CPK Posted June 12, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted June 12, 2023 I've been meaning to ask this question for a while now. A year's subscription to ACSearch.com includes access to 11 million lots from more than 360 different auction companies. Cost of about $80. A year's subscription to CoinArchives includes access to 7 million lots from more than 150 different auction companies. Cost of about $600. 😮 Maybe CoinArchives has better search tools, or something. But is it really worth 7.5x the price?? Why is it so much more expensive for an (apparently) smaller database? The strange thing is, I see lots of auction houses using and referencing CoinArchives but never acsearch. What gives? For the record, I bought a subscription to acsearch.com earlier in the year and I can assure you it is money very well spent! Not sure I'd feel the same about $600 though... What are your thoughts? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broucheion Posted June 12, 2023 · Member Share Posted June 12, 2023 (edited) Hi @CPK, Here’s a discussion from 2020 on another collector list that asked the same question. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/acsearch-premium-vs-coin-archives-pro.364422/ - Broucheion Edited June 12, 2023 by Broucheion 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sand Posted June 12, 2023 · Member Share Posted June 12, 2023 ACsearch is what I use most, and I really like it. I occasionally use CNG Research, because CNG has such a good reputation. I hardly ever use CoinArchives, but maybe I should use it more often. I used to use Wildwinds, but I've mostly stopped using it, because ACsearch seems so much better. I'm not a paying member of any of the ancient coin search web sites. However, $80 per year sounds reasonable, for ACsearch, in order to view hammer prices. $600 per year for a CoinArchives subscription is right out. My coin budget won't allow it. I didn't know, that CoinArchives is mentioned more often than ACsearch. Is ACsearch a newer site, than CoinArchives? Could that be why, CoinArchives is mentioned more often? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benefactor DonnaML Posted June 12, 2023 · Benefactor Benefactor Share Posted June 12, 2023 3 hours ago, Broucheion said: Hi @CPK, Here’s