Sorry for all the questions, but I am hooked! When bidding on a coin from a dealer, collector, on ebay etc. etc. what source should I (not a dealer, but only a new collector) use to compare the price to - what price should I shoot for? Should I shoot for the greysheet price, the blue book price, the red book price, a certain percentage of the PCGS online price etc. All opinions are GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!
It depends. In general, a combination of completed auction prices and greysheet can give you a good guess-timate. Read Greysheet carefully - those are wholesale dealer-to-dealer numbers. Sometimes you can add a percentage and go, other times you can score for dealer bid. For lower-end coins (less than $100), try e-bay Completed Listings. For mid-range, try Teletrade. For high-end, I prefer Heritage. Of course, there is overlap in those price bands. In general, coin show prices tend to be high as do PCGS price listings. The biggest variable, by far, is the quality of the coin itself. Great coins sell for more than published prices, sometimes many times more than auction records.
Coin pricing is an art, not a science. Funnel in all the data you can, apply good sense, and go. The quality of the coin is more important than price.
I always use Heritage auctions. That is what they have actually sold for. If you do not belong, it is free and well worth every penny of it.
Heritage Archives, eBay completed listings, PCGS and Numismedia Price Guides, I use a combo of all of those before placing a bid on anything. I also look and see what the wholesale prices of the coins are, it is always nice to get a coin at or near, or even under wholesale.
I use ebay's "what's it worth" feature on the selling page. that really tells you what the average value of a coin over 30 days is. however, if your search is not specific (i.e. no grade) then the average includes a wide range of grades and the value might not be as accurate. make sense?
What everyone has said. Compare and contrast. Since you're new, you need to be careful on Ebay (Actually, we ALL need to be careful on Ebay!). Anyways, One of the great features of Ebay is the "Make an Offer". If it's a slabbed coin from either NGC or PCGS, make offers that are quite below what you think you want to pay. You never know, they might accept. Sometimes people just want to MOVE things.
If I were you, I'd save ebay for coin supplies and junk silver (and if you happen to be interested in them, modern coinage in rolls only, such as rolls of state quarters, modern nickels, ect, which the only modern coinage I recommend are the nickels, which, even than, unless you're willing to pay a premium for uncirculated coins, I recommend getting modern coinage from the bank and even if you do demand uncirculated coins, I'd recommend getting them from craigslist over ebay any day of the week since you have more control over the price in that situation)
Thanks, Pocket change. I looked on ebay and could not find "whats it worth" could you direct me? Thanks!
