PCGS Grading Standards And Online Price Guide Discussion.

I use both PCGS and Numismedia as Numismedia does not carry many of the grades

Numismedia is a great source and NGC uses this price guide as well...pretty certain that these two are in cohoots.

Although not exclusively I use numismedia as well most of the time for a quick lookup, although alot of their prices seem high, or even low at times still. ebay completed listings also give a fair price for what like coins are actually selling for here, today and now.. So that's a good option as well. Instead of looking at just one source I like to take RedBook, numismedia and completed auction listings and kind of average them out...

A combo of Greysheet, Numismedia, and Coin Prices magazine.
Slabbed coins I use Heritage auction archives, as well as ebay once in a while.

I'm with babysitr when it comes to buying raw, 50-60% of retail. I usually let it go if it goes higher than that.

mostly on ebay. I go through a lot of coins to find clean ones without issues. grade it at what I think it should valued at. get my pricing from PCGS and Numismedia. i'll set a watch on it then I record it in an excel spreadsheet with its details and comments along with when its ending, the full price and my highest bid that I will go. I've been doing this for a couple years so I have a lot of sales recorded in each of the grades. I can tell by that the average of retail they are selling for. I dont bid on all of them, some I just record and track so that I have history. If I really like it, i'll set my mock bid at 65%. some coins I need just dont go below 70% so there are some exceptions. i'll wait until the auction is ending and then at the last minute put in my highest bid. Dont win a lot of them, but when I get it, I know I did ok. here's a snapshot of my spreadsheet. the dark orange are the bids I actually made. if the row is orange I won it. the % of value field tells me how much of retail it sold for and I have triggers set to color it if its under 50% or under 25%. some coins sell well below 50% others not so much.

jbone, the reason for my post was to show you that many coins sell for less than than 65% of retail. you just need to be patience and have a plan of attack. are you willing to pass on it until the next one comes along? most times once I grade a coin I will take up to 5 points off in case I'm wrong before I price it out, that way if if comes in at that grade I'm still ok. if my original grade is good, well, I just made a really good deal.

I appreciate the advice. I have actually gotten a few nice deals on ebay when I'm patient. I'm not the kind of collector that buys just because its in front of me (most of the time). I go to a couple of different shops almost daily. The "fresh" coins that are good quality are gone fast, so that's how I get most of my good stuff. Sometimes it is slow going though. When I have to resort to ebay, I will have to work out a system like yours.