I've been lurking for a while trying to learn a bit more about my favorite new hobby I've started out collecting modern silver bullion coins, have a nice little collection started. Thinking of moving into some U.S. coins, particularly small cents. I've decided I'd rather purchase slabbed coins (PCGS and NGC), although more expensive, because I know exactly what I'm getting. My question is this : Going to the PCGS price guide, the prices they list very often seem MUCH higher than what these coins are selling for on Ebay (which I think is a good place to go to estimate the "value" of a coin). Why is this so? What exactly is PCGS basing their prices on? Thanks in advance for any thoughts/advice on this subject
The PCGS guides (and most other price guides) are quoting their estimates based on "the average dealer asking prices for properly graded United States coins." (emphasis added) If you're including the non-certified or "raw" coins (or those certified by 12th-tier grading services), most of them are either horribly overgraded or have no trust from buyers in the marketplace, so the price guides really can't be reliably applied to them.
PCGS price guides are, in my opinion, higher priced than what the market will bear. PCGS slabs seem to sell higher than NGC which seem to sell more than ICG, ANACS, etc. Slab-Mania has taken hold! You have to buy the coin first, not the slab! For instance, I have bought ICG and ANACS slabbed coins for less than half of what PCGS graded coins were getting, broke them out, submitted them to PCGS. In many cases, I got the same grade (or sometimes better!) and later sold them at a nice profit. Go to shows and you will find these gems a prices no way near what PCGS slabs get. Look at the coin and see what they are selling for. If you want a PCGS or NGC slab, think about breaking them out and submitting them to the big two. After the cost for the coin, the re-submission expense back to PCGS or NGC along with S&H costs, you may end out ahead! Personally, my favorite slabs are ICG. I like the Intercept Shield because I have found nothing better to protect my coins than this technology and they are also making waves in the "slabbing" industry. One of the reasons I like slabbed coins is the sonically sealed inert materials that hold and protect coins. The Intercept Shield makes ICG slabbed coins the best protected slabs in the market. If somebody has a better, coin-protected, slab...let me know! Some dealers stubbornly state that ICG stands for "I can't grade", but I have found some really nice graded ICG coins at prices way less than PCGS graded coins for the same coin in the same grade! Heritage Auctions is now selling ICG coins and if you watch Grey Sheet indicators, ICG is always in the tops with PCGS and NGC. Check this out...http://www.greysheet.com/cdn/cdnccmi.asp Who knows, maybe their slabs will command a premium on selling prices like PCGS is getting right now! As for prices, Coin World's "Coin Values" or Grey Sheets are a good starting point. You are right about getting what you want if you buy sight unseen (all things being equal, which they are not with subjective grading companies), If you have to buy sight unseen, I would stick to PCGS, NGC, ICG and ANACS...and sometimes, NOT necessarily in that order. Now, go and have some fun...
Welcome, Glad you decided to join in. It's really not that hard to know "exactly" what you're getting. Just requires a little effort on your part. I suppose paying someone else to do your homework is fine, but I'd rather keep my money and do my own.
A hope and a prayer? In all seriousness, some of the price guides really have no basis for their prices quoted. Dealers use the greysheet. Just because it is in a slab doesn't mean that it will trade for that price. While it is true that PCGS does have an edge in the market today, this to is changing. Just be sure to stay with the big four if you choose to deal in the slab market.
Well - if you were ask any of those who produce the PCGS price guide the answer you will get is " average dealer prices ". That means what the dealers are asking for the coins - or retail price. However - if you took the time to carefully track every auction site, all the live auctions, and watched as many dealer ads as you could find for several years - this is what you find out. That the price listed in the PCGS price guide is the highest price recorded for a given coin in a given grade. It's no where near average. Of course you could always do this as well - check the asking price for a given coin by David Hall Rare Coins. Then look at the price for this same coin in the PCGS price guide. What you will often find is that DHRC is selling that coin for roughly half of what the PCGS price guide says it is worth. Now if you don't already know - David Hall is the President of PCGS. So if those coins were really worth that much - don't you think it a little odd that he would be selling them for half price ?
Considering what I have written about him in the past - I would have thought that might have happened long ago. Oddly enough - it hasn't. He did refuse me an interview one time though
I browsed Mr. Hall's inventory of Morgan Dollars and they all seem to be a tad overgraded. Maybe I'm casting too critical an eye, but the MS-66s seem to have a lot more visible marks than one would expect. Perhaps these are all "borderline" coins (i.e. "C" coins), but you got to wonder if his coins may be graded more leniently. It will probably take a scandal before these blatant conflicts of interest (David Hall grading his own coins) are eliminated. ICG has the right idea here.
"...conflicts of interest..." Every once in a while, I am pleasantly surprised at how observant coin collectors can be.
