Editor's Message: Red Book Quarterly Spring 2025

As I have written before, we try to be deliberate as possible when making such changes because we realize a new title or description may not be immediately clear to our subscribers. While the pricing methodology and intended use has not changed from the original Collector’s Price Guide (CPG), the title Red Book Quarterly better aligns our brand and creates a clear connection to the most-used coin reference book in the world. Judging by the response, dealers and collectors of United States coins agree.

Another decision that was made in the transition from 2024 to 2025 was the discontinuation of the CAC Rare Coin Market Review. For those who may not be familiar, this was a specialized publication that offered retail values for coins with a CAC sticker, and later for coins in a CAC Grading (CACG) holder. In an effort to continue to print CAC retail prices, we have added pricing columns to select coin series within this publication. These can be easily identified by their yellow background in the columns. Beyond this, pricing for CAC coins is covered in much greater depth in our online price guide at the greysheet.com website, in our mobile app, and even on the CACG website.

A question that has popped up again recently from readers is why there is separate pricing for CAC-graded coins, and if this “special treatment” is warranted. We took the step of adding CAC pricing years ago when it was clear that the market was paying more for CAC coins—almost across the board. In addition, numerous dealers place buy bids for CAC-approved coins, thus making a reliable wholesale market. These two factors made pricing these coins a necessity, and we feel ignoring it would be a disservice to the collecting community.

Another enhancement to this issue is the addition of TYPE coin price charts. The type coin pricing charts have been a staple of the Greysheet for a very long time—more than 50 years—and adding them here was another obvious step. This Red Book Quarterly will be in mailboxes right around when the 2026 Red Book will be hitting retail outlets, and the addition of type coin pricing is just one of the many improvements that will be found in that benchmark edition.

As for the state of rare coin market, we already witnessed some major auctions and shows in early 2025, and the temperature has certainly remained warm. A huge factor is gold spot price approaching $3,000 an ounce. The industry has never experienced gold at this level before, and it is putting a tremendous strain on cash flows for all but the largest bullion houses. These levels are also pricing out many retail buyers, so the ratio of sellers versus buyers can get way out of balance. One angle that is beneficial to the collector/investor, the dealer, and the industry at large is to take the profits from generic gold bullion and roll that cash into high quality vintage coins. While there may not be the same spikes (up or down) in values for rare coins like there can be in bullion, high quality United States coins have proven themselves time and again to be an excellent store of value.

Sincerely,

Patrick Ian Perez, patrick@whitmanbrands.com