I Just Bought This Coin

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Originally posted by hadleydog

Are the pgcs prices not very accurate? It values MS-60 at $320 and MS-63 at $400. I paid $380 for MS-62, figuring it was at least in the ball park.
The pcgs prices are far from accurate, especially on a coin that doen't trade very often. Use the Heritage website of archived auctions for price comparisons, it shows real transactions.
I couldn't find any previous auctions for ms62's, but that $380 should have bought you a very nice 64 (in ngc plastic, the pcgs ms64 went for $100 more). Even with the 10% restocking fee, I would return it and you should still have enough left to buy a 64. JMHO.

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ouch, is it that far off?

Sounds to me like a $38 mistake :(

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Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper

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Originally posted by biokemist6

USAP, I would not worry too much about the price you paid. PCGS is generally on the high side of values but you also have a rather rare coin on your hands with only 36,500 made so the value is what you place on it. I checked the Heritage archives and out of the hundreds of thousands of coins that they have sold, only 78 1888 3CNs have been have been handled by them and that dates back to 1993.

Grats on winning an affordable rarity

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So you don't think I got a raw deal? I don't even mind paying (a little) more than if I shopped around.

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Well, I personally think you did ok, no bargain but you didnt get ripped off either. Here are the links to 2 different 1888 MS64s sold by Heritage over the summer. They are the only ones sold recently in lower MS. One is in an NGC holder with (IMO) funky grainy toning and sold on 6/5/06 for $345. The other is from PCGS and has normal CuNi color.

http://coins.heritageauctions.com/c...=7441&src=pr

http://coins.heritageauctions.com/c...=7214&src=pr

You could probably have paid less if you had been willing to wait for the right opportunity. That's MS64 money, judging from the last two which sold at Heritage earlier this summer. However, those are the only two in that range that Heritage's archives show. ebay is equally sparse.

Among those who are "in the know," 3CN's are among the most undervalued coins out there, and yours is one of the scarcest of them. I think the population figure of around 500 higher than yours (PCGS+NGC) is unrealistic due to crackouts, because grade values increase rapidly with this coin.

So, did you pay too much? Probably. Will it come back to haunt you? Not at all, unless you try to flip the coin in the next three months.

One thing we tend to overthink in numismatics are coin prices. We tend not to remember that prices are completely market-driven, i.e., in all cases the buyer determines what a proper price is. There aren't government controls or anything like that here - there is only the guy with the wallet, deciding how much he wants the coin. Price guides are only reflections of previous sales, or wishful thinking on the part of the guide publisher.

With that in mind, for this coin, there is no "right" price. There is only what the buyer feels is a comfortable price.

Velvet! Nice coin.