Price Guide - Which One Do I Use?

I've always found that any coin magazines have very inflated values in the price columns. I would say they do this to help the advertisers sell their coins at inflated prices and they also tell you what you want to hear.

OH BOY! My bag of wheat back pennies from 1940 to 1958 are worth 25 times face value ! LOL!

The RedBook has always been my guide, and I try to buy my coins at least at 75% of what the RedBook says.
I also agree that the Grey sheet is a great resource, but I think that it is an expensive source of info and probably more useful to the dealers and serious collectors.
At a coin show, I have often asked a dealer if they have an older copy handy of the Grey sheet I could have and whenever I did ask around I got it for free.

Of course, no price guide is of any use unless you have some grading experience or at least some help from a trusted honest knowledgeable fellow collector.

For up to date values, I might take an average price realized of the same coins in the same condition in completed auctions on places like ebay.
When I buy on the net, I am usually the one with the lowest completed auction for that particular grade and coin from the group as long as the feedback of the seller is pretty decent and established. I count the shipping as part of the value of the coin.

Hello,

If Numismedia.com runs low and "The Red Book" runs high that is good. A dealer at the show told me that Proof Commemoratives grade at about a "PR-64" is that true? What about Proof Sets? I like the idea of the Coin World/Coin Values but Grey Sheet sounds like it might get me more accurate pricing. I'm still on the fence. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Rich

Hello,

Bilbo, how do I get the "13.75" special?

Thanks,
Rich

I agree with springcypress...ebay is real time market for the coins you are collecting.

put the auctions into your watched items and see what they are selling for , or you can look for completed auctions .

I will put several into my watched items of the same item and see what prices they sell for and know that I will pay somewhere between the lowest and highest .



by the way for straight from the mint grades I use 67 as a base line not 69 .

Keep in mind that when using the RedBook as a guide they do not go into detail , Full bands on Merc's or fullsteps on jeffersons ,toning and other market qualifiers .

RedBook can be extremely low when other factors are taken into account .

while I collect PROOF sets from the mint on a yearly basis , I spend most of my time on single coins and build my own MINT sets and look for the market rarities.

Go to the COMPLETED auctions to see what they recently sold for