Which Price Book Is Most Accurate For US Coinage?

With coins unfortunately there really isn't a retail value. Greysheet is what a lot of dealers use. I would expect them to pay 90-95% of greysheet and sell around 105-110%, and it really depends on a lot of things but I would say that grey sheet would be about as close as you could come to setting a fair market value. DON'T use greysheet for insurance though, use the magazine coin values for that. It uses private sales to formulate prices instead of the dealer to dealer prices in greysheet hence the prices are generally higher.

Any price guide is going to be just that, a guide; a good starting point for negotiations. A coin's value will always be what a seller is willing to give and a buyer is willing to accept at the moment of purchase. Every sale is different, even for the same coin in the same week!

When it comes to finding the "going rate" for a coin, the Red Book and Blue Book are going to be looser, while the Greysheet is probably closer.

Very helpful; thanks! I shall subscribe to Greysheet and log onto numismedia.com.

JD

Not completely true. If you have a coin collection and want to feel like your rich, price all your coins per the Red Book. Or similarly go to the PCGS web site and use their prices. If you want to become depressed with your collections value, use the Blue Book. If you want to find yourself saying WHAT? Go to almost any coin shop and ask them to evaluate your coins.
What I like is at coin shows when you ask a dealer what is the REAL price of that coin. They generally pull out the grey sheet, then check you out to see what you may be willing to pay, able to pay, can afford to pay, then quote their price.

As a dealer, I use greysheet when purchasing coins. this is pretty much a dealer to dealer sheet. When selling them, I use the monthly price guide that comes in the Numismatic News. this is the "most accurate" price guide I have found. Hope this helps

I also ALWAYS make a point of negotiating on purchases. If the dealer doesn't want to, there are plenty of other people selling.

No need to subscribe to CDN, you can buy just specific issues. For me, the monthly supplement is all I need.