Featured Tools You Should Be Using

Tools You Should Be Using
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This will be a multi-part series introducing some helpful tools that will make finding the coins you want easier, faster, automated, repeatable, and removing as many false-positives as possible with your auction searches.

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Part 1: eBay Advanced Search Query

On eBay, there is searching, and then there is searching. I for one, can't even image wading through thousands of auctions without knowing how to used the advanced eBay search and filtering. Here are the basics:

Quotation marks: Searches for the exact word or phrase
Parentheses around keywords separated by commas: Act as an OR operator
Minus sign (-): Acts as a NOT operator

These can be strong together, with multiple instances of each, but there is a max of around 100 characters that the eBay search box allows for, after that it will get truncated and ignored, or sometimes there will be an error and no results are returned.

For example, say I wanted to search for CAC coins, but exclude Morgan and Peace dollars, I would type this into eBay search box:

cac -(morgan,peace) click here for live example

How about a CAC coin from 1880 or 1881, excluding Morgan and Peace dollars.

cac (1880,1881) -(morgan,peace) click here for live example

How about a CAC coin from 1880 or 1881, that is also a proof coin, excluding Morgan and Peace dollars.

cac proof (1880,1881) -(morgan,peace) click here for live example

As you might notice in any or the above example, sometimes a coin you were intending to exclude winds up in your search because the seller did not title the item well enough. So a Morgan Dollar will show up if the title does not include the word we are excluding, in this case "morgan".

Next, let's say you wanted to only include coins less than $1000 dollars. This is where the filtering comes in.



click here for live example

You can also filter Item Location, I recommend you set this to USA only for coins. If you want to only search for listings with Best Offer, you can do that and a lot more. Here is a list of filter choices, and depending on the category you are searching in, there may be more or less.

• Returns accepted
• Listings ending in XXX hours/days
• Number of Bids
• Local Pickup
• Completed listings
• Sold listings
• PayPal accepted
• Accepts best offer
• Sale items
• Free shipping
• Only certain sellers
• Exclude certain sellers
• Only Sellers with eBay stores
• Only Sellers I am following
• Item Location
• Auctions only
• Buy It Now (BIN) only
• Located within XXX miles of XXXXX

So a search that has all of my original query and filters, plus Free Shipping and Best Offer Accepted would look like this:



click here for live example

Now, you probably already use eBay Categories to narrow your search to a particular series, which will also let you target right into the coins you want. But lets say you want a broad search, but one that excludes coins you already own or series you just don't want. The search string can get very long, but up until a certain max length, they work fast. For example, check this search out:

cac (au,ms) (58,63,64,65) -(morgan,peace,franklin,mercury,barber,jefferson,buffalo,gold)

This would Result in CAC approved coins, that were MS or AU, of certain grades, and excluding a ton of series you already own. Since we are not specifying a particular series, we will naturally get everything else. click here for live example

The key is you can quickly and easily build advanced eBay searches on the fly without only remembering a few basic operators; NOT, OR, AND as demonstrated above.

Now, lets say you get a few searches set up exactly how you like them and want to save the search so you don't need to retype them every time you open up eBay's site. It used to be called saved-searches, and now they are "followed-searches". Click follow this search.



To see all your followed searches, click "My Ebay", and then under "Organize", click "saved searches"





OR, you can mouse-over "My eBay" and wait for the drop-down to show up, and select "Followed Searches".


You can select to receive a daily email of new matches to any or all of your saved searches. When you first go to www.ebay.com, you will see a "Feed" of all your saved searches, or you can go directly to a particular search. Strangely on the Feed, your saved-searches / followed-search are referred to as "Interests you follow".



If there are particular sellers you like, you should also save these sellers to "Sellers You Follow" or as it appears on the eBay Feed, "Members you Follow"

 

Part 2: Auction Filtering Software

In the past two weeks I have added a new powerful tool to my coin toolbox, it is called AuctionSieve, and can be found here: http://www.auctionsieve.com/
This tool is FREE, and it very powerful at creating saved-searches with all the power of what eBay already allows with advanced search query, and so much more.

For the sake of this post, I will assume you already know and use eBay search query as outlined above.

Imagine the power of eBay search, but even better! That is where third-party software comes into play. There are several tools you can use, but since I prefer AuctionSieve, that's is what I will be showing you today.

Once you download and install the software, you are prompted to create a first basic "Sieve" or saved-search. This can be a very basic search, or can be a very advanced search with a ton of options.

