Coin market includes sight seen and unseen

By Jeff Starck

Trying to explain what sight-seen and sight-unseen bidding are is at once easy and confusing.
The market for sight-unseen coins is predominantly for “generic” gold coins, like this 1926 Saint-Gaudens gold $20 double eagle coin and other coins with large populations, several experts told Coin World.

There is little market for sight-unseen trading of certain collector coins, like the 1916-D Winged Liberty Head dime, one expert said.

“Sight-seen” and “sight-unseen” bidding are terms describing ways that dealers can buy and sell coins through dealer-to-dealer networks. But, it turns out, it’s much more complicated than that.
At the basic level, someone buying a coin “sight seen” has the option, once they’ve seen the coin, to buy it at a price already established between buyer and seller for a coin from a specific grading service and in a specific grade, or they can reject the purchase.

Buyers engaging in “sight-unseen” purchases may submit their bid for coins they wish to purchase, again for pieces certified by a third-party grading service, but without seeing the coins before agreeing to the deal.

The ability to pick-and-choose coins under the sight-seen method generally means those coins receive higher prices.

Technology changes market

As technology has evolved, the means and methods by which dealers trade coins has changed. In the 1960s, dealers used teletypewriter systems that transmitted their bid and sell messages to other dealers on the network.