World Coin Price Guide 0

[bernard55]

When purchasing NGC graded world coins how accurate do you find the World Coin Price Guide?

I often see very big discrepancies.  For example on eBay you will find this 1922B Switzerland 10 Francs KM# 36 MS66+ for $699 but the guide shows it priced at greater than $2100 (MS65 price)

I think this is Krause data because they reference Active Interest Media NumisMaster.

"The World Coin Price Guide was independently compiled by Active Interest Media’s NumisMaster."

Does anyone know how well this data is maintained against current auction markets?

 

The strange thing is if you go over to the Krause site there are different prices...  

And the prices are substantially different from auction prices. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by bernard55

[thebeav]

I would think that many of the markets are too thin for a guide to maintain accuracy.

For better coins, I would rely on auction records.

[Fenntucky Mike]

On 3/4/2022 at 10:06 PM, bernard55 said:

When purchasing NGC graded world coins how accurate do you find the World Coin Price Guide?

Woefully inaccurate for coins I collect.

As thebeav said, searching recent auction records/sold prices, on your own, is the best way to determine value. I think the prices at Numismaster are pathetic as well. Again, for items I collect.  

I can understand not keeping up to date on world coin prices if it requires significant manhours to do it, but if it is as simple as implementing some sort of tracking software then what up? I'm over simplifying things though. Probably.

[bernard55]

Outside of https://www.acsearch.info/ and https://coinarchives.com what do you use?

[Fenntucky Mike]

On 3/5/2022 at 7:55 AM, bernard55 said:

Outside of https://www.acsearch.info/ and https://coinarchives.com what do you use?

I'll typically go to the actual auction house sites but here are some sites that I'll frequent, Ebay, Heritage Auctions, Stack's Bowers, Stephen Album, Goldberg Coins, One Bid, Katz, Spink, HARALD MÖLLER, Numis24, St. James's, etc...... I have another dozen bookmarked that I use, but these are sites that I find useful for what I collect. They may not be as useful for you.  Plenty of eye candy to look at though.  

[RWB]

The labor cost of keeping any world coin pricing database up to date would likely be very large -- for almost no return on investment.

[GoldFinger1969]

Not an expert on non-U.S. coins, but I would think recent auctions are your best friend, no ?

[bernard55]

On 3/5/2022 at 12:28 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Not an expert on non-U.S. coins, but I would think recent auctions are your best friend, no ?

Absolutely.  I was just curious if NGCs prices on their website had any integrity-it seems they don’t.  Its good for people to know that…

[numisport]

I've often wondered just how the 2 major TPGs generate their retail price guides; for me generally U.S. coins. Recently I won several coins that were certainly high end for the grade that had 6 or 7 bidders each at hammer prices that were a fraction of retail price guide. I agree that there is little gain for NGC or PCGS to maintain an accurate retail price guide. Would love to hear comments from NGC on this topic. Of course the response would be that these prices are only a guide and nothing more.

[GoldFinger1969]

On 3/5/2022 at 12:39 PM, bernard55 said:

Absolutely.  I was just curious if NGCs prices on their website had any integrity-it seems they don’t.  Its good for people to know that…

No, I don't think it's a question of integrity with NGC or PCGS.  The problem is just bad, wrong, or lagged data.

What is better is to use the price trend charts over a longer period of time as a good indicator of where prices have gone over the last 6-12 months and even going back years.  THERE I find them pretty accurate for a quick ballpark guestimate of where prices have been.

Again...it's more time consuming....but the best is to match up auction and actual sales prices at the points in time of interest to you.  But this will take a few minutes if not longer and most of us want to get the price in seconds. 

RWB's DOUBLE EAGLES book has a price matrix for each Saint in the book from 1976-2015 which no doubt required lots of work.

Edited October 1, 2022 by GoldFinger1969

[VKurtB]

On 10/1/2022 at 9:27 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

No, I don't think it's a question of integrity with NGC or PCGS.  The problem is just bad, wrong, or lagged data.