Let me first show you a basic search:



Click OK, and this is what you see:



Now, obviously, we don't want a Trifold Wallet Purse, so the Basic search needs to be tweaked. Click on OPTIONS button, and you will see this:



I recommend you do the following for all your searches:

(1) Set the category to 11116 (Coins & Paper Money) or 253 (US coins)
for full list, click here

(2) Always check "include store items", or you will miss a lot of coins!
(3) Set MAX price, if you have a budget

Now you Basic Search looks like this:



That's getting better!

How about some more filtering, as we don't want any silly Morgan Dollars. Lets specify some words to EXCLUDE:



Now, lets say you really hate certain commemorative half dollars that commonly are referred to by a multi-word phrase, like:

"Long Island"
"New Rochelle"
"Rhode Island"
"San Diego"

Well, use the quotes just like on ebay and add them to the exclude list of words:



How about CAC coins that are also dated 1880?



Now, you can flip between ALL or ANY word on the included search terms. So this works very similar to eBay as you can see. Now, you may be asking what is the point of this software as it basically replicates what you can already do on the site. Well, glad you asked.

(1) You can include WAY, WAY more inclusion words and exclusion words, like WAY more! So, if you are like me and eBay search is always puking on your wicked long strings, problem solved!
(2) You can manage the saved searches much easier than on eBay's own site.
(3) You can name your searches (something eBay took away)
(4) You can automate the running of the searches, run batch searchs when you launch the program for example.
(5) You can "trash" words on the fly by simply highlighting them once you have done the initial search, and this is a very powerful and very fast way to remove false-positives you search otherwise picks up due to crappy eBay listing titles, and spelling errors.

Here is a trash example:




See right hand side for full list of all "words", or phrases you have trashed:



This is EXTREMELY beneficial to remove those pesky coins you keep seeing on eBay month after month, that have crappy listing titles, and are coins you don't want! Never have to see those coins in your save searches again.

Now when you first create what I could now call an "Advanced Sieve" AKA Advanced Search, you will need to take some time. But if you are hunting for very specific coins, in specific grades, at specific prices points, and you want to exclude all the crappy coins you already reviewed and rejected, this is insanely powerful software that will save you a tremendous amount of time and frustration in the medium and long run.

Now, let's say you want to only see items posted on eBay in last 24 hours, there is drop down for that.



You can also only show items you have not previous seen.

There are many more powerful features, but I think you play around with it yourself and see how you can customize it to make it work for you. Don't spend all that time pouring over thousands of eBay auctions by hand, start searching smart and finding those little gems hiding amongst the dreck.

 

Yes, I was going to mention that. It bothered me greatly as well, and also the followed searches are not nearly as powerful as the old "saved-searches", but we only can work with what eBay will allow us, at least on the site. See my follow posts that will be posted in the coming days for work-arounds.

 

Part 3: NGC Collection Manager

I know not everyone wants to geek-out on spreadsheets, or database software for you collection, but personally I can't even image collecting coins without some sort of inventory software. I use and highly recommend NGC's FREE Collection Manager, found here. Register for a free account or sign in to your existing account. It looks like this:




See here for intro.

It is just about as good as you could want for free software, and it may be all you'll ever need.

Let me show you the process of adding a coin:



You specify "owned", and then the TPG or Raw, and then the CERT#, and if it is a PCGS or raw coin, you will have to add the details such as grade, type, etc. If it is NGC coin, it will pull in the appropriate basic details.

You should specify some additional information, such as when you bought it, from whom you bought it, and the price and any fees such as CAC fees, shipping fees, buyer fees, etc.



Click SAVE AND EDIT, and you will see the basic info you just added and a whole lot more. I recommend you add notes about the variety, CAC approval, purchase notes, set a custom Value if there is a premium beyond retail, such toning premium. I also strongly recommend you upload an Obverse and Reverse image as you buy coins, so it is manageable and so you have a visual record of what you own.



When you are done adding everything you want to specify about the coin, you click Save & Return, and you are back at the overall view of your collection. From here, you have some powerful filtering options to drill down into a particular part of you collection, or to find an exact coin. Some columns can be a fuzzy search, some can have a NOT operator, and some have drop-down selections.

For example, lets say you only want TPG coins, under the column called "grader", click the Key looking icon, and you will see a few options. Click on "Doesn't Contain", and type the word "raw".



You just filtered out all the RAW coins.

