Question on Greysheet Pricing

[CC-Hunter]

How accurate is greysheet pricing? I understand that grey sheet prices are supposed to be the prices at which dealers sell among themselves, so a "wholesale" price that the retail buyer cannot transact at. However, it seems like in many cases I could buy coins on ebay at around or even under the greysheet prices - and I consider ebay to generally be the high end of retail.

A man who is selling off items in his collection has been pricing various items off the greysheet. I'd love to pick up items at wholesale prices, but the prices don't look that great when compared to what I could pay on ebay (not to mention the fact that this buyer does not have to deal with the commissions, shipping and other hassles of ebay - I pay him cash in person). I've confirmed that the greysheet prices are accurate - so what gives?

Thanks in advance.

 

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[BigWaveDave]

In my experience, the grey sheet prices are pretty solid, regarding slabbed coins, as there is room for negotiation with raw coins, as their grades can be subjective. If a bulk of coins are to be dealt, best to try to "bundle" a lot, which would be fair to the buyer and seller. I cant comment on the ebay, as I avoid that cluster all costs.

The hardest thing to deal with is a collector trying to sell at Red Book prices.. never works out.

 

[mlayers]

I like the grey sheet pricing. When I was building my cent collection I when by the grey sheet. Plus I got a coin dealer that how he sells his coins and he will go with the low price and that helped me out.

 

[FormerTeller]

Greysheet is usually a good guide, but it's not infallible. Haven't checked it lately, but October 2014 it was showing common date walking liberty half dollars in Good condition selling between $10 - $11, well over their actual value. I found a few other outliers as well. Bottom line, you have to have some idea of the general state of the market, then use the greysheets to narrow down specific prices.

 

[jerseyben]

From the publisher:

"Bid and Ask, although wholesale figures, are naturally related to the retail price that a dealer might charge a customer for a coin, but retail price negotiations are between a dealer and his customer. Prices listed in the CDN assume that the transaction is sight-seen; that is, the bidding dealer is willing to pay that price to buy a coin that he is given the opportunity to inspect prior to concluding the transaction (more about sight-unseen bidding later!). If the dealer is not pleased with the coin, or disagrees with the seller's grading, he is under no obligation to buy it. CDN prices also assume that the coin is graded according to accepted industry standards, as exemplified by PCGS and NGC. The CDN also considers information on coins that are "raw" (that is, the coins have not been examined by one of the certification services), but that are properly graded. Since coins certified by PCGS and NGC are such an important segment of the coin market, bids for these coins are an important consideration in the CDN pricing evaluations."

 

[CC-Hunter]

Thanks for all the info. I was mainly looking at proof and mint sets from the 50s and 60s. Looking at eBay sold prices, in many cases I could get the same set on eBay (not known for low prices) for less than greysheet bid. Odd

 

[huntsman53]

While I am sure that many others will disagree, I have always felt that grey sheet pricing was more of a Good Ole Boys pricing guide for the Dealers to screw folks on their' coins! I have seen too many times that coins that were shown in bid or ask prices on the grey sheets, were actually valued at or selling for 2 to 3 times those prices or more. I use a combination of PCGS' price guide, Numismedia's price guide and eBay to price my' coins when selling and most often, I price my' coins at the lowest average price/value for their' grade. I also use the same pricing to purchase coins and if I can get them at or under what the lowest average price/value shows for the next lower grade, then I can usually still make a profit. Just the other day, I sold some coins to a Dealer/Friend of mine and while one of my' Barber Quarters sells on average from $70 to $85, the grey sheet showed a price of $13 bid and I believe it was $17 ask. Needless to say that while I sold him some of my' coins, he did not get that coin!


Frank