Having members enter the value of their coins is a good idea to get a real market value, however I'm dubious that this is what is happening.
Everyone wants to get their coins for the cheapest price possible, but nobody wants to have the value of their coins lowered by entering a price that is lower than Krause. So I wonder how many people who get their coins cheap are just adding the Krause values rather than what they paid for them.
I can't comment for anyone else, but I've been able to enter a few hundred coin prices (those that I knew from recent purchases) and put the actual value I paid for them. Almost all of them are less than catalog value - many of them are from "bargain bins". I figure its another way to store what I paid for the coin. I found a couple silver coins in a bargain bin, so realize putting $0.12 USD is lower than what most will pay as melt value alone is much higher, but at least to me, the value function serves to store the actual price paid.
Quote: "trvrhldr"If a coin have a price in Krause, but everyone put lower prices on Numista, could the Krause be wrong?
I wouldn't say so. Krause represents a full market value of a coin with no issues, individually sold to a buyer looking for that specific coin. It shouldn't include outliers like the rare lucky find of a $100 coin in a bulk lot for $0.15 a coin.
For me it is the same. I entered several dozens of coins in the last weeks, many from bargain bins (20 cents each). For me it is a good feeling to see that I usually pay less than the values which are already shown.
Quote: "trvrhldr"If a coin have a price in Krause, but everyone put lower prices on Numista, could the Krause be wrong?
I wouldn't say so. Krause represents a full market value of a coin with no issues, individually sold to a buyer looking for that specific coin. It shouldn't include outliers like the rare lucky find of a $100 coin in a bulk lot for $0.15 a coin.
I can testify from personal experience that there are cases where Krause can be way off values-wise on the average market value of a coin.
I've actually been able to input prices for a large majority of my coins; many came from the same bargain bins (0,50€, 1€, £1, etc.) and apparently I have a great memory to boot. I did feel a bit strange entering a coin I got for a bargain after seeing the higher "average" price, but in a data set those would be the anomalies... extremes aren't counted was what I was told.
Another question I have had about entering values is time of purchase. I know what I paid for many of my coins, but it might have been 15 years ago. Don’t think these prices are relevant to today. How old is too old?
The real factor in this is e-bay. If you buy from a dealer or an auction house, then the chance is that you're going to pay close to book value. But on e-bay you can sometimes get some real bargains, and on the higher value coins there's few enough sales that a couple of bargains is going to skew the values.
Say there is a coin with a $100 book value, one member buys off a dealer and pays $100, one member picks it up on e-bay for $50, and one member lucks out and finds one in a bulk bin for $1. The book value is $100, market value is likely close to $100, but Numista will list its value as just $50.33
Quote: "worth"Another question I have had about entering values is time of purchase. I know what I paid for many of my coins, but it might have been 15 years ago. Don’t think these prices are relevant to today. How old is too old?
I would hope that values entered would be adjusted for inflation once they're entered, perhaps you could adjust yours for inflation before entering them?
I had the same concerns as you when the option was first added to Numista and it's one of the reasons I doubt I'll ever use Numista values for swaps or for valuing coins.
Currently 24% of my coins have Numista values. Once it goes up to 80% or more I'll find it interesting to see what my collection is worth according to Numista however I'll still use Krause for balancing swaps and use my own excel file where I add local market prices and not the prices I paid to determine my collection's worth.
I collect and deal in ancient Roman coin. In case you're looking for affordable ancient coins or need any help with the coins you already have send me a message.
I have been putting in what I pay for the coin at time of purchase. So I don't think it's a realistic number of the value of ones collection, if that's even what the Numista owners are trying to achieve.
One of my problems is that I have several countries I am missing one or two coins for to complete the collection.
If I could find that one missing coin to complete any of these collections I have, and the Krause value is for instance $50, but the seller wants $150 for it I would probably pay the $150 and enter that amount into my Numista database as purchase price, therefor messing up the true cost or value for others.
I thought about creating an excel spreadsheet and enter the Krause value for each coin, but with over 17,000 coins in my collection it's almost impossible and I don't have enough cold and lonely nights to devote to a project like this. After all, according to some of you, Krause is not realistic anyway, so it would be a waste of time.
By the way, another question I'd like to raise is whether (when buying from Ebay or sites like it) we should enter the buying value, or buying value + shipping?
Quote: "auctionking65"I have been putting in what I pay for the coin at time of purchase. So I don't think it's a realistic number of the value of ones collection, if that's even what the Numista owners are trying to achieve.
One of my problems is that I have several countries I am missing one or two coins for to complete the collection.
If I could find that one missing coin to complete any of these collections I have, and the Krause value is for instance $50, but the seller wants $150 for it I would probably pay the $150 and enter that amount into my Numista database as purchase price, therefor messing up the true cost or value for others.