Now you can string these together, so if you wanted a coin from 1930, that was either NGC or PCGS, you can easily do that. Or If you wanted to see only coins that were "Washington Quarters" that you SOLD, see this example:



Once you have taken the time to add or update all the coins in your collection with the maximum amount of info you know about each coin, you can easily make inventory reports, sales reports, storage reports, etc. To make a report for export to PDF or Excel or other, click on "My Collection" > "Reports"



From there, I usually like to use the Inventory Report, with the "Owned" filter to exclude coins I've sold. Click "run report". From there you can view it, or also export it to Excel or save to PDF and some other choices show here:






You can also easily add coins to the NGC Registry, or even better yet, a Custom Registry like my CAC Type Set. If you are still in the Collection Manage, click the "Control Panel" button and scroll down:



Click the "Custom Sets" TAB. Add a New Custom Set or simply modify an existing one with any new coins you may have added to the Collection Manager recently. As long as you have maintained you collection with NGC free software, this is extremely easy to roll out a bunch of Registry sets.



I think you are starting to see how powerful and helpful this software could be to bring order to your collection, know what you have, and be able to quickly produce inventory reports for your insurance company like Hugh Wood, or to keep safe backed up off-site in case of fire or other loss.

For me, I like to know when and where I bought something, or how much, and when I sold it, did I lose money or make money after fees? There is other software you can use for this, and maybe you even like that product better than NGC, but for me, the Collection Manager is suitable for newbies and advanced collectors alike and that is why I wanted to share it with you today.

Remember, have fun with your coins!

 

Part 4: Price Guides and other of that Ilk

There has already been much said about which price guide, or combo of prices guides to use when determining a reasonable price for a generic coin. Now, keep in mind that varieties, toning premium, quality of strike, net-grading due to problems, and various other things can greatly increase or decrease the prices of a specific coin. But if you simply wanted to know what the "going rate" is for a average common Morgan Silver dollar, with nothing special about it (either in the positive or negative sense) where would a person look?

Well, if you are an advanced collector you probably already have you preferred methods of determining a ball-park price. But if you are a newbie, there may be confusion as to where to even begin. My recommendation would be to avoid "grey-sheet" & "blue-sheet", if you have heard those terms tossed around. I would instead focus on two very simply and FREE methods of checking previous auction and previous Buy-it-Now sold listings.

Method One: eBay Sold Listings

Notice I didn't say "completed" listings. You don't care about completed listings, you only want to see what people laid cold hard cash down for, so focus on "sold listings".

Browse to www.ebay.com and type in your item of interest. For our example, we will use a 1880 Morgan Dollar graded MS64 by PCGS or NGC. Type this in the search box:

(ngc,pcgs) 1880-S Morgan MS64

Click SEARCH, and current listing will pop up. Then click the filter on the left hand side called "Sold Listings".



You will now see a lot of GREEN font, this is the price the item sold for:

Sort the items by "Price + Shipping Lowest First". Ignore the really low-ball examples, if any, and find the average price. Now depending on who you are, the term average may mean different things. You could use Mean, Median, Mode, or Range, or even some combo of them to determine a sensitive average or range of prices.



click here to see live example

Based on this search, a reasonable price for an MS64 1880 Morgan would be $60-70$ as of this posting date.

Now, lets say you wanted another independent verification of completed auction prices:

Method Two: Heritage Auction Realized Prices

Heritage Auctions (HA) has been around for a long time, and they auction a massive number of coins each year, year after year. They offer free auction archives simply by registering for a FREE account.

browse to www.ha.com and sign-up or sign-in.

Next, choose BROWSE ALL COINS: Leave search box empty and click the large blue search button and you will see something like this:





Click the "PAST AUCTION ARCHIVE" tab, or click my link here. You should now be looking at over 1.7 MILLION previous auction records.

Now, you can use HA great filters running down the left side, or specify search terms, or a combo of both. Since we are looking for confirmation of that 1880-S Morgan, try filtering first:

Specify:

• US coins
• Silver Dollars > Morgan Dollars
• Grade > MS64
• Year > 1880
• Mint Mark > S
• Grading Service > PCGS & NGC

Keep the search box empty for now. You should see around 1,500 examples of this coin. Now, I would sort the list by "Most Recent Sales". Eyeball the list, does it seem to match what eBay told us?



But, there is a problem, we are seeing Proof-Like (PL) and maybe even Deep-Mirror_Proof-Like (DMPL) coins. Let's filter those out.

We need to put something in the search as an INCLUSION before we specify an EXCLUSION. so, lets say "1880-s NOT prooflike NOT deep" Click SEARCH.

Now, as you can see, we are getting some fancy version of this coin, coins with CAC stickers, premium toning, or special holders from GSA and Redfield hoards.

We don't want to simply sort by "Lowest Price", as HA auctions go back way too many years and we will skew the result. We want to eyeball the average looking coins which match up with the inventory we saw on ebay. Should be around 900 coins.

