After a coin has been graded, how do you determine what it is worth? Greysheet, Redbook, Heritage galleries, PCGS website, ebay all seem to have something different. What would give me the idea of what I could resonably expect to get from a coin if sold, say on ebay? I did a little looking on ebay and the prices for the same coin varied widely. Thanks
Realized auction prices are the best. I have sold identically graded coins on ebay, and the prices have varied. I'd expect somewhere between the high and low realized prices.
Having a great coin that is listed as having a high value is propably the hope and dream of most who collect. Unfortunately the other side to all that is in reality anything you have is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it. Ebay can be a good indicator of what things are trending for. But there are always problems with ebay such as people over bidding and items not getting the attention others do so they don't get the high bids "you" might want for a sale. I've noticed a lot of ebay sellers putting a reserve that with their SH charges would give them the market value that publications are speculating. Most coin dealers I know use the current Grey Sheets to determine what they will sell an item for.
"Worth" is a funny thing. A 1795 cent is worth... one cent. However since you don't get them in change when you buy a pack a gum at the local 7-11, people are willing to pay more than one cent for it. How much is relative (as was said, different coins graded the same will sell for different amounts). To think that one would be able to look on a catalog, sheet or web site is a bit silly really. Of course it is (in theory) recent sale/auction data, but in order to really know how accurate the data was, you'd have to know the sample numbers, and it would have to be current (say within the last 30 days). Often, this information isn't available or due to the rarity of an item, just not possible. And then you add in slight variations (meaning, I bet you could pick ones you like more out of a hundred MS63 coins if they were side-by-side). Plus coins that just have some extra "eye-apeal" as they say, and you've really got a wash in terms of pricing.
