The Effects of Rarity when Pricing US Cents and Half Cents

My interest area is collecting US cents and half cents by variety.
My problem is valuing different varieties, particularly when bidding in auctions.

To identify half cent varieties I use Ed Fuhrman's three volume set plus Ronald Manley's book on half cent die states.
To identify one cent varieties I use William Noyes' six volume set, John Wright's book, John Grellman's book, and Thomas Walker's two volume set.

Once I identify a coin by Variety (if I can), then I can attach the Rarity factor to the coin as stated in the resources mentioned above.
Next I do my best to grade the coin (coins slabbed by the top TPGs helps a LOT there).

Now comes the valuing step.

Fuhrman indicates that coins with R1 and R2 rarities are pretty much the same in value.
Rarity R3 might nudge the value up a bit, and after that the rarity becomes more significant.

NOW COMES THE TOUGH PART
How to actually price a coin.

Right now I use the GREYSHEET.
The have a nice spread of prices in steps from grades of AG-3 through MS-65.
Based on my current experiences that seems to work out reasonably well.
If I'm looking at a coin graded XF-45, and the Greysheet has values for grades XF-40 and AU-50, I'll go with the average of those two prices and then add 10 percent (or so) for S&H.

Unfortunately the Greysheet generally doesn't include prices for each specific variety.

EXAMPLE:
1804 half cents have 13 different varieties but only shows 5 values.
They group some that broadly the same but give only one value.
One group is the "Spiked Chin" for which there are 4 distinct varieties.
And the Rarity values for that group range from R1 to R4.
It's up to the buyer to come up with their own price.

MY QUESTION:
Is there a source that gives a more complete breakdown of pricing relative to grade and particularly variety?

 

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My head is spinning. Luckily I only collect ancients, we don't have price guides. It's worth what someone purchases it for at that time.

 

I think people like EAC use Copper Quotes by Robinson, but I seem to recall something else and newer. I am not sure what else EAC might use, but it might be worth reaching out to them.

 

I collect Bust Halves, which I realize is a slightly different beast, but similar problem.

Honestly, the best way is to compare past auction sales. I use Heritage because it is one of the biggest, and they list rare varieties so they are searchable. For Bust coinage, there is a compilation of past auction sales compiled by Steve Hermann (you have to buy it, and I haven't bought one because I am not that serious into the varieties).

I wonder if there is a similar compilation for the series you collect?

 

Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm headed for the Baltimore Whitman Show on Friday the 20th.
I'll ask some of the EAC people there.
Tom Reynolds is generally there.
And Chris Macawley's group.
And maybe Col. Ellsworth.

 

I do not collect the coin series you are talking about but I do pursue various Seated Denominations by variety. There are a few general comments I can make and you can use or ignore on your own.
I will often go to PCGS or NGC and check their variety lists for coins that have been previously slabbed by variety. Often times I find no one or at best 1 or 2 people have bothered to have a variety designation put on their holders. In some cases you can match the variety with a previous listed sale in their listings. Othertimes you must play the game you play of assigning your own pricing metric.
On some occasions ANACS will recognize varieties that the other 2 either ignore or just have not been asked to designate. No pricing help though.
I think it is important to remember how thin the demand might be for some varieties. I don't know the grade levels you collect at either but I also think it is important to consider how many collectors may be happy with a raw coin.
I wish you the best in your future collecting endevours. James

 

I used to collect half cents by die variety in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s. Back then there was Roger Cohen's book and "Copper Quotes by Robinson."

Robinson's numbers were reasonable for coins up to perhaps R-6 as long as they were not at or close to the condition census. If the coin in question was near the condition census, all bets are off because if more than one well healed collector wanted it, the bidding could go very high. R-7 and above was really nothing but speculation.

Roger Cohen told me a story about how he saw a Robinson price for a rare half cent. Roger wrote a check for that amount and sent it to the owner of one. The owner was insulted!

My experience with the old Grey Sheet was that all of the early copper coin prices were too low, especially if the coins had good surfaces. Grey Sheet prices bought "problem pieces" for the sharpness grade. For me, the Grey Sheet was useless for early copper.

I don't know how accurate the new Grey Sheet is. I kown it has listings in a lot more detail for varieties than the old one did, but I don't know how good those numbers are. The other factor is "EAC grading" which is much more conservative than PCGS, NGC and even CAC grading. I have one piece that is graded PCGS MS-63, CAC, which the "official EAC grade" is only AU-55. Sometimes I think that EAC grading is a crock. It sure doesn't work in the "real world." The guys who use it still charge you "real world prices."

As I said, I've been out of the game for over 30 years. You can talk what I wrote for what it's worth.

 

I'm a member of EAC and a student of the EAC Grading Guide but by no means an expert. I agree with you that EAC grading is largely useless for pricing within the world of graded coin buying and selling. The high end raw coin market is a different world. But it does, IMHO, have a use as I'll explain below.

If a collector is looking at an auction lot that offers both the TPG grade and the cataloguers EAC grade, the TPG grade tells you very little about the coin's actual condition within the characteristics that matter heavily for old copper; preservation, surfaces, color, strike, & etc. The EAC grade will (usually) discount the grade from the market grade and, along with the photos, provide an additional in-hand judgement from someone who knows what he's doing. People like Mark Borchardt (sp?) at Heritage are old hands at this.

But as I mentioned in the first paragraph, the deciding factor for pricing is usually the TPG grade no matter what the EAC grade might be. If only the TPG grade is available, it's up to the buyer to evaluate the coin with no additional help to determine what a fair price might be, either above or below the "market price". An EAC grade can make that job a bit easier if the coin is being purchased only from photos.

 

Not being that familiar with EAC grading, I have a difficult time understanding this. It's either uncirculated or it isn't. Why would they give an uncirculated coin an AU grade?

 

The phenomenon you describe is not actually an artifact of EAC grading. It's a result of TPG market grading. In this system a coin that. for example, is an AU-58 slider but that the TPG believes is "worth" an MS-62 price in the market receives an MS-62 grade.

This is sliding well off the thread's topic and it's my fault so I'll leave it at that.

 

Some AU-58s are worth MS-62 money. EAC grading is great when it looks into problems and weighs them against the sharpness grade. I totally disagree with those who condemn net grading when it is supported with the reasons for it. I have a problem with EAC grading when it is used to bury challengers to the “establishment” finest own examples.

 

So... that EAC AU55 could be a technical MS63 that EAC grading thinks is only worth AU55 money, or it could be a technical AU55 that a TPG thinks the "market value" is MS63? What a screwy hobby!

I think it relates to the topic, in that if they're going to "market grade", they should also do so based on variety rarity.

 

The two pricing guides for the Large cents & Half Cents were Copper Quotes and Penny Prices. Copper Quotes by Robinson had something like 18 editions but the last one was something like 20 years ago. It was replaced by Penny Prices written by Bill Noyes which only had about five editions and there hasn't been one for about a decade. So neither one would be good for pricing today. But in their day they were pretty good except for Condiiton Census coins or the Extremely Rare varieties.

I find though that up to R-5 there isn't much premium over the prices in the graysheet. There are some popular varieties though that will command a premium even though they have lower rarities.

 

Here is the 1802 Large Cent which graded PCGS MS-63 CAC, Brown and only AU-55 according to EAC. The reason I know that grade is because it among the top ten pieces in the condition census for Sheldon number 232.





The luster in the fields is 100% there with no breaks. If you use a 10X glass on the face, you will see some dulling. The question is, what caused the dulling? Is it a very light rub, or is it because the die was not filled 100% when the coin was struck?

At any rate, an EAC dealer will not sell this piece to you for AU-55 money or anything close to it. And, even if the face is rubbed the coin is an EAC AU-58 all day long on my opinion. So far as grading goes, it should be something like an EAC MS-61 at a minimum.

 

Regarding so-called "EAC Grading", allow me to clarify something that tends to get lost in the shuffle due to things like the abbreviated format of forum communications.

There is no EAC Grading organization. EAC is the Early American Coppers Club and while members wrote the EAC Grading Guide and the Club published it, there is no grading operation within or without the club that grades coins. Each so-called "EAC Grade" is the individual opinion of a single individual who is attempting to grade the coin using the EAC Grading Guide as the template. Any two people using the EAC Guide are at least as likely to come up with different EAC-based grades as are different graders at the TPGs.

And those individual grading efforts are as subject to hidden agendas, bias, and self-interest as any other individual unsanctioned opinion.

So, when a dealer or a collector calls a MS-63 TPG-graded coin an EAC AU-55, he is merely expressing his own opinion or parroting someone else's opinion. Whatever credible meaning that opinion possesses is in direct proportion with the degree of credibility that person has with other knowledgeable dealers and collectors.

And because of the above facts, that is why so-called EAC Grading has little to no relevance in the rough-and-tumble of price negotiations outside the somewhat rarefied confines of specialist early copper collecting.

By way of example, here's my 1812 S-288 cent, a R-2 die marriage purchased in a Heritage auction in 2019. The cataloger was Marc Borkardt who gave it a grade of EAC Net VF-30. But the coin is in an NGC AU-50 holder. Including the buyer's premium, the coin went for Greysheet wholesale bid for AU-50. Myself and possibly other bidders only looked to the EAC Net grade from a qualified grader to help us determine where along the continuum of possible value this coin should land.

 

The grader of my coin was probably Bill Noyes who is the most conservative grader I have ever seen.

 

@Publius2, the photo of the 1812 cent is too dark to see what Mark Borkartd didn't like about it. It's got a lot of "meat" to called a VF-30.

Most of the decent Classic Head Cents are dark. If you reject all of the dark ones, there would not be much left to collect.

Here's my 1812, which is my best Classic Head, which is graded AU-58. I paid a strong price for this.



And here's one that is graded EF-40.