I thought about creating an excel spreadsheet and enter the Krause value for each coin, but with over 17,000 coins in my collection it's almost impossible and I don't have enough cold and lonely nights to devote to a project like this. After all, according to some of you, Krause is not realistic anyway, so it would be a waste of time.
So what to do..........??
in my opinion just stick to put in what you paid. The example with the missing coin you purchase for a much higher price won‘t mess up the average value, as the extremes are cut off in the calculation.
Quote: "neilithicman"I would hope that values entered would be adjusted for inflation once they're entered, perhaps you could adjust yours for inflation before entering them?
Unless you live in Venezuela I believe inflation adjustment does not add a lot of information even if values are updated only once a year.
But I do agree that the current valuation method could lead to overvaluations. I therefore take it with a pinch of salt. Still it's nice to see the feature.
There are various smoothing algorithms by taking out bottom and top extremes and use a median value for the remainder. But that requires enough data to choose from.
Quote: "nthn"When I get my coin for $0.50 from a junk bin, and it's worth $200, do I add my value as $0.50? That would skew values.
In such case, the value ($200) or nothing (blank).
The $0.50 value is only due to the junk bin selling format; if the seller sorts/identifies coins properly before selling as junk bin I doubt he'll still sell it for $0.50.
To this may be added: the value should be added when the coin was bought individually; do not add misleading data to the system; refrain from adding values for your coins if
you got a coin from circulation (we all know that 1 euro is worth 1 euro, there is no need for such complicated system to determine this fact)
you bought a 100 kilos of coins and found one coin which much more valuable than others (the price was determined by bulk selling format and likely the seller was unaware of that coin)
Quote: "Houseofham"In that case, reporting any prices for coins that came with free shipping would be misleading (inflated) because that price includes seller's s&h costs and I have no reliable way to know what they are.
IMHO if the shipping costs were calculated in a transparent way, then you should not include the shipping price when entering the value of a coin.
A quote from this thread about averaging:
Quote: "neilithicman"
Say there is a coin with a $100 book value, one member buys off a dealer and pays $100, one member picks it up on e-bay for $50, and one member lucks out and finds one in a bulk bin for $1. The book value is $100, market value is likely close to $100, but Numista will list its value as just $50.33
The number $50.33 is incorrect, because Numista shows median values, not averages.
Quote: "numinis"The users on this thread are raising questions that were discussed multiple times.
I will quote what other users said on other threads.
25-Feb-2018, 05:31PM https://en.numista.com/forum/topic67332.html
Quote: "pejounet"
Quote: "nthn"When I get my coin for $0.50 from a junk bin, and it's worth $200, do I add my value as $0.50? That would skew values.
In such case, the value ($200) or nothing (blank).
The $0.50 value is only due to the junk bin selling format; if the seller sorts/identifies coins properly before selling as junk bin I doubt he'll still sell it for $0.50.
To this may be added: the value should be added when the coin was bought individually; do not add misleading data to the system; refrain from adding values for your coins if
you got a coin from circulation (we all know that 1 euro is worth 1 euro, there is no need for such complicated system to determine this fact)
you bought a 100 kilos of coins and found one coin which much more valuable than others (the price was determined by bulk selling format and likely the seller was unaware of that coin)
Quote: "Houseofham"In that case, reporting any prices for coins that came with free shipping would be misleading (inflated) because that price includes seller's s&h costs and I have no reliable way to know what they are.
IMHO if the shipping costs were calculated in a transparent way, then you should not include the shipping price when entering the value of a coin.
A quote from this thread about averaging:
Quote: "neilithicman"
Say there is a coin with a $100 book value, one member buys off a dealer and pays $100, one member picks it up on e-bay for $50, and one member lucks out and finds one in a bulk bin for $1. The book value is $100, market value is likely close to $100, but Numista will list its value as just $50.33
The number $50.33 is incorrect, because Numista shows median values, not averages.
So then the value in this scenario would be $50, a whopping $0.33 difference.
So this was discussed before, the comments on this thread show that others were unaware of this as a couple of users mentioned they put the purchase price for a coin, even if it was pulled out of a junk bin. The 4 coins I have entered I basically got for free as they were from bulk lots that I resold and recouped my purchase price from. So I did not enter $0.00. I instead put what the coins sell for over here in New Zealand, which would likely differ from what the same coins would fetch overseas where the coins are not as readily available (which highlights another problem with the system.
Quote: "neilithicman"So I did not enter $0.00. I instead put what the coins sell for over here in New Zealand, which would likely differ from what the same coins would fetch overseas where the coins are not as readily available (which highlights another problem with the system.
