The "Coin Market" feature offers excellent guidelines, and anyone wanting to know what an average Proof-65 Barber quarter is worth can certainly gain some ideas from the preceding spread.

Population Report^SMs: Issued at regular intervals by PCGS, NGC, and ANACS, these reports show how many coins have been certified in various grades. They are not at all representative of the total population in existence of a certain issue, for few coins below MS-60 are submitted for common varieties, as it costs $20 to $25 or so to have a coin certified. As more and more coins are certified in the future, the populations will increase.

The popular practice of resubmitting coins has these two effects:

1. The same coin can appear twice (or more) and give the impression that a variety is more common than it actually is (one dealer I know submitted an MCMVII High Relief $20 four times before he was able to get the grade he wanted; this coin appears in the Population Report^SM as four different listings, whereas in reality only one specimen is represented).

2. Proportionally, there are more higher-graded slabbed coins in existence than the data show, for many lower-grade listings which swell the report numbers do not exist, as they have been reslabbed at higher levels.

Population Report^SMs are quite valuable in determining the relative rarity of certain coins in higher grade levels. For example, if in a hypothetical situation the PCGS report lists 754 MS-65 examples, 63 MS-66 pieces, and 8 MS-67 specimens of a particular variety, if you own an MS-66 or MS-67 example, you have an item which will sell for a sharp premium above the MS-65 level.

What About Consistency?

Published price quotations indicate that rarely do two authorities precisely agree on the value of a coin in a given grade, but as a whole, the various sources indicate an approximate market level.

For important rarities, bid and ask prices are apt to mean very little. If I were to publish a bid price of $20,000 or even $40,000 for an MS-65 1876-CC trade dollar, I would probably not be able to buy even one specimen, for the 1876-CC, common in lower grades, is virtually non-existent at higher levels. Suppose that the stated bid price was $40,000 and you were offered one for $75,000. I would recommend that you buy it immediately. Your competitors for the coin, who may be waiting for a bargain at, say, $30,000, will probably die without owning one, but you will have a gem in your set.