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Pricing rare varieties

7 posts in this topic

How many people here collect by non-Red Book varieties? E.g., by Overton, Bolender, Logan-McClosky, Miller, VAM, Sheldon, etc.

 

How about the usually unnamed ones, like Briggs or Wiley-Bugert? How about the never-been-named ones, like for Seated Dollars or Trade Dollars?

 

How do people price these varieties?

 

I saw an 1878-S DDR Trade Dollar, ANACS MS63, on eBay. Assume that it was a nice looking, accurately graded specimen. How much?

 

Sitting on my desk, on approval, is a Rarity-6 FH dollar. ICG F12. How much?

 

Thoughts on how to price?

 

EVP

 

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Man - that's a tough one. I've been trying to do the same for ultra rarities.

 

Check auction records, price lists, etc.

 

Check with specialists to see what they've paid or what their opinions are.

 

For very rare and popular items, check comparable rarities for recent sales.

 

 

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Prowler-

 

In seated quarters, one or two dealers (I can tell you who offline if you don't know already) seem to hype up certain varieties and overprice them. They then tend to sit in inventories for a long time. In this area, collectors aren't as crazy about varieties, I think in part because they haven't been studied to death like early copper or bust halves, where the appearance of any new variety seems to spur a ton of market interest. So, if a coin comes around as "unlisted" it doesn't draw a lot of attention, especially if the variety is minor (i.e. doubly punched digit or something similarly unspectacular) & generally there is not a large premium attached to it. More major things would draw more attention, for example, the 1844-O w/reverse of 1843-O was recently discovered & I think would generate some excitement at auction. At least I would be excited smile.gif

 

I think there is another dynamic here, and that is that seated collectors already have a significant task just accumulating all the date/mintmark combinations, so that going for lots of varieties as well is overwhelming.

 

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Great question EVP. I want to learn a great deal more about what you are speaking of, as it greatly increases the excitement of collecting series to which such variety attributions belong. As for now, i have no way of answering you, except to say "I'd like to gain the knowledge to".

 

Ancillary question: How many dealers prices on the basis of such knowledge? The few dealers from whom I've bought bust halves have had no such attributions listed and the coins they had were nice, very nice, and relatively cheap. Could these be cherrypicked? Is there that much actual demand out there for such variety designation?

 

Hoot

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Hoot,

 

I can help you learn how to price the rare Overton specimens. In fact, that's been one of my main motivations for directing you to those clubs (JRCS, BHNC) and those dealers (SDowney, Alpine). I do not track Overton varieties anymore, but that's because I've stopped collecting that series.

 

I am, however, pretty good at pricing Bol. varieties. That R.6 FH was priced too high, IMO.

 

The 1878-S DDR Trade Dollar went for near sheet. I've no idea how to price that, since we're talking about less than 5 people care about that thing -- and one of them just dropped out!

 

EVP

 

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Man, I think that you are in a mine field. Ultra rarities may need a second expert opinion (or maybe 2) to price them. You certainly do not want to miss true pricing by a large %. Sometimes even the auction records are of not much value unless you can find a parallel coin that is also an ultra rarity in the same condition. tongue.gif

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