Ben Franklin Commemoratives not shipping until the end of April?

"Christian Feldhaus" wrote in message
. ..
Reverend Pope wrote:

I picked up a couple Vatican coin sets from a dealer in Frankfurt a
couple years ago. I'm having trouble finding a reference for the
current value of these. Don't recall exactly which sets I have. Could
someone point me to a price list?

Not really a price list but eBay price statistics for 2005 and 2006,
covering the proof and BU sets issued since 2002:

(2005) http://www.silvas.de/2005Vatikan.htm
(2006) http://www.silvas.de/Vatikan.htm

(KMS = mint set, KW = calendar week, stgl = BU, PP = proof)

Christian

And if you want to see a Euro dealer's prices, visit
http://www.muntplaats.nl click the flag forthe language of your choice,
click Vatican in the left hand column and you can go through years 2002-2005
Mint (BU and Proof sets and the Sede Vacante set (2005 only).. and put a
pillow on your floor for when your jaw hits it.

There are two main Euro dealers in North America, Royal Scandinavian Mint in
Utah, and Euro Collections Intl. in B.C. Canada. Neither of them sells any
Vatican sets at all because they can't get them in quantity.

I don't know about the accuracy of silvas.de's pricing as listed on those
two links above. Remember, those amounts are in Euros so multiply by 1.20 to
get dollars. But I sold one of my 2005 Vatican Euro Mint sets a couple weeks
ago on eBay and got $275.00 for it, which is quite a bit more than their
chart shows as the average price.

I've seen the 2005 Proof set go for $450 to $500 and I sold my 2004 Proof
set a few months ago and got $650.00 for it.

There are not a lot of USA-based sellers selling Vatican sets, so when I
sell one, I hype up that fact in my description, which probably helps push
up the price as a lot of USA-based bidders are hesitant to buy an expensive
whatever from an overseas seller. Transit time can be slow, there's always
the possibility it can be opened and seized by Customs or rifled through and
stolen by some warehouse thief at a Customs house who knows what's inside by
the packaging. That's exactly what happened with my 2003 Monaco Mint Set
ordered fromm
and shipped directly to me from Monaco's official Mint office. Some jerk at
a Customs warehouse somewhere
had figured out or found out what was in the distinctive padded mailers
Monaco was using,
my set arrived and it had been sliced open, the coins removed from the
cardboard
holder, and the padded mailer taped back up. I think they gave shipments to
their
Post Office, who handed them off to either DHL or AirBorne Express, and it
was
an employee at one of those companies in NYC who was pilfering. I hope they
caught the *******.

I sent photographs of the remains to the Monaco Mint folks and they were
kind enough
to sell me a second set at issue price, even though the limit was one.
They told me they had heard of the same pilfering from other USA customers
on their
subscription list, and so they were changing their outer packaging to
something
that looked totally different.

So in my experience, USA bidders prefer to buy from USA
sellers and will pay more knowing the package is not going to be subject to
Customs inspection or fingered by someone in an import company.

Harv

Harv wrote:

I don't know about the accuracy of silvas.de's pricing as listed on those
two links above. Remember, those amounts are in Euros so multiply by 1.20 to
get dollars. But I sold one of my 2005 Vatican Euro Mint sets a couple weeks
ago on eBay and got $275.00 for it, which is quite a bit more than their
chart shows as the average price.

The guy observes auctions only (no Buy-It-Now offers), and lists only
those prices that result from at least three "regularly finished"
auctions. So if a Vatican set is sold only one or two times in that
week, it won't be listed on his site.

May very well be that some auctions end at a higher price, and I do
certainly not consider such lists to be the ultimate in accuracy :-)
But as "trend indicators" they work. And yes, prices or auction results
in the US may very well differ from the ones around here.

That's exactly what happened with my 2003 Monaco Mint Set ordered fromm
and shipped directly to me from Monaco's official Mint office. Some jerk
at a Customs warehouse somewhere had figured out or found out what was in
the distinctive padded mailers Monaco was using, my set arrived and it had
been sliced open, the coins removed from the cardboard holder, and the
padded mailer taped back up.

Oh my :-( Yep, I'd be royally PO'd too if anything like that happened
to me. Glad to hear that the Numismatic Office offered you another
"chance" to get a set. Well, I never made it onto Monaco's mailing list,
but when I get something from San Marino or the Vatican, I ask myself,
do they have to ship the pieces this obviously?

As for David's original question, in case he wants to know the prices of
pre-2002 (lire) sets, it would be best to consult a dealer. Or a catalog
like the SCWC ...

Christian

Ok, found them.

They are the 2003 and 2004 Euro BU sets in a red and a silver holder.

David