Down by the BAY

[Shylo]

So on another thread I said that I had been buying a few notes and coins on the bay lately...

Most others have been saying that now is the time to be selling and not buying.

So I'm just curious as to what everyone else's margins are compared to book prices.

For notes I use the Charlton guide and for coins I use the trends section off of the CCN.

In my opinion the charlton is over priced so generally my top price for a note is 80% of what is listed in the guide and I'm happier if I can get it for 70%
(Chartered notes I still have no idea as to me the prices seem all over the map compared to the guide so if anyone wants to give me some help there I would appreciate it!)

For coins I usually follow the Trends prices for anything that's in MS grade... but then knock off 5% of the price for each grade below MS 60...

So if a coin is $100 bucks at MS 60 and the same coin is listed at around $80 for one in EF... I take off at least 10% (5% for AU and another 5% for EF) so the most I would pay is ($80 minus 10%) = $72

*of course this is on the grade I give the coin and not what grade is described in the description unless there is a TPG*

Does anyone else adhere to some type of method for determining price using some sort of guide... and if so how does yours differ or vary from mine....

Appreciate all comments and input

*please note this thread is only intended to find out what you like and how you like to make purchases.. there is NO judgement here*

[Bill in Burl]

I deal almost exclusively in Vicky Large Cent varieties, many of which are not formally published. As a general rule, I'll pay no more than 80% of Trends at shows and about the same on Ebay, but Ebay I include the shipping. Once you get above a certain scarcity level, though you can throw away the price guides .. you may pay 200-300% of Trends or Charlton. At most shows and dealers, you can get a 20% discount .. more if you are acquainted with the dealer.

Since I collect just mainly varieties and have for years, I use a multiple of what a normal coin would go for. Since I helped write the Vicky variety section for the 2011 Charlton, I have a very good idea what multiples we used, how we got them, and the population data that we had(and still gather). The 'multiple' that we used in the book was a consensus average (4, sometimes 5 of us) of what we thought that specific variety should be .. we were all just collectors, not dealers of any sort. Some of the prices that we put in the 2011 were really just guesses, since we had such small populations to work with, but prices today have proven to be very very close to what we put down over 3 years ago when we were compiling them.