Price guide

[CODYJ]

How accurate is the price guide and how often does it get updated ? Thank you

[jallengomez]

How accurate is the price guide and how often does it get updated ? Thank you

Which price guide?

[CODYJ]

The price guide in this website....

[jallengomez]

Not very often I don't think, but I might be wrong.

[WaterSport]

Price guides are just that - Guides. Takes a lot of dedicated work to keep one up. You need an opinion on a certain coin value??

WS

[simonm]

The most up-to-date value of your coins would probably be found by searching ebay completed listings. That shows actual values of what people have paid for your coin.

[Brad]

I haven't updated the price guide, and I am thinking about removing it. Too hard to keep track of, especially for varieties.

[georoxx]

If I may offer my opinion on this, I believe it's a good idea to remove the price guide. Too many factors influence price fluctuation. In real estate, they say "price is what a willing buyer pays a willing seller on a given day". I understand the concept behind "guide", but it's very subjective in the case of coins (especially) where the economy, coin condition, and the uncertainty of market availability (how many actually exist) play such a big role. Most of us are collectors and don't care much about what the price guide says anyway, but for those who do sell, auctions will bring the best price that they can get on that given day.

(My 2 Lincolns worth.)

-George

[trails]

I have a feeling that the easiest way to establish a pricing guide for variety coins is to base it on multiples of the grade price given for a "normal" coin of the same denomination and year. Example; take the 1946 S over D Lincoln cent. In MS-60 it sells for about $175.00 while the 1946-S Lincoln cent sells for $.75 in the same grade. So, the 1946- S/D Lincoln cent would sell for approximately 230 X more than the "normal" 1946-S Lincoln cent; that would be the price. Any fluctuation in the normal coin would be reflected back to the variety coin. The the 1946-S Lincoln cent went up in price to a dollar for MS-60, then the 1946 S/D would be at $230.00.

While this is not a sure fire method of pricing varieties because it does not factor in the rarity equation in every grade (this is where the rarity curves does not equally match the normal to variety coin), it is much better than looking at out of date price guides and trying to equate whether the price has gone up or down for that certain variety coin.

[hasfam]

Brad, just do what everyone else does who publishes "price guides" for anything.
The stuff you have and want to sell...price high.
The stuff you want to buy... Price low.
This has been the practice in magazines for decades.

[Brad]

Brad, just do what everyone else does who publishes "price guides" for anything.
The stuff you have and want to sell...price high.
The stuff you want to buy... Price low.
This has been the practice in magazines for decades.

Some say the Grey Sheet contributors do the same thing...who knows.

To be honest, it is frustrating for me to price some coins knowing what I paid for them. I find myself thinking....this coin is worth about $15, but I paid $20 for mine 8 years ago.... Hard to stay objective, but I did my best.

[liveandievarieties]

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the details. There are a lot of methods for deriving market value, but this is what has worked for me:

When I set out to sell coins full-time, I knew I had to know what I was doing, not just in attribution but pricing too. Initially, I looked up eBay records for every FS variety and wrote down their SOLD prices and grades. This gave me a baseline for an average. Just doing that, in conjunction to being able to recall what I'd gotten for coins in auction put me in a far better position of perspective.

Since then, I've added a lot of sources from which to glean insight. Teletrade price history (which no longer exists on their website), HA auction records, and private sales or other pricing mentioned on public sites have filled in a lot of blanks. Now, I mostly use the auction histories on Collector's Universe, as they are from many different sources of recorded sales.

While studying FS varieties, it gave me insight to what collectors look for in "wow" factor- the level of impressiveness of a coin. Taking what I understood, it was easy to apply generalities about other, non-FS die varieties.

There is NO accurate guide, unless it's a long list of auction prices realized.

At this point, I feel comfortable pricing most known varieties at a level I feel they will sell at (and nearly everything eventually sells, patience is tough though!). I'm not saying I'm an expert in pricing, but we do okay. I've sold some memorable coins that I realized in hindsight were very underpriced and gambled and lost on a few that I was unfamiliar with. On the whole though, it's really just time and attention that will make a person astute in the field of pricing and marketing- whether buying or selling.

Most importantly- don't let fear of "not a good deal" paralyze you- most of the time when it appears to be a fantastic price, it's gone the next time you go to look at the item. Hesitation will cost you a great deal more than thoughtful and considerate buying without delay.

[CODYJ]

Thanks to all