Do You Routinely Haggle?

I try to know the fair market value of any coin I want, and that is what I offer.

twslisa,

I find that people at LCS's often literally pull out the greysheet to look up what price they will charge for a coin. So I feel no reason to step out of the shop or anything like that to look at prices on my phone. I often look up the price of a coin I see at the shop before asking but can also ask and put the coin aside to decide at the end while in the mean time looking it up. At shows they have a better idea of what they will charge but again, I'll look it up right then and there. The only reason a dealer would have to mind you looking up prices in his presence is if he knows he's overpriced the coin.

As for judging condition, focus on the main grades first (G, VG, F, VF, etc.) and worry about number grades later. Then stay on the conservative side in terms of price. Meaning if a coin is in the VF-XF range and you aren't confident which side of the line it falls on just treat it like a VF for pricing purposes. You shouldn't be buying any genuinely rare or expensive coins raw at this stage (until you are very good with grading) so if the price isn't right don't worry, there are a bunch more of that same coin out there to be found.

Great advice--thanks! In time I will develop the patience to save up for months to get a truly nice, rare, coin now and then. It's early on now, though, so I'm just making smallish buys, coins that appeal to me. I'd like to own a few, just to get my hands on them, study them, enjoy them. Later when I have a better idea what I'm doing, I can maybe turn some of these little buys around as partial payment for a better coin. I've been buying some graded coins just so I can compare conditions when looking at raw coins. Those picture books are helpful but there's nothing like a loupe and the real thing.

I keep my want list updated with NumisMedia prices (at least for the grade range I am shopping), which saves me from having to look them up separately. So when I am shopping at a show, I am just looking at my list which also happens to have some values.

Likewise, I saw a coin I wanted priced at $900, and recent auction results were consistently $200. I offered $200, and it was simply declined. No worries. Good luck to him in selling the coin, though.

with Saruma.

Saying this to a person that HAS anxiety to social situations is like telling a fish to stay out of the water. It's just not that easy and nor is it in their nature.


Saruma:

If you're not into haggling (and there's certainly an art to it) you can simply ask "what's your best price for this"....

If you do end up building a relationship with a very intuitive dealer they may just end up giving you the price they're willing to accept right up front.

The relationships you build are everything. One larger dealer friend of mine (6 figure+ coins in his inventory)has all of his coins priced at shows. They are priced retail to high retail. I pick out the few coins I'm interested in and ask him what's "my" price? He smiles looks them over and the price usually drops pretty drastically from where it started.

I actually ran into a friend at one show and we got to talking. He told me about this coin he wanted at that dealers table, but the price was too high. I asked him if he made an offer and he said he just walked away. I walked him over to the table and introduced him as a friend and told him what coin he wanted and what he wanted to spend. He left with the coin at a good price.

I have no anxieties over social interactions though and being in sales and now running a restaurant dealing with distributors daily, it's second nature to haggle.