Greysheet v. Numismedia Wholesale, et al.

[coinman23885-migration]

Any thoughts on which price guide is better or more realistic? I've heard many people criticize the Greysheet prices as being inflated for the Peace Dollar and Morgan Dollar series. Also, any thoughts on other price guide measures (i.e. Heritage, Blue Sheet, etc.).

 

 

[cpm9ball]

Personally, I think the entire bluesheet/greysheet, wholesale/retail, sight seen/sight unseen garbage is just that - garbage! Does anyone follow those guidelines? No! Dealers buy for as little as possible and sell for as much as possible, and it's the same for the collectors.

 

I think we would be better off if the Red Book was the only official price guide. It wouldn't matter that the book only changes its prices once a year. Heck, some of the CDN prices haven't changed in years.

 

Chris

[James_OldeTowne]

I picked the GreySheet, but only because I use it sometimes, and never use the others. As far as I'm concerned, the BlueSheet is for scammers, so that one is out immediately. The other two have very little traction, and therefore don't give a level playing field.

 

Heritage or other auction prices is are, in mind, often mistakenly given as a way to research pricing. The problem is, you have to assume that those are top dollar prices with a lot of overhead built in. If a certain coin sells for $2000 + 15% on Heritage, that hardly means yours is worth $2300! The seller actually only gets about $1900 from Heritage, AND the price realized was achieved with a lot of advertising. So for you to expect to get even $1900 for your same coin is just unrealistic. I do not use "auction prices realized" as a guide at all.

 

GS has many errors, including, as you state, inflated values for Morgans, Peace dollars, commems, UNC Walkers, and latter-date Lincolns. It also severely underprices coins in other series, usually earlier series and certain keys, such as the 1809 and 1811 dimes, 1875-CC twenty-cent coin, etc.

 

The biggest advantage to GS is that it's the language that about every dealer speaks, so at least you can understand where dealers are coming from in their pricing.

 

I happen to like the RedBook for retail pricing, and it would be ideal if they had a quarterly update, instead of only annual updates of values.

[Houston Investor]

I use Greysheet as a guide for inventory valuation and evaluating purchase performance. Greysheet is wholesale and as it states a dealer tacks on a commission above ask. The goal of purchases for a dealer is usually to acquire items below Greysheet Bid. Many dealers I know measure their show performance by Gross Profit on Sales + Purchase Performance (Bid - Actural Cost). I constantaly analyze other dealers ads as to what they typically seek above Ask (Dealer to Dealer Wholesale) which based on my excel analysis varies from 10-40% with 22% above Ask the average. Others take ask and simply add a flat dollar amount commission and take a more hands on, simplistic approach. The Greysheet is not the God of pricing but simply a pricing tool to combine with others.

 

I consider Bluesheet and Nusmismedia garbage. As far as auctions like Ebay, Heritage, and Teletrade these are more of a wholesale medium IMO and not necessarily a valid measure of Retail Prices except probably for certain esoteric issues. For Retail Price research I prefer Coin World Value Trends and Coin Facts. I also use Dealer Pricelists as a pricing resource and the one L&C Coins puts out is excellent for Retail Price Research. I always have a copy of theirs handy at a show along with CW Trends and Greysheet (in a brief case out of sight unless buying).

 

I would suggest ignoring people saying Greysheet pirces are inflated (or the "new retail.") as I have found these individuals either don't have any money or attempting to rip you. Ask them if they have anything they want to sell you at sheet and you will find they will not put their inventory where their mouth is. Money talks and BS walks. I set up at shows to buy and sell at my price vs trading with other dealers at wholesale. Consequently I have found if Gross Profit is low (slow sales), Purchase Performance is high. So if your a dealer, having lots of Cash to take advantage of buying opportunities is a must.

 

Be careful about spending too much money if your set up at a show. I have more than enough inventory to fill 4 cases at a show many times over. So if its not selling, I certainly don't any more!

[TomB]

I use Greysheet the most and then use Heritage archives to look up more esoteric issues or grades. The other two listed do not give me useful information for the most part.

[World Colonial]

I believe that price guides should be ignored completely and despite their limitations, that auction prices are more accurate. The reason for this is that this represents real prices that someone actually paid, not what someone who is not even buying or selling says something is worth.

 

Presumably (since I pay little attention to it) US price guides are more accurate that those of most world coins because of much greater activity.

 

With the coins I collect, many of them do not sell at all in a particular grade (possibly in ANY grade) in a year or in many years. Many others sell infrequently.

 

I'm only an occasional seller but I have had prospective buyers try to negotiate a price similar to catalogue (Hern for South Africa and Krause for all others). I tell them that I completely ignore the catalogue in both buying and selling. Some of the prices are too high (sometimes ridiculously high) and others low (sometimes ridiculously low).

 

Recently, I have been selling some of my coins and for far more than catalogue because they are premium coins. Possibly, also for more than what they would fetch at auction. I have done it though private sales.

 

Whether I (or anyone else) can get the desired price depends upon how badly the prospective purchaser wants the coin and how badly the seller wants to or needs the money. Since I do not have to have the money, when I cannot get my price, I simply do not sell the coin.

 

I have this leverage because I know that the prospective buyer cannot find the coins I am selling elsewhere. Most sellers cannot do this because the potential buyer has many similar coins from which to choose and if not now, almost certainly in the near future.

