for only 3 months.

But in your account setting in ebay you can set up automatic emails for items you didn't win (when item is listed go and make lowball offer or add it your watch list). And also set up a email filter in outlook or even gmail and just gather all the emails flowing in from ebay.

If i want to list or bid on an item to get a good sense of its value, i go to my ebay folder in outlook and do a search for the item and see what it sold for before.

 

I would argue that there is no better price guide than completed HA and eBay auctions.

However, like all price guides, they are hardly authoritative.

The Greysheet would be the 3rd source that I would add to that list.