Click here to see live example


Watch out for multi-coin lots, like (20) coins. Watch out for old holders, like the PCGS Doily that adds a lot of value. And keep coin examples from only the past 24 months or so.

So, here are some keepers:




And there are many more. By scrolling down, I can see a normal range of prices from $60-$80, just about what we saw on eBay for a generic example.

So, there you have it, two fast, easy, free methods to check prices on a given coin.

 

Part 5: Methods to Find Coin Dealers

Some people like to shop only on eBay, or if you are like @Mainebill, you specifically DONT shop on eBay. Some people like trusted online dealers, or trusted local dealers. There is really no right way to find coins, but in many cases it can be hard to find lists of dealers to locate specialty or regional or online dealers. A few months ago I created a very large ONLINE coin dealer list for CoinTalk, See it here. That Master Dealer list is an excellent place to start, but it's limited to dealers with websites.

Now, lets say you didn't only want only dealers with online coin inventories, as that might be too restrictive. And you don't want a single source, as you know there is not a single up-to-date exhaustive dealer list. Some lists have more info than others, some are more updated, and some have specialized filters.

Well you still have a few obvious choices, which I will list below:

NCG Dealer Locator

PCGS Dealer Locator

CAC Dealer Locator

ANA Dealer Locator (sign in)

PNG Dealer Locator

Numismaster Dealer Locator

GreySheet Dealer Listing (paid)

CoinWeek Dealer Listing

CoinWorld Dealer Listing

CoinZip Dealer Locator (CT member)

and

Master Online US Coin Dealer List

A-L CLICK HERE
M-Z CLICK HERE

 

Part 6: Creating and Maintaining a Want-List (Excel) FILTERING

Many collectors have a want-list of coins to buy at a later time. Some keep this want-list in their head or a scrap of paper, or a notebook, on their cell phone as a to-do list, and a few other common methods.

Today I want to discuss of how I do it, and how I recommend doing it. I use a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, and since I also have a Windows Phone, this is synced to my Phone, and multiple PC's, as well as stored in the "cloud".

Excel is extremely powerful. It can be used in a superficial manner, but you can also really geek-out and automate Excel using VBA to make very powerful applications that remain in the Office suite that is ubiquitous in most offices across the globe.

We are not going to use these advanced features for our want-list, but I wanted to point out you can modify this basic want-list concept to be a simple or complicated as you want.

The reason why the spreadsheet coin want-list is so powerful is that it can be used in a variety of ways to sum, filter, sort, color-code, and update easily. It can be used in conjunction with an inventory list, or you may want to keep both your owned coins and your wanted coins on one spreadsheet with a "STATUS" column that listed "OWNED", "WANT", "SKIP". "UPGRADE", etc.

Using Excels build-in "Filter" toggle, you can easily hide parts of your spreadsheet and manipulate it without having to LOOK at the entire database at once. For instance, say you wanted to print off your current want-list, and wanted to ignore any Types you already own. You simply turn on filtering, and specify WANT/NEED, and auto-magically all your other coins are hidden. You can then sort this list by a column, for example, estimated price in the grade you are looking for so you can focus on the more affordable coins.

For this example I am going to use a USA Type List as my want-list, but obviously all these techniques can be used on any list, for instances, a complete list of Seated Dimes with Major and Minor Varieties.

Filtering in Excel:



Click the "DATA" tab on the Office Ribbon. Select the "FILTER" tool. Click the drop down icon that has appeared on the "STATUS" column.



Now, you can start Typing and Excel will reduce the list of Text that appears in the column, or you can Select or De-Select the term(s) you want to see/ not see.

So, lets show only the "NEED" coins. Click OK.



And my list of 200+ rows is instantly reduced to just the coins with a status of NEED.



I can specify as many columns to FILTER as I want, and change them easily on the fly.

Lets say I only want to see DIMES that I NEED:



Now, with filtering turned on, you can still SORT the spreadsheet like you normally would. Nothing will be corrupted, or lost, or "messed-up" in the hidden rows. Let's sort our filtered NEED Dimes by desired grade:




We click OK, and this is what we now have with only a few clicks to filter and sort:



Now, lets say you just took the 30 seconds it takes to make the want list, but remember you needed to update a coin you already own. You have printed off the want-list as seen above, and want to basically "undo" the filtering. It takes a single click of the same "FILTER" button we used to start the process:



and voila!

 

geek - One very important thing I would point out to you, and those who also do searches like this to check on the value of a given coin in a given grade, please, PLEASE !, don't forget that the results of these searches are based on the plastic, not the coin !

In other words, before you pay any attention to the realized prices, forget the plastic and look at the coins and compare them to each other ! Only then can you ever have any understanding of what you are actually looking at.