What is better is to use the price trend charts over a longer period of time as a good indicator of where prices have gone over the last 6-12 months and even going back years.  THERE I find them pretty accurate for a quick ballpark guestimate of where prices have been.

Again...it's more time consuming....but the best is to match up auction and actual sales prices at the points in time of interest to you.  But this will take a few minutes if not longer and most of us want to get the price in seconds. 

RWB's DOUBLE EAGLES book has a price matrix for each Saint in the book from 1976-2015 which no doubt required lots of work.

@RWB should know and IS CORRECT. Maintaining almost any kind of price guide is a great way to go broke, and even more so when you want to “go world”. I use Spink for (overstated) British material, and Gadoury for French pieces (Monaco added as a bonus). But I use them for COMPARATIVE prices within each guide. “Oh, I see the 1910 is slightly higher than the 1913.” Actual prices have too many variables, including unstable exchange rates on currencies. The U.S. dollar right now is CREAMING virtually EVERY other currency, and honestly, even creaming gold. 

[Henri Charriere]

On 10/1/2022 at 9:08 PM, VKurtB said:

@RWB should know and IS CORRECT....

Are you quoting Sir ex cathedra for attribution? Enquiring minds want to know!

[GoldFinger1969]

On 10/1/2022 at 9:08 PM, VKurtB said:

@RWB should know and IS CORRECT. Maintaining almost any kind of price guide is a great way to go broke

A price guide is not an agreement to buy/sell coins at stated prices....it's not a live Bid-Ask spread.

It's just data points.  He has a great price matrix for every Saint-Gauden for 2 or 3 grade levels in his book. 

[EarlyUS.com]

This thread is particularly relevant to me, since I've recently pulled out a sizable number of world coins that I've purchased over the last ten years (really, more like "hoarded").  For some of the better pieces, I am astonished at how much they have increased in value based on auction records.  I have a very few high-quality Chinese dollars and half-dollars that are up tenfold, and for that reason, they are going to NGC for certification.  I also collect Mexican 8-reales and pesos, as well as 2-reales, and in my opinion, the NGC values are too low by maybe 50% for better circulated grade coins.  On the other hand, where I see the biggest errors in being too high, are for mint state coins and more recent "modern" coins.

I do believe NGC's price guide offers a tremendous resource if you look at it as "relative values", i.e. looking for big jumps between grades, or distinguishing common vs. key dates.

[GoldFinger1969]

On 10/5/2022 at 2:43 PM, EarlyUS.com said:

This thread is particularly relevant to me, since I've recently pulled out a sizable number of world coins that I've purchased over the last ten years (really, more like "hoarded").  For some of the better pieces, I am astonished at how much they have increased in value based on auction records. 

Foreign coins have been hot the last 3-5 years....feel free to tell us how some of the purchases turned out. 

[World Colonial]

Very late in seeing this thread but to answer the OP's question, the prices are just "made up".  There is no other explanation since it's obvious that it's not feasible to base the catalog price on actual sales.  The prices for South Africa in my 1998 and 2010 editions are also identical, or near it.

It's also not possible to provide a market price for coins which (might) have never sold publicly or do not even exist.

Examples of the first are most of the coins in my primary series, Lima and Potosi pillars.  These very infrequently sell but virtually never in the listed grades (up to XF).

On the latter, Krause has an entry for the 1752 Peru 4R.  I'll buy as many as anyone will sell me at the catalog price, except that the mintage is recorded as 81 and there are zero confirmed.  One is rumored to exist.

Krause also lists 1933, 1934, and 1936 South Africa circulation strike farthings.  These are also included in the local Hern/Randburg/Kaplan catalogs (their version of the Red Book) but no one on their coin forum knew anything about these coins, until NCG graded the 1936.  NGC has also now graded one 1934 but still none of the 1933.  There are also several Bolivian Republic coins I'm not sure exist either: 1882, 1887 and 1889 50 centavos.  Norweb owned the 1887 Boliviano now in the ANS collection.