Topic: [AUCTION - finished]Casascius 0.1 Physical Bitcoin - Value Discussion (Read 1511 times)

I have noticed that the random newbie accounts get lower prices verses higher trust members. I have noticed that people such as yourself, OgNasty and Nubbins tend to be able to command especially high premiums over others who have decent amounts of trust -- I think this has to do with the fact that the three of you have a reputation of handling coins especially carefully, and storing (and shipping) coins in a way so that they will be kept in a good condition. I would rather buy a coin from OgNasty, who I am very confident will be capable of delivering a coin in very good condition over buying the same coin from theymos who has said that he keeps his old cas coins in a platic baggie.

As I mentioned before, 25 BTC cas coins tend to sell in the 27-28 BTC range (a premium for 2-3 BTC) while a silver single cas will sell for about the same premium (both as of about a year or so ago).

I honestly think it depends on the coin. Lower face value ones seem to go from the face x whatever value and the larger coins get a random premium. What sellers get more from sales? It does make sense paying extra to deal with someone you know will deliver with no issues.

How would you explain why 25 btc and 5 btc coins are not selling for 75 btc and 15 btc respectively? From what I have seen, all cas coins tend to have a 2-3 btc premium when highly graded, except some very rare coins. This observation would support nubbins' price formula.

I've also noticed that some specific sellers are able to command a higher price than others for similar coins consistently.

0.55 BTC

I disagree with Nubbins on that point (we argued over it IIRC). Physical Bitcoins are not your typical numismatic coins and therefore have different premiums. We have a small specialized market with a unique method of pricing them. Face values on regular coins make no difference in prices, but with Bitcoin it makes all of the difference.

Numismatic coins do not have a "multiplier" they have a preimum. I was actually very surprised to see how low this coin ended up selling for, although the physical coin market does seem to be very saturated right now.

Please never mention multipliers, they are just the premiums. I used to see silver singles at 3.5, now they're at like 2. Or a 1 to 2.5BTC premium. Also for 25 BTC casascius coins go for about 26-27 so it wouldn't make sense to say there is a 1.04 multiplier rather than just say a 1 to 2BTC premium. Multipliers don't matter, whatever the market will pay as a premium does matter.

Yup. Not only is it one of the rarest editions of Casascius but it's a smaller denomination which makes it more obtainable by more people, thus driving the price up.

I think Hiroaki has the correct answer.  There are more buyers for the 0.1 as it is a lower price point to enter the cas market so the premiums are higher due to a larger pool of buyers.

Similar to the 1/10 oz Gold Lunars/American Gold Eagles/Maples etc have a higher premium than the 1 oz versions of the same coins.

I don't think there is an inefficiency in the market.
The 0.1 coin just sells better because it is more affordable and thus has a higher sales range.

There are many people that would like to own a Casascius coin, but not everybody can spend 1 BTC for it.
My opinion 

Not quite true, the multiplier is exactly what you've stated it is for each coin. The truth is that there doesn't have to be the same multiplier between different types of coins but each coin does have a multiplier if people are willing to play more than face and a buyer can use that multiplier range to arrive at a fair bid/ask price.

E.g., you list the multiplier for the silver singles at 2-4x and the brass singles at 1-2x...two different types of coins, different mintages, etc. It's fair that these multipliers would be different. And in this example the silvers have an active mintage of 1292 and the brass range in the 5000-6000 range.

To MY example, a better test is if the multiplier between two coins with the same active mintage differs greatly - Sliver tenths and Silver halves (2013 series 3) have nearly the same mintage, yet I bet the tenths have a significantly higher multiplier across most sales. Just doesn't make sense to me...it's an inefficiency in the marketplace.


EDIT: I just realized another reason why the run-up is higher with the tenths, particularly with auctions...it could be driven by the minimum incremental bid. The increment for a whol coin is usually BTC0.1, whereas this auction is at BTC0.05...50% of the minimum increment for a whole coin, yet the coin for this auction is a tenth of the face value! To get a fair bidding situation we'd need the minimum incremental bid for the tenth to be at BTC0.01.

No need for a book to look up the current count of active Casascius coins - here's a site that provides the most current count. It updates as soon as a coin is redeemed, whereas Elias' book (while it is a fantastic collection of history) is a point in time number, and therefore can become stale.

Casascius Coin Count: http://www.spotcoins.com/bitcoin/casascius

As for the run-up on the price of the tenths, scarcity should certainly play a part. However there are other BTC1 coins with lower mintage numbers, so it's not a perfect correlation. I still believe there is some illogical premium placed on the tenths and the halves that doesn't get realized with the full coins.

What minerjones said is definitely true. But I think it's also important to note that with funded cryptocoins, there is no such thing as a face value multiplier to get to the market value. Cas silver singles ranged between 2-4x while brass singles range between 1-2x. So rather just think of it as supply and demand for the current value

Numismatic value, no Casascius collection is complete without one

Maybe relative scarcity

Why do these tenths always go for significantly higher multiple than the halves or full coins?

It's never made sense to me. A silver half will go for 0.95 yet this tenth is already up to .3.

Beautiful coins. The market is always hot but so hard to predict.

0.5

0.45 BTC it is not over

0.4

.35 btc