Numista.com Coin Values . Are They Usually Undervalued?

I think that they're all over the place. Some seem too high, some seem too low, some are just right. And ignore the prices on the ebay listings that are shown - I'm not sure how those are selected. Your best general guide is ebay sold listings.

Thx for asking this question @fpl. I too have been starting to use the values in numista as a judge of some of my coins and am interested to see where this discussion nets out.

I use Numista to keep track of world coin values in my inventory - anything from outside the U.S. and Canada. Whether it's accurate I can't say, but it's convenient and accessible. Certainly a starting point.



I hear this a lot on CCF, and while I don't dispute its accuracy, I find this is unworkable in practice. For starters, there are so many search parameters for a particular coin. An 1892 Barber dime might also be "1892 Liberty Head Dime," "1892 Liberty dime," "1892 dime," "1892 silver dime," etc., not to mention typos. That coin might be listed under the Barber dime category, or Dimes, or just Coins & Paper money, or not even have a category listed. Then if you're like me and you keep a want list, you'll have to make all those various searches for every single coin on your list. I have 43 Barber dimes on my want list alone, not to mention other series. Even if I only used two or three search parameters per coin, the time it would take adds up significantly.

Plus, are you going to calculate the average price of the last 5 sales? 10? 20? That's a lot more time doing math for each coin on your list. So to me, ebay sold listings, while accurate, are time consuming, unwieldy, and impractical. I use NumisMedia or Coin World Coin Values for U.S. coins, Coins and Canada for Canadian coins, and Numista for everything else.

Numista values are aggregates of reported paid prices. They're probably a bit below the actual averages because 1) people tend to look for bargains [in particular, coins from multi-coin lots are probably overrepresented], and 2) a large fraction of the paid prices are several years old and the values don't account for inflation. (There are probably also some straight-up mistaken and/or mislabeled reports.)

Otherwise they're probably the most reasonable source for actual coin values, being (by intent) based on actual prices paid by actual people. And, yes, they're convenient and accessible, and for all their problems they're still a lot more accurate than NGC/Krause, which is the other convenient-and-accessible source.

I agree that ebay sold listings are probably a better approximation of current values, but I also agree that 1) they're tricky to search properly, 2) they don't really account for the kind of common world coins that are more likely to be found in a dealer's bargain bin (or in a "100 random world coins" bag) than in individual ebay listings.

So many variables to consider. Is the coin raw ("I consider it MS63-choice"), slabbed by NGC, PCGS,CAC, or "second, third, fourth tier TPG, is it CAC stickered? Are you selling directly or through an auction house, LCS? All f these factors impact the value of a coin or its possible sale price.
I would suggest looking at Greysheet values ( considered wholesale prices, although currently fairly close to resale value for a lot of coins), CPG values (more of a retail approximation), ebay SOLD listings ( most recent sales for popular coins) and recent auction sales.
This is a good place to begin.

You're welcome! I learned that on CCF, as well.


There's an option to toggle to USD.


That is interesting. I've found that NumisMedia's prices for modern coins are usually overvalued. That's why I use both NumisMedia and Coin World's Coin Values for U.S. coins. Typically NumisMedia has higher values for modern coins and lower values for classic coins compared to Coin Values.

It tells me that there there are enough in the market graded above MS60 to satisfy demand, so no one is willing to pay the premium for the lesser grades.