Krause is useless...

I know the often repeated phrase is "price guides are useless", but the krause catalog takes the cake.

I've been slowly uploading my catalog to numismaster, which includes one month free of world coin prices from Krause.

The prices are terrible. I have coins that bring $8.00 on ebay that are worth $90.00 according to the catalog.

The red book is semi accurate as coins [usually] trend for those prices.

The redbook is also based upon auction results as well.

I'm not sure where Krause gets the values for coins, but they are not at all accurate.

 

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Price guides are useless.

 

Good for pictures

 

Krause is not useless Tim...but their values, just like ANY other annual price book, are completely useless. What do you expect for a book that complies literally every coin produced by every country over the past 100 years. Of course their will be errors. Guess what, a lot of their mintage's are off too.

 

Numismaster does every coin from 1600 to date actually... It is VERY useful... I use it multiple times a day.... just not for pricing coins...

 

How can the Red Book be considered accurate? Didn't the 2014 version come out in the summer of 2013? That means that the data for the book was submitted for publishing not later than March 2013... for the 2014 Red Book. Krause is useful as a catalog of what they claim to catalog. As for pricing, they overprice on the low grades and underprice on the MS grades. This has been told to you at least a couple of times in the past, Tim.

 

If coins "usually trend" at red book prices, would this not mean that the book must be more than "semi-accurate"?

You've been through this countless times with countless people over the last two years, yet here we are again. Clearly there is at least one thing about this forum that has not changed.

Until or unless you're willing to listen, the "highly education" threads you long for will continue to elude you.

 

I don't know why they won't fix the prices in Krause.

A lot of coins are vastly overpriced and a lot are vastly underpriced.

It's the underpricing in modern I find most vexing because I believe this is seriously damaging the markets. No one wants to pay $12 for a coin Krause lists at 25c. Some people will collect other things instead and the coins flow out of the US to their home country where the demand is. They flow out at very low prices usually.

 

Umm, I think this might be a bit more accurate...

 

eBay should consider compiling a log of all coins sold and at what prices on which dates. They could sell access/subscriptions to the information - that may be the best example of coin price trending available. Not sure if it would be possible to try to do this yourself for the types of coins you look for? Maybe there is an app for that...

Otherwise, yes... price guides are useless.

 

great for ID only, coins, it's only what you can get for them.

 

It told me where Hong Kong coin were minted...

 

I didn't write this very well. Krause is an excellent reference, just useless for prices.

 

Krause is good for general however if you want to specialize in a specific field, you should be getting specific books for them. No point trying to compare Krause to Red Book. It's trying to compare Wikipedia to local knowledge.

 

There is NO reference book that is useless. Every reference should serve as ONE input into making any kind of decision whether to purchase or place a value on a coin. If you are using Krause as your only reference then, yes, you will be disappointed sometimes. The most valuable assets provided by Krause are the ID and technical specs of the coin (weight, metallic alloy, etc) let alone the little history/background of places that half the people on the globe can't put their finger on. Krause lets you easily separate the wheat from the chaff by showing you what are vanilla coins vs what coins have a healthy premium. It is up to you, then, to find an accurate price to affix to the coin. An added bonus is that all the pictures in Krause are close to accurate as to the actual size of the coin you are searching for. As to seeing coins listed for $80-$90 and having them sell for less than $10 on Ebay ... that is an every day happening, because you can't sell a coin to a book or guide ... you need someone with a wallet. I think that much of the blame for lower prices on some harder to find coins goes to the seller for not providing good photos that can be magnified, using crappy descriptions, and usually the REAL culprit .. vastly overgrading your coin in your selling eyes when someone who actually knows how to grade sees it with his buyer's eyes. Again, there is no numismatic reference book that is useless .. even 40-50 year old price guides will give you valuable insight into what you have.

 

By the way, a week ago MünzenWoche/CoinsWeekly had an article about various coin price sites (focus on online, not print). Could be interesting for some; this is the English language version: http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/page/4?&id=2588

Christian

 

Like every other book with prices...just like Red Book.

 

I guess the sun has finally dawned...

How many threads by this OP have I read where it went "I got this coin for X and the book value is 2X!" followed by the inevitable responses of "Book value ain't mean nothing" followed by "Well whatever it is a good guide at least, I got a good deal!".