Rule of Thumb slab vs raw price

[spatat]

Does anyone have a rule of thumb on purchasing raw coins vs slab? If you look at PCGS or other services that show auction results would you discount 10% or20% or or or. For a raw coin around same grade as a slab. Just trying to get an idea of what I should expect to pay. Thanks Steve

[jfines69]

I would be of no help... I don't buy or sell coins... Hopefully Ed or one of the others chime in!!!

[GrumpyEd]

I would say that using a rule like that is very risky.
The only way it works is if you are a really skilled grader and confident that you can tell how a coin will grade and authenticity and attribution very accurately, even predicted and had coins graded to test yourself. Simply looking at coins and photos might give false confidence, many coins will surprise you and have a problem or be far from the grade you expect even if you are pretty knowledgeable.

I always see a red flag when sellers use PCGS guides as a basis for raw coins. Those guides are for coins already in PCGS slabs. They might not even grade the same if you crack out and send it in again and on some coins one grade makes it change from a decent value to be worth less than the slab. There is no way to value a raw coin based on those guides, even using a coin book you'll notice most books only price up to MS65, they don't even estimate above that and even using those generic price guides you still need to be a pretty accurate grader.

I typically est value of raw coins at LESS than 50% of what a generic coin book or redbook or greysheet says assuming I'm pretty confident of my grading. For more common stuff I est much lower, if it says 25 cents for an EF common wheat, in reality it's worth 2.5 cents so the common stuff is often as low as 10% or less than a book value.

[TPring]

How about using this site for raw coins? A 'rule of thumb' is risky [financially speaking] -- As is relying on ebay sales numbers.

It's the Wild West out there [on ebay].

[TPring]

I always see a red flag when sellers use PCGS guides as a basis for raw coins. Those guides are for coins already in PCGS slabs.

They might not even grade the same if you crack out and send it in again and on some coins one grade makes it change from a decent value to be worth less than the slab.

Ha, I used the PCGS prices when I started and surely paid too much.

I believe those (PCGS) grades are only guaranteed for about five years from when they are graded.

[spatat]

I thank you for the response. How do you use this site for pricing?
there has to be a way to get an idea of how much a coin should sell. I have looked at PCGS for auction prices. They show most major auctions with buyers fee. Usually 20%. If you take results from last 12 months less 20% you should get an idea of what Bid was. If you. Look at grade around 60-62 and compare to a trusted dealer that is selling raw in UNC it should be less than auction. I did that and price looked to low. So I looked at Ebay sold raw in UNC or something with choice gem ect added. That looked closer. Example 1909 S VDB ebay$1200- $1300 or so. PCGS around $900 -$1000. They also show trend is down for last 5-6 years. I looked at coinprices.o. Price of FMV in MS ic $1560. For a budget what is in line? Same for 1914-D. The major auctions may not be a good comparison. If not how do you determine fair market price? Sorry for long post and thanks for help. Steve

[makecents]

At the end of the day, time and experience is the only thing you can rely on, at best. There is no percentage you can put on this, as there are too many variables, the actual variety, will have a big impact on the difference in worth between the two, if you are even looking at a variety. Just a normal coin, with no variety also has many possibilities than can come into play, stains, dings, cleaning that not be identifiable by the pics and so much more. Ed, who has more experience than most, has told you, it's a crapshoot out of the slab, even with experience.

[WaterSport]

Well, you bring up a great point. Price values in a guide -Any guide - Great Collections, PCGS, etc.) vs. RECENT market price. Ed is spot on with his comments. So if your confident in your grading and feel the coin is going to grade in a PCGS holder - why not look at the latest sales at Great Collections, and Heritage. They seem to be real time values and not "selected" auction values chosen by PCGS to update (or in this case, not update) their price guides.

Both sites have great archives which will show what people were willing to pay and not what someone paid Thanksgiving day on eBay because everyone was busy with family and friends to bid.

WS

[GrumpyEd]

I believe those (PCGS) grades are only guaranteed for about five years from when they are graded

Not sure I've ever seen a time limit on grades but color and env issues especially on copper are not guaranteed and of course there's no guarantee that price guide values won't change.

Over time all TPGs shifted standards, most started more conservative like PCGS rattlers and green labels and small ANACs and the even smaller older ANACs / ANA slabs and even the ANACs in cello and older fatty NGC holders were all pretty conservative and might upgrade today. You can get a premium on those older holders, especially odd short lived ones like the black NGCs or doily PCGS, those holders can get big premiums for the holders.

Maybe the most volatile stuff is ultra high grade moderns and newly discovered hyped varieties. They tend to start out high then drop then bounce around. I avoid buying modern new discoveries during the hype frenzies. Some examples to see that on would be extra leaf quarters, missing edge letter dollars, even WAMs and CAMs, even to some extent things like Cheerios dollars. All of those things started out really strong and you took a beating if you bought one early on.

Problem is we think about it wrong, we think "get in early" and watch it go up in value but that rarely holds true. At the start there is hype and demand and few found, later the hype dies off and more get found. You need to let them nose dive then stabilize and even then they probably don't go up fast. If you want to get ahead, find stuff early on and sell it fast!

The problem with things like 92 CAMs is, early on few exist and a few buyers with money fought over them. A few years pass, more get discovered. There might only have been a dozen buyers willing to pay thousands for one and they already have an example. After that they don't do well (the first drop) then if it's going to slowly ramp up to be an ultra rarity (because few exist) that's going to take longer than we live, we will be lucky if that slow ramp gets back to the initial hype prices in our lifespan.

[GrumpyEd]

Example 1909 S VDB ebay$1200- $1300 or so. PCGS around $900 -$1000. They also show trend is down for last 5-6 years. I looked at coinprices.o. Price of FMV in MS ic $1560. For a budget what is in line? Same for 1914-D.

Older more mature stuff like that is more stable in price. With those things the main risk is the overall market which has been dropping for years. If buying look at recent sales of raw for raw or slabbed to compare to slabbed.

[spatat]

I am really glad I found this group of people. All of you give good unfiltered information. I really appreciate your candor and time. Ed you have a special way to get to the bottom of the issue. Please don’t ever stop. Steve

[jfines69]

I'm glad some of the pros chimed in... Thanks ya'll!!!

[DoubleYou]

On the other hand, I am a firm believer in buying the coin and not the slab. Slabs are nice and all, in that people are less likely to accuse you of overgrading, but I definitely don't have much faith in them. Take the corroded, crappy MS-63 coin depicted here for example: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1989-1c-bn/3075

[spatat]

On the other hand, I am a firm believer in buying the coin and not the slab. Slabs are nice and all, in that people are less likely to accuse you of overgrading, but I definitely don't have much faith in them. Take the corroded, crappy MS-63 coin depicted here for example: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1989-1c-bn/3075

yes I do believe they missed that one!!

[Roller]

To mine thinking: Don't slab unless you intend to sell. Selling is easier that way and less problematic. I have slabbed only a few coins that I have kept just for the halibut but I would not make a habit of it.