How Often Should You Reprice Your Coin Inventory?
· 6 min read
Reprice bullion every time you quote it, common coins about once a month, and certified rare coins about every 90 days. Between those reviews, reprice at once after a large move in metal prices, a major auction of coins like yours, or a change in the population of a coin you hold. The goal is simple: no coin in your case should sit at a price the market left behind.
The right schedule depends on what drives each coin's price. This guide sets out a cadence by category, the events that should trigger a revaluation, and how to run a revaluation pass without spending a week on it.
Why prices go stale
A price is right on the day you set it. After that, three things move under it:
- Metal prices. Spot gold and silver change every trading day. For bullion and common-date silver, the metal sets most of the price.
- The market for the coin. Auction results, dealer-to-dealer prices, and collector demand change over months.
- The coin's own data. A grader's population report can rise as more coins are graded, which can lower the premium for a grade that looked rare.
A stale price costs you either way. Priced too high, the coin sits, and the money in it does no work. Priced too low, it sells fast, and you leave money on the table, or worse, sell under melt.
A repricing schedule by category
| Category | What sets the price | How often to reprice |
|---|---|---|
| Bullion coins, bars, rounds | Spot price | Each quote or sale. Price as spot plus a spread. |
| Junk silver (90%, 40%) | Spot price and face value | Each quote or sale. Price per $1 face from spot. |
| Common-date silver and gold with a small premium | Spot, plus a collector premium | Weekly when metals are moving, monthly otherwise |
| Common certified coins | Recent sales and price guides | Monthly |
| Better-date and key certified coins | Auction records and recent sales | About every 90 days, and after each major sale |
| Raw coins in your case | Grade estimate and recent sales | Monthly, and after grading |
These are starting points, not rules. A dealer who sells mostly bullion online reprices many times a day. A dealer with a small case of rare type coins can review prices once a quarter.
How to price bullion so it reprices itself
Bullion is the one category where a fixed price is always wrong by the next morning. Price it as a formula instead:
Price = spot × troy ounces of metal + premium
The premium covers your cost to buy, hold, and sell the coin. Set it per product, in dollars or as a percentage of melt, and leave spot to change on its own.
For a 1 oz American Silver Eagle with a premium of $5.00:
| Spot silver | Melt | Price |
|---|---|---|
| $30.00 | $30.00 | $35.00 |
| $32.50 | $32.50 | $37.50 |
| $35.00 | $35.00 | $40.00 |
Do the same for your buy prices, with a discount instead of a premium. Then a revaluation of bullion means checking the premiums, not retyping every price.
Events that call for a revaluation now
Do not wait for the next scheduled review when one of these happens:
A large move in metal prices
When silver or gold moves sharply, check every coin whose price is close to its melt value. Take a $100 face bag of 90% silver priced when silver was $30.00 an ounce: 71.5 oz × $30.00 = $2,145. If silver rises to $33.00, the same bag holds $2,359.50 of silver at spot. Left at the old price, it sells for $214.50 less than its metal.
A major auction of coins like yours
A big sale can reset prices for a whole series. When a sale includes coins of the same type and grade as yours, compare the results with your prices.
A population change
When graders add many coins at a grade you hold, the premium for that grade can fall. When a coin is upgraded or crossed over, the population at its old grade drops.
A coin that has sat too long
Set a limit, such as 180 days in stock. When a coin passes it, check the market. If recent sales are below your price, reprice. If they are not, try another channel or better photos before you cut the price.
A coin that came back from grading
A new grade changes the coin's market. Reprice it the day it comes back, and add the grading cost to its cost before you check the markup.
How to run a revaluation pass
A revaluation pass is a set time to bring a group of prices up to date. Keep it small and regular, rather than one huge review a year.
1. Pick the group
Choose by category or by age. For example: all certified Morgan dollars, or every coin not repriced in the last 90 days.
2. Gather the evidence for each coin
- Recent sales of the same coin in the same grade. Auction archives from the major auction firms and the grading services' auction price records are good sources.
- The current price guide value for the grade.
- The population at the grade and above.
- The melt value at today's spot.
- What you paid, so you know your markup at the new price.
3. Set the new price
Work from recent sales first. Use the price guide as a check, not as the price. Make sure the new price is above melt value and, unless you have decided to take a loss, above cost.
4. Record what changed and why
Write down the old price, the new price, the date, and the reason, such as "two recent auction sales at a lower price". This price history answers questions later: why a coin dropped, whether your prices follow the market, and how long a coin has been repriced without selling.
5. Update every channel
A new price helps only if it reaches every place the coin is listed. Update your own site, marketplaces, and any show price list.
Common mistakes
- Repricing only when a coin does not sell. The market moves up too. A coin priced under the market sells quickly and you never notice the money you lost.
- Using price guide values as prices. Guides lag the market and do not reflect every grade and designation.
- Forgetting melt value. In a fast metals rally, common coins can end up priced under their metal.
- Not recording the reason. Without a price history, you cannot tell whether a price change was a correction or a mistake.
- Repricing everything at once. A yearly review of the whole inventory takes too long and is out of date before it ends. Smaller, regular passes stay current.
How CoinManagerPro revalues coins in bulk and on a schedule
In CoinManagerPro, you can select up to 500 coins in the coin list and value them in one run. Each coin gets an AI estimate from PCGS data, recorded sales, and metal prices, and costs 8 credits, charged only when its estimate comes back. You choose whether the run sets each coin's value to the new estimate. When it does, the change goes into the coin's price history.
You can also set a schedule of every 30, 60, or 90 days. Each day, CoinManagerPro values up to 100 coins in stock whose last valuation is older than the schedule. The Pricing analysis page lists each run, and a run opens to show every coin's value before and its new estimate. See bulk revaluation and AI valuations. Coins that end up under their melt value or far from their estimate show in price alerts.
Questions
- How often should a coin dealer reprice bullion?
- Every time you quote or sell it. Bullion and junk silver are priced from spot, which changes through every trading day, so set those prices as spot plus or minus a spread rather than as fixed numbers.
- How often should I reprice certified rare coins?
- Review them about every 90 days, and sooner after a major auction, a large population change, or a sale of the same coin at a very different price.
- What should I check when I reprice a coin?
- Recent sales of the same coin in the same grade, the current price guide value, the population at and above the grade, the melt value, and how long the coin has been in stock.
- Should I lower the price of coins that do not sell?
- Check the market first. If recent sales are below your price, reprice. If the price is in line with the market, the coin may need a different channel or better photos rather than a lower price.
See how CoinManagerPro does this