Exactly.
And one more problem would be currency conversion. How does Numista's median value take that into account?
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so. Mark Twain
The difference between average and median can be very large, it depends on exact numbers involved.
Quote: "neilithicman"
I instead put what the coins sell for over here in New Zealand, which would likely differ from what the same coins would fetch overseas where the coins are not as readily available (which highlights another problem with the system.
This objection could be raised against Krause catalogue as well. Some prices are dependent on location but this does not make Krause meaningless.
Quote: "Peter M. Graham"
And one more problem would be currency conversion. How does Numista's median value take that into account?
Xavier (22-Apr-2018, 09:19PM) wrote: "The prices are internally stored in euro."
Users can choose other currencies in the settings page. Then they see the converted values.
QuoteThe 4 coins I have entered I basically got for free as they were from bulk lots that I resold and recouped my purchase price from.
I think the difference here is the purchase price and the net gain/loss. With any coin you can purchase for a certain price and then re-sell. If you make a profit, I don't think it makes the purchase price negative, rather the purchase price is still just what you paid. With bulk lots, I'd imagine you'd do something like price of lot/# coins for the price of each coin.
It sounds like the "values" that are showing up are merely the median price Numista members from around the globe have paid for the coin. As Numista members are a small subset of all people that have purchased coins, it makes sense that this value we're seeing isn't an accurate representation of a "catalog" value - nor a value that anyone, anywhere should expect to pay, as has been mentioned prices vary greatly based on location. Its just one way of summarizing purchase price data from members on this site.
For me, I find the statistics interesting, and like another member mentioned, like seeing how my purchase price compares to others around the world.
It's an interesting bit of information and I'm glad it was implemented. As an info junkie I just can't get enough. I like the features on the "My Coins" tab, it's very nice to know how my collection breaks down by (some) metal content and how much it would be worth if I melted it down. They don't have any practical use though, I'm a coin collector not a silver stacker and the idea of selling my collection to the "We buy ur goldz" guys is abhorrent.
I guess there would be some use if you could, for example, see how your collection's value compared to the average but as it currently stands it's just a bit of harmless fun, like the Numista Rarity Index. They have no "real world" value. There's no relation between the values being published here and any coin market that I've had experience of in over 50 years. The sample size is too small and as it's pretty much based on a group who are actively cataloging their collections on a specialized website. In other words, a group of people with far more savvy than the eBay crowd. As an experienced collector isn't part of the benefit package the ability to snout out a high value coin for a fraction of it's value?
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
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By the time a Krause catalog is published the pricing data is expired. And by the time the date on the cover matches the date on the calendar the prices are well over a year old. The least valuable aspect of Krause is the values. Last time I was at the Berlin show I witnessed dealers setting prices for their coins by looking at the dollar prices and then just calling them euro prices...
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
I have been on and off in collecting coins for the past couple of years and thus just got to know “by the side” about numista.com's own catalougue prices based on user input. And after checking older threads on how they think Krause value compares to the numista catalouge, I wonder what is the current opinion on this feature here. It seems like Krause values for coins was higher in general for coins in comparison the the numista.com prices, but when i check prices now here for really “pocket change money”, I am quite ‘amazed’, how much e.g. normal Thai coins are worth or US 25 cents commemorative ones 2020+, etc. etc. … I mean it is nice to “hyperinflate the value of your collection” but especially new users get in here, take the "numista values" for granted and wonder why you are not swapping with them based on this “fair values" ;)
Any thoughts? Or any “communication guidelines” from you of how to explain that “numista values are nice and maybe a tiny, small guideline of what your coin is worth but there are other “guiding values” to be taken into account instead of just numbers from here?
I have recently gone through my old purchases to add the data to Numista. Some prices might be some 5-10 years old, but the interesting thing is that some coins has been more expensive, and some has been cheaper. I find this very interesting to follow, and everytime my value is lower than Numista's, I feel a small success. If it's higher, I often think that the value might not have been updated for a while.
I often excludes the shipping prices, since the postage has nothing to do with the coin's value itself. I am buying a coin, and then I am paying the seller to ship it to me. That is two different purchases for two different things.
For example, after New Year the Swedish Postal Service will raise the shipping prices by 20%. So if I buy a coin today, and then the same coins for the same price in a months time, shouldn't I add the same value?
For World banknotes, I found that my Standard Catalogue of World Paper Money (published by Krause) was way off. Most often the Book Values (BV) were far too generous. This was especially true on the easy notes one could find heavily discounted on eBay. Occasionally, on the tougher nations (especially colonial series), BV's were incredibly low. It's very tough to pin down BV's for world notes these days (especially with eBay usually having extremely high lately Buy it Now listings).
