ANA members gain access to 'Collector’s Price Guide'

Last week the American Numismatic Association (www.money.org) and the Coin Dealer Newsletter (commonly called the Greysheet) announced a collaborative effort that will provide ANA members with a great new benefit. 

The ANA is a congressionally-chartered non-profit organization with approximately 25,000 members that seeks to educate collectors and to promote the study of numismatics. 

Beginning with the June issue of the ANA’s monthly magazine, The Numismatist, which is out now, each issue will include an 8 to 10-page supplement with retail coin values for “collectible U.S. and Early American Coinage” on a rotating schedule, with early coppers, cents, and nickels covered in June, then silver coins in July, and gold coins in August, and the rotation repeats starting in September.

The Greysheet (https://www.greysheet.com/) is a key pricing reference for dealers and advanced collectors about the wholesale side of the coin market that provides bid and ask prices for each coin. Listed prices are based on a wide range of sources from auction sales to “anecdotal dealer trades,” and many others.

There is a weekly Greysheet for U.S. classic and modern coins, along with monthly and quarterly supplements that include essays on various aspects of the market and hobby, a Bluesheet for sight-unseen graded coins, and a Greensheet for paper currency. 

All of the essays and articles are available for free on CDN’s website, but access to pricing information is for subscribers only. The company is working to expand the range of coins covered and to provide alternative platforms, such as tablet access. 

Called the “Collector’s Price Guide,” the new ANA journal supplement is based on an online version of this guide that was developed by CDN in response to concerns from coin dealers about “the disconnect between established Greysheet pricing and unrelated retail values that don’t reflect wholesale levels.” 

The values in the CPG are described by CDN this way: “Similar in concept to the old ‘Ask’ price, the CPG is based on ‘Bid’ but formulated specifically for each coin and with a more accurate market spread. Dealer exchanges like CCE and CDN Exchange are now publishing the CPG values electronically.”

“CPG values are derived from the Greysheet and move in direct reaction to the wholesale market so collectors and dealers can finally be in sync,” according to CDN publisher John Feigenbaum, who is a leading dealer with over 30 years of experience in the field. He noted that collectors should use the supplement in conjunction with other numismatic price guides. 

In 2015 Feigenbaum acquired CDN from its previous owner who passed away months earlier, and he pledged to create an improved newsletter and related publications with more accurate and updated pricing information that reflects current grading standards and the impact of services such as CAC (the green and gold stickers from Certified Acceptance Corp. that indicate a coin is very solid for the grade).  He also moved the company from Torrance, Calif., to Virginia Beach, Va.

CDN first began publishing its widely-used newsletter in 1963. 

CDN recently announced a new monthly publication called “The Goldsheet,” which provides pricing information about modern Chinese coins, an area of the modern coin market that has exploded in recent years but for which it is challenging to find pricing information.