Buying A St Gaudens $20 Coin

I would go with ebay. I have got some good deals off there.

ebay does seem to be the cheapest when I look around. What are the websites for heritgage and teletrade?

Hi Guido, I would like to point out that when you buy on ebay you are often eliminating the middleman. Your advantage is that if you are going for a coin certified by a major third party grader such as PCGS you really don't need to pay for the advice of a middleman who is recommending a common date coin and getting a very nice commission for doing so, I'm quite sure.

If you aren't very familiar with buying on ebay, be sure to do your homework as to what the value is of any coin you are interested in, and then have patience and don't allow yourself to get sucked in to a bidding frenzy and over pay. Please pardon me for sounding tutorial here, but I couldn't in good conscience recommend buying on ebay if you aren't VERY comfortable with their system.

In closisng, I must say that high grade collector coins are usually a much better hedge against inflation than bullion coins. In todays market of a limited supply of $20 double eagles, and the huge number of new collectors coming in to the hobby from the states quarters program, some of whom, hopefully many, will eventually graduate from states quarters to other areas, thereby increasing the demand which results of course in higher prices for an item which they don't make anymore!

All the best,
Dennis

I read and post on several investor sites ( goldshares etc )
On one site a guy had bought for slightly less then half a million dollars in MS64 St Gaudens
When gold had run up 50% he got like 10% more then he paid for when he sold
First the shop takes like 20% margin on sale then it takes like 20% margin on buy back and moreover the world is full of MS 64 at those prices

So if you want to invest you have to go with MS 65 or better or learn to grade and buy one raw coin off ebay and get it graded
A few weeks ago I saw a raw MS 64 go on ebay France for about
615 dollars

Hi Guido, I'm not much into encapsulated coins at all, but I know that you can get population reports for any particular coin from NGC and PCGS, I've seen them on ebay for some listings, which should help you in determining investment possibilities...that said, I don't know how to get these reports, maybe someone else could tell us?

Dennis

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Originally posted by Guido

my rep from the company I'm using, Lear Financial, called me and asked me what my intentions were and, based on what I told them (I am looking to collect coins, he suggested a St. Gauden $20 gold piece, He said the coin would be a MS64 grade on PCGS with a year between 1907 and 1933 at a cost of $1,225.

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If some salesman came on like this one did, I would check to make sure I still had my wallet, and then I would run like blazes. There is no way I would buy anything from this guy.

quote:

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Originally posted by fastfords1

Hi Guido, I'm not much into encapsulated coins at all, but I know that you can get population reports for any particular coin from NGC and PCGS, I've seen them on ebay for some listings, which should help you in determining investment possibilities...that said, I don't know how to get these reports, maybe someone else could tell us?

Dennis

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If you're selling a N.G.C. graded coin all you have to do is type in the certification number in the proper place and ebay fills in a lot of the info for you and the pop report is automatically put on the page.

Hi Guido
Nothing wrong with your approach in trying to collect Gold coins. I to started to "try" and collect the "entire" Saint coins. I got some real nice buys RAW. Thats how I learned about the TPG's that will NOT slab your coin(s) if they have been "cleaned or whizzed". My first raw $20 Saint I purchased was a 1908 which when submitted to PCGS was returned in a bodybag--At that time I wondered WTH is "whizzed'--One of my other RAW purchases, a beautiful 1915 S Saint was returned in a body bag because this one was "cleaned". On this one I could not detect how it was cleaned. This coin tho is SO perfect IMHO, that I kept it. I put it in a bezel with a gaudy gold chain which I wear on rare occassions. This setup is worth about 4-5 grand, so I don't wear it just to "any" affair . So as time pasted, especially the last o, lets say 2-3 years, gold EXPLODED--Many of the coins I was trying to buy on the cheap disappeared over night. Also, after getting burnt on 3 saints Raw with purchases on ebay is when I decided no more RAW coins for me. The 3rd one was a 1924 that was also cleaned. Now I only consider a slab coin, but alas, even now, many of these are still to expensive for me to "jump back in" if you will to buy. My advice, do what you are exactly doing here. Educate yourself, be careful buying raw coins, and definitely stay away from that "so called investor dude". You will do better buying on ebay or even other forums teletrade etc than that dude. Others also might also disagree with this, but I suggest you try and buy this coin in A "respectable" TPG holder, preferrably NGC, PCGS, ANACS, in some cases even ICG-- Good Luck!!