jim4silver said:
Rojas108 said:
How come you say if it wasn't for sites like ebay there wouldn't be a market. The whole thing is that there are sites like ebay.(i don't think they are going anywhere) Sites like these make it everything an even playing field and create there own market.
I also agree paying $400 bucks a coin is crazy but I got mine under spot.
You misquoted me and/or didn't understand my post. I said they would not be as easy to sell if it weren't for ebay, not that there would be no market. Try going to your local coin store and get several hundred over spot for something like that. Even if you do get that much, the coin dealer will get even more when they resell it. Thus you are always get less than full value because the dealer has to resell it to make his/her profit.
Ebay cuts out the middle man (the coin dealer), so the seller is just dealing with some sucker (just kidding-I mean buyer) who wants to pay out the a$$ for an item--no matter what said item is. I was not knocking ebay but saying it actually helps a seller get the most for his/her item, at least from what I have read and heard, since I don't buy or sell on ebay I don't personally know.
Jim
So there are a few things you don't understand about ebay. First there are a lot of fees on ebay and they are going up this Tuesday (4/19/11).. I have sold a few MS 65 St. Gaudens on ebay and the final value fees were $50. It is 9% of the value and it is capped at $50. Starting Tuesday the cap is going to go up to $100. That means for high value coins, such as double eagles in the $1500 or even $2000+ range, the fees are going to double and be $100. The paypal fees are in addition to that and are 2.9% which is another $60+ dollars or so.. So yes you will get a lot more money, but you will not receive all of it..
The other thing, as a buyer there are reward programs and coupons, which drives the price way up.. Just last week (or maybe 2 weeks ago) there was a groupon deal on ebay. You get a $15 ebay gift card for just $7.. So you can only expect the people who have these laying around would be willing to overpay a little bit for something they really want. Here is the link. Look at how many sold. It's no different than the federal reserve printing new money..
http://www.groupon.com/deals/ebay
Ebay bucks is a rewards program by ebay which gives back 2% of every purchase... There are sites like auctionshadow, mrrebates, microsoft bing, etc. which also pay another reward on top of that. Sometimes as much as 9%..
Another thing is periodically ebay awards coupons to certain ebay members.. For example, last thanksgiving I got a coupon from ebay for 10% off my purchase for a max savings of $100. Well I for sure wanted to take advantage of this and I bought a PCGS MS65 St. Gaudens with that coupon. The winning bid price was $2180.. After all my rewards, coupons, ebay bucks, 1% credit card rewards, etc... I paid around $2000 net..
About a month later I re-listed the coin for $2175 and free shipping ($5 less than my winning bid). Another ebayer asked if I could lower my price to $2150. I really didn't want to lower it, but he said he could pay by paypal e-check (my payal fees would only be $5; it's difficult to get anyone to pay with these so I agreed). I then ended the auction early to sell to him. It turned out even though I sold the coin for $30 less than my winning bid price, I actually made a $90 profit on the whole ordeal...
Just my thoughts on ebays price being inflated... There are some idiots out there, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons for overpaying on ebay..
I'm not as convinced about gold this year as I was about silver last year. Perhaps I should ask jim4gold to see what he thinks.
- I did pick up a set from AMARK and am holding on to it. Seems like a good deal with a lot of upside potential. Might turn out to be the key date to the series.
...shhh. 
