Silver Price Vs Red Book Price.

The Red Book is just a basic guide that is put together well before anyone actually uses it and should be used as such.
Just a guide. It also mostly deals with numismatically valued coins that have little to do with pm prices.

Wow! No I understand the difference. I know what spot is at any given moment but if spot was more in weight then the collector value per say what price wins... The Red Book is a guide but prices don't stray much from that

Red Book is probably one of the worst price guides imo. Great for info but horribly inaccurate prices. Theyre already dated by the time the book comes out.

As for the what wins question though, the higher the numismatic value the less its affected by spot. 1860 o Seated Liberty dollars its not going to matter if spots 10 or 30 dollars, but a common 1964 half will see its value significantly change between the two spot prices

Sorry Superhal, but you are in the minority. Most people would say (and act as if) that numismatic value is not additive.

If it's not additive what is it? Exponential, Multiplicative, Divisive? I'm in the minority with Hal.

Superhal's system is logical and makes sense - and it is certainly what the coin dealers do when the silver price is going up. It is certainly far truer for gold than for silver, since the bullion premium is usually a far larger component of total value.

As I see it, a coin's "value" has three theoretical components, because there are three places you can take a coin to "sell" it: a bank, a bullion dealer, or the numismatic marketplace. The three components are:
- the face value (what a bank will give you for it)
- the bullion premium (the difference between what a bullion dealer will give you for it and what a bank will give you for it)
- the numismatic premium (the difference between what a coin collector will give you for it and what a bullion dealer will give you for it)

If a coin's total value is staying the same but the bullion premium is rising, then that must mean that the numismatic premium is falling. If this were what happens usually, then it would be foolish for anyone to "invest" in numismatic coins while the bullion prices are going up and up; people would buy non-numismatic bullion instead. The reality, however, is more usually as I said before - dealers hike up their prices as the spot price rises. So the numismatic premium stays constant, and the bullion premium goes up.

The system breaks down when the silver price falls again, however, because nobody wants to sell things for less than what they paid. When the spot prices crash, the prices on coin dealer window tickets remain remarkably unchanged. So in effect, with falling bullion prices and constant total values on coins, the numismatic premiums are rising.

But if the numismatic premium falls to zero or even below zero, then that means bullion dealers are paying more for coins than coin collectors. So the coins will go in the melting pot.

I agree BStrauss3. Just look at how hard it is to find a lot of Walking Liberty half dollars in VF/EF grade. Many went to the melting pot the two times silver approached $50 an oz. Same with many of the other silver coins. There are plenty of VG coins trading hands but not all that many nice coins.

Typical price guides are best used as a simple ratio within the type set....meaning....

It is pretty reliable...regardless of where the real NUMISMATIC value sits...if the listed value of Mercury dime "A" is twice that of Mercury dime "B" it holds to chance that whatever the current NUMISMATIC going price is for dime A, it will always be twice that of dime B. This can shift a bit over longer periods of time as coins come and go in popularity, but of you have an even somewhat recent edition...the ratio should hold true. Price guides are like trying to print a book of Stock Values....it is only accurate the day it goes to press.