It doesn't compute

I attended the monthly coin bourse in East Kumquat this morning. About
two-thirds of the regular dealers were there, the rest apparently on their
way to ANA.

One of the dealers had an 1806 quarter in PCGS VG-10, with a price sticker
that read $775. I have no doubt that it will sell near that price, and
probably fairly soon. Coin World Coin Values lists this coin at $600 in
Fine-12. PCGS also quotes $600 in Fine-12 online.

The pricing of early U.S. type coins in all grades, even the ones way down
low in grade, at 120% to 150% or more of "book" seems to have been following
this trend for the past three years or so. So what's up with these price
guides that we pay good money for? They purport to be reflecting the market
as it really is, but they seem to be failing in their stated mission.

Mr. Jaggers

"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
I attended the monthly coin bourse in East Kumquat this morning. About
two-thirds of the regular dealers were there, the rest apparently on their
way to ANA.

One of the dealers had an 1806 quarter in PCGS VG-10, with a price sticker
that read $775. I have no doubt that it will sell near that price, and
probably fairly soon. Coin World Coin Values lists this coin at $600 in
Fine-12. PCGS also quotes $600 in Fine-12 online.

The pricing of early U.S. type coins in all grades, even the ones way down
low in grade, at 120% to 150% or more of "book" seems to have been
following this trend for the past three years or so. So what's up with
these price guides that we pay good money for? They purport to be
reflecting the market as it really is, but they seem to be failing in
their stated mission.

Mr. Jaggers

The price guides purport to reflect the market as it has been. As of last
year or last month or yesterday. But not today or tomorrow.

Ok. Possibly the price guide is reasonably accurate and this dealer, as
well as other dealers, use the price guide to price specific items in their
inventory 120-150% high, knowing some stuff is in demand and prices are
going up. I think I would do that if I were retailing. I would be prepared
to discount items where the market was dead, to the point of losing money,
but, checking my price guide, mark high those items that seem to be in a
seller's market. Those items that there seems to be 3 buyers for every one
item.

Bill

On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 17:19:00 -0500, "Mr. Jaggers"
lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:

I attended the monthly coin bourse in East Kumquat this morning. About
two-thirds of the regular dealers were there, the rest apparently on their
way to ANA.

One of the dealers had an 1806 quarter in PCGS VG-10, with a price sticker
that read $775. I have no doubt that it will sell near that price, and
probably fairly soon. Coin World Coin Values lists this coin at $600 in
Fine-12. PCGS also quotes $600 in Fine-12 online.

The pricing of early U.S. type coins in all grades, even the ones way down
low in grade, at 120% to 150% or more of "book" seems to have been following
this trend for the past three years or so. So what's up with these price
guides that we pay good money for? They purport to be reflecting the market
as it really is, but they seem to be failing in their stated mission.

Mr. Jaggers

There are ten known varieties of the 1806 Quarter Dollar. Some are
easy to obtain while others are scarce to very rare. There is a group
of collectors who collect by die marriage(variety) and another group
collecting not only by die marriage but by die state or die stage in
this fascinating (to those who care) series. The price guides list
the values on only the most available varieties of a given date.
I think that the inflated value of the 1815 and 1824 issues is a
result of the known existence of only one variety of each of those
years. HTH.
Aram.