[BillJones]

I use the Gray Sheet more than any other source. It generally provides decent numbers for most items that are traded regularly. For some bulk items like rolls of the Indian cents in G-VG and rolls of Buffalo nickels with dates, the Gray Sheet numbers are too high. Conversely the numbers for all half cents and large cents are too low to much too low for properly graded coins with attractive surfaces. The numbers are also too low for almost all early coins, or at least they were when I actively still a business a year or so ago. My view of Gray Sheet numbers for most early coins is that it is a dealers’ “wish list.” If they really need to buy such coins, they will have to pay more.

 

The Blue Sheet is useless. Its purported purpose is to price certified coins sight unseen. How many coins are really sold sight unseen? If you see them and they turn out to be dogs for the grade, you might pay those numbers, but short of that the Blue Sheet is not with the subscription price.

 

[mommam17]

When my local dealer offered me Blue Sheet minus 15% for my commems, a few years ago, I bought a camera and started to sell on Ebay.

[$ilverHawk]

I use Grey Sheet to help determine market prices for a particular coin. My understanding is that the Grey Sheet reports Dealer to Dealer transactions in the sight-seen market. Therefore, those prices should be in close agreement with current market trends.

 

Carl

[Houston Investor]

I think the Greysheet numbers for a lot of 19th Century Type is unrealistic. Many dealers ignore this and price their coins using Coin World Trends or Coin Facts.

[PerryHall]

I think the Greysheet numbers for a lot of 19th Century Type is unrealistic. Many dealers ignore this and price their coins using Coin World Trends or Coin Facts.

 

Don't the dealers use the greysheet prices when buying these coins from the public?

[James_OldeTowne]

I think the Greysheet numbers for a lot of 19th Century Type is unrealistic. Many dealers ignore this and price their coins using Coin World Trends or Coin Facts.

 

Don't the dealers use the greysheet prices when buying these coins from the public?

To turn this around, I have seen a lot of the public trying to use the greysheet to buy coins from dealers! That's one that always cracks me up. If a retail customer knows that dealers use greysheet prices to buy coins, why in heck would they expect the dealers to be able to sell at the same price level?

[PerryHall]

I think the Greysheet numbers for a lot of 19th Century Type is unrealistic. Many dealers ignore this and price their coins using Coin World Trends or Coin Facts.

 

Don't the dealers use the greysheet prices when buying these coins from the public?

To turn this around, I have seen a lot of the public trying to use the greysheet to buy coins from dealers! That's one that always cracks me up. If a retail customer knows that dealers use greysheet prices to buy coins, why in heck would they expect the dealers to be able to sell at the same price level?

Don't dealers pay below greysheet for most coins? I hear 10% or 20% back of bid for a lot of dealer purchases. Sounds like they can make a good profit selling at greysheet ask.

[BillJones]

Don't dealers pay below greysheet for most coins? I hear 10% or 20% back of bid for a lot of dealer purchases. Sounds like they can make a good profit selling at greysheet ask.

 

That depends upon the coin is question. For some items dealers would pay more than Gray Sheet. For others, especially the real common stuff, they pay less, sometimes a lot less.

[World Colonial]

To be sufficiently profitable, every industry that I know of either has high volume combined with a lower margin or a higher margin but a lower volume. I cannot think of very many at all that have both high margins and high volume. (One has tradionally been investment and merchant banks which may have large revenue.)

 

In the coin business, I have assumed that the "typical" dealer (if there is one) has low turnover but with a high margin. There are an old series of articles (I believe Barry Stupler but cannot recall) where it is stated that a large or the majority of US coin dealers have annual turnover of $250,000 or less. Maybe it was quite a bit less, I do not remember.

 

Some coin dealers sell or did sell other items such as jewelry and if so, the margins would differ for that segment as well. (In the 1980''s, I recall coin dealers also selling sports cards. One even sold Pokemon cards.)

 

If this $250,000 volume is typical, then I see no possibility for these dealers to make any decent living on a gross margin of less than 40%. That is only gross revenue of $100,000 before expenses which would result in a net profit which is probably equal to or less than the median household income.

 

Larger dealers who deal in more expensive coins could do so but might have to have quite a bit more revenue to have substantially lower margins.

[James_OldeTowne]

Don't dealers pay below greysheet for most coins? I hear 10% or 20% back of bid for a lot of dealer purchases. Sounds like they can make a good profit selling at greysheet ask.

It seems like the conversation suddenly switched between early type and common stuff. Certainly dealers pay "10% or 20% back" for common stuff - because they would be lucky to sell it at 5% back. But I never hear dealers bragging about how much early type they are able to buy at 10% to 20% back.

 

And no, I do not think 10% to 20% is a "good profit". It seems like subsistence profit to me, after overhead and expenses.

[coinman23885-migration]

I think the Greysheet numbers for a lot of 19th Century Type is unrealistic. Many dealers ignore this and price their coins using Coin World Trends or Coin Facts.

 

Don't the dealers use the greysheet prices when buying these coins from the public?

To turn this around, I have seen a lot of the public trying to use the greysheet to buy coins from dealers! That's one that always cracks me up. If a retail customer knows that dealers use greysheet prices to buy coins, why in heck would they expect the dealers to be able to sell at the same price level?

 

I have had dealers sell coins to me at Grey Sheet bid price - and the prices weren't the inflated ones (i.e. I had seen several coins in the market with similar or less eye appeal for a larger amount). The key is to find a small or mid-size dealer to buy from when the market (and money - think rent) is tight; I've also found that some dealers will unload coins at or near bid at major coin shows to keep from having to lug extra material back home with them. Granted, of course, that you're not going to buy the extreme rarities or esoteric issues at Grey Sheet (that often), but you seemed to generalize your statement to all areas of the market.