Price VS grade

[Leonmarsh]

Interesting topic to discuss 

Which is more important price or the grade of the coin? Interested to know others opinions

Sometimes you see some high grade coins sitting on the forum when the same coin slugs sell for 10- 15 quid less, which indicates to me price is the driver rather than having a nice good looking coin and people motivation to buy 

Personally for me, I am happy to pay a premium for a nice example 

What do you think? 

[TeaTime]

For numismatics it will always be grade. You buy the highest grade you can afford.

For stacking, price nearly everytime - the only exception being if the price difference between a minty and a beat-up lump is minimal (and that would only be for private re-sale value).

Then you get to what people have started calling 'semi-numismatic' coins. Often fairly high mintages with very little chance of becoming rare, where a higher grade coin has the potential to become sought after by those who collect slabbed coins. For me a modern coin graded as a 68 has just as much appeal as one graded 70 - My limit would be a couple of quid, no more, for the higher graded coin... But that's a whole other story.

[Stuntman]

Grade vs eye appeal is a trickier question, certainly on older coins.  I'd almost always plump for say a VF coin with strong eye appeal over an EF example of the same coin with weak eye appeal (whether due to strike, toning etc).

For stacking it's mostly price, since the value is wholly or mainly linked to the underlying price of the metal.  But then again I 'collect' PM bullion coins rather than 'stack' them, so I tend to buy them new from reputable dealers, and then store them carefully to minimise the chance of them getting dings or nicks while they are in my care.

Many of them are still just bullion rather than semi-numismatic but I'd rather have a nice-looking example than one that has a few dings, even if that's how it came from the mint.  So if I receive one with a few too many scratches and dings, I tend to buy another one if I can afford it.  The plan is to sell the spares once the price goes to the moon! 😃

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

This is a good question.

For older numismatic coins I've personally approached it with a balance of wanting a good grade but still wanting to buy at a price I feel isn't artifically inflated. Anything I buy along these lines I am planning to own for a very, very long time and I don't know what the market will be like come selling time. Maybe it will be the same as now with the most perfect grades selling for unreasonably high prices above slightly lower grades but I'm not confident of that so I really don't want to buy into what could be a fad today with the potential downside of losing out big long term. Its important to note I do believe higher grade coins should have a higher price just not the unreasonbly higher prices we see today.

For modern numismatics I think the market in graded coins is almost entirely a fraud. Someone on here (really wish I could remember the user name - apologies for not!) made a topic asking if PF69 coins are cheap in comparison to PF70s. Given you can pick up PF69s for generally cheaper than a raw coin I would say they are a good buy in todays market so if I was willing to put money into modern graded coins this is where my money would go. I class the hype around modern PF70s as a fad that won't last. My opinion of course - many I'm sure will disagree.

For bullion products we stack...  all about the price and going as low as you can manage