Red Book Pricing - How Accurate (Or Not)

I like using RedBook for mintage numbers and comparing similar coins of a series against each other with prices. Seeing which prices are higher for certain years and comparing it to other years/mm of the series. That's where the RedBook prices come in handy.

An example would be 1893 Barber dimes. Those are significantly more expensive than some of their counterparts, due to mintage numbers mostly. RedBook does a fine job helping me ballpark that increase in cost.

I only use the Red Book for casual reading. For current pricing use ebay, and Heritage archives, recently sold values. For a 'guide' I use the PCGS and NGC websites along with Numismedia FMV. With those resources you can really nail down the cost of almost any coin.