I have a coin that cost me about 8 cents that gives me pause where coin valuations are concerned. The coin is an East German 10 Pfennig 1950E. I rely heavily on Krause World Coin Catalogs to identify and value coins. On this particular coin the valuations are: VF 17.50 XF 70.00 Unc 650 There were 16,000,000 coins minted.

I thought maybe there had been typographical error so went to ebay to see how the coin had performed in completed auctions and what current auction sellers were asking. From comparable coins offered I found a high price being asked of $800 for an AU55 http://cgi.ebay.com/Germany-1950-AU-55-10-...emZ220099255622 ,

a lower priced XF40 http://cgi.ebay.com/Germany-1950-XF-40-10-...emZ220099255604 ,

and a few others priced in between. From the images provided on these auction items I would say my coin is much the better.

My coin scans



Now, I do realize I got quite the bargain with the purchase of this coin. It is but one of about 700 "junk" coins I recently purchased from a large retail dealer that dislikes world coins. So far I would place the value of these "junk" coins at around $3,000, which isn't too bad considering I paid under $50.00 including tax for the lot. But that valuation is entirely dependent upon the resources used to value my coins. Am I safe to continue my heavy reliance upon Krause mixed with current selling trends I find on the Internet? I had originally placed a value of $150.00 on my coin until I checked the listings on ebay and found the NGC graded coins. Further, would it be prudent of me to have my coin condition graded by the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation? How much faith should I place with grading provided by NGC? What could I expect to pay to have NGC grade my coin if I choose that course?

-Krause Mishler is generally good as a guide.
-Asking prices are just that. They can be very unreliable, and are typically above real market value. That's why no one's bought them yet (if the seller has lots of simular items, it's likely that s/he does deal in that type of coinage, but the market may be very thin, so selling a piece may take a very long time, or require a signigicant discount ie. 50%)

-For German coinage, it has been my experience that AU55/58 is half of UNC, and AU-50 is 1/4 of UNC. Grading is also very strict (many a time in an auction there'll be something in a NGC or PCGS holder as UNC being sold as AU)

Thanks ccq! Now you've got me wondering about another issue. Of NGC and PCGS, which is regarded the more reliable grading service?

In my experience with world coins & Krause valuations, I've found that Krause tends to value the coins very high. Sometimes they are spot on, but sometimes they overvalue by as much as ten times the true price. There are so many coins listed that it is not reasonable to expect they will get the prices right...I'm just happy if I can ID a coin and they didn't make any major errors.
Ebay is good for checking prices, but you need to look at the actual purchase prices, not what they are offering to sell them for.
Dave

Thanks Dave. I do try to find completed ebay auctions for specific coins as the prices those garnered can be a good measure of the demand for a particular coin and the actual value. The best example I could find for this coin in a completed auction would likely grade in the AG to G range and was sold as part of a lot so that auction was of little help to me.

I am leaning toward your opinion of Krause valuations. It may be that they are aware of some instances where people pay a higher price for certain graded coins and use that information to establish the high range for that particular coin. I'd be interested in learning the median price for specific coins at various grades, but that would be an impossible task as it would require the tracking of every single coin transaction worldwide to come to an honest conclusion.

I'll continue using Krause, especially for identifying and cataloging coins, but look further for supporting evidence of actual values.

Depends. For identification, Krause is a good catalogue but for values, don't rely on it. Russian prices are often seriously undervalued and therefore almost useless.

So far, those are the prices that a single seller is offering. It's difficult to estimate what people are willing to pay for as that is just a single seller selling it, and seeing that there is no purchase yet, perhaps it's a bit too expensive in my opinion.