Red Book, Blue Book, Grey Sheet, CDN, NGC, PCGS Price Guides .. Confused?

it's a best guess on current trends, and none of us has a crystal ball that truly can see the future. You are wise to buy silver though, as it always has value.

Agreed.

Since ebay is what people are currently paying for a coin - checking sold items is likely about the best way to get a good idea of market trends. I know od dealers who do this very thing as well.

The Red Book, though it has been around forever, always has been too high in its listed prices and are supposed to be what you would expect to spend to acquire the coin. Since the Red Book, and other printed books, are only printed once a year, they have to come up with as best a guess as they can as to what will happen during the year.

The Gray sheet comes out monthly, hence dealers like it. But when you talk with dealers, you will find a lot wisely use the Gray Sheet as a guide and not Gospel.

You can check heritage auctions for more expensive sold items as well.


As far as places like PCGS and NGC, refer to the following and find some facts which show they are not as bulletproof as their marketers want people to think. Their own product/data shows someone putting faith in these companies as THE standard/authorities of the coin hobby should make sure they have taken time to do some legitimate research/evaluation.

http://goccf.com/t/346174#2967242

http://goccf.com/t/130186

ebay sold pricing is what you should use as a guide for pricing. The current CDN price for an AU50 1924 S Peace dollar is $60 so I'm not sure where you got the $81 figure.

https://www.greysheet.com/coin-pric...entryid=7903

I got it from here, where did you see the $60 value?

P.S. I see that there is a Lowes tracking cookie block that comes up on my laptop when I click the link, maybe not on yours, but if it does, just give it a temporary OK to get it to go to the CDN site where my $81 comes from.

Pricing has always been a pain in my opinion.

FWIW, here is what I do:

I buy a single greysheet every year. This gives me a good general idea of wholesale prices. I also have a RedBook (I might buy one every five or ten years). It gives me a general idea on what full-blown retail is. The real price is somewhere in between. If I'm still really interested, I may look at ebay auction results. I occasionally look at PCGS. I then take all those numbers and make an education determination as to what I feel a good price range is.

Of course, by the time I do all that, the coin is gone and I get to do it all over again with the next coin I like.

That's a great idea, one time a year seems reasonable for a hobby collector. CitationSquirrel, is any particular month better than another, or does it just not matter?

I haven't found one month to be better than another. Sometimes certain months highlight certain things, but if you just want your various basic coins, I haven't come across anything special yet. My last copy was purchased in May of 2019, so I'm thinking I'll probably get my next one some time this summer.