Why Have Price Guides ?

CDN (Coin Dealer Newsletter) = greysheet
http://www.greysheet.com/

As already noted a price guide is just that, a guide. Price guides for coins are like coin books, coin magazines, etc. As the coin collecting market increases, so do the so called experts. Just as on TV with the people that will make you rich buying land, properties, stock markets or even a super blender, they all get rich telling you to do something that they don't have to because they sell you how to do it. Price guides of coins are growing just as fast as the Mint can make coins. Most are so far outdated that they should not even be there. For example the stupidity of a Red Book being made and issued a year in advance is of no use at all with coin values. The 2008 Edition is now being printed and Whitman announced it will be taking orders now and will be sending out soon. The 2007 Edition was out even earlier. By the end of the year they will be issuing a 2010 Edition at this rate so what good are the prices in there now.
I've found the best thing to do is prior to myself going to a coin show I list all the coins I would like to buy, then check out the PCGS web site for prices, then the Red Book, The Grey Sheet, then at least 3 on line dealers for prices of those coins. I now have a decent idea of what the coin may be worth and any dealer above that average I ingore. However, occationally I find at coin shows coins are much less than any of the guides or on line dealers. The summation is just make your own guide and sell it instead of buing coins.

I just looked on ebay and the cheapest AU I could find sold for $1600. From there the prices for coins that sold jumped into the multiple thousands. While the price guides may show higher values, the actual values are much higher than what you have stated?

Where did you get your information?

Prices are connected to grades. Grades are connected to market factors. Market factors are connected to "eye-appeal." And that's where the problem is, always has been and always will be. Eye-appeal is whimsical and you can't quantify it or commodify it. It won't stand still long enough in the dullest markets to be quantified. They have tried really hard to make it so, but coins are not fungible commodities or stock certificates. It is *NOT* in any way a science. And their computers will never make it so either. Are they going to build a psychic computer that grades coins based on next months collecting fantasies?

Collectors like different aspects of eye-appeal. Not only that they like or dislike certain things in certain measures. Two people may like the full split bands on a Mercury dime. But one may go bonkers over it and the other may just say it's nice, sort of okay. A third collector may balk at the idea that it matters at all. How do they come up with a number that represents the values of three different people. How do they come up with a number that represents the different weights of values for a 100 or a 1,000 collectors? Not only different values but different values that may well change by the end of the week, next month or after the first can of beer.

What happens if they all suddenly decide that full split bands are a big shrug? The price goes down, regardless of what's on the slab. If a month later they all go bonkers over split bands, the price will go up regardless of what's on the slab or in the guidebook.

If you just buy what *you like*, at the price that agrees with your values, the whimsy of others will never matter.

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Thanks for the replys. I guess my question is........take the 3rd coin that I put a link to. The book only shows prices from VF on up. So, what would a coin below that be worth. Since I will never be able to spend a couple grand on a coin, what are fair prices below that ?

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Kerry67, the best place to determine coin values are found in the Heritage auction archives. http://coins.ha.com/ You get to see real prices from real auction sales, not guesses.

Please listen to my advice from earlier and stay away from raw or for that matter any problem coins, especially with the key dates.

Looking at lower grades, I was able to come up with a few examples of prices for you.
F-12 PCGS $860, ANACS $750
VG-10 ANACS $520
VG-8 PCGS $575, NGC $540, ANACS $500
A little more reasonably priced and all problem free.
Hope this helps.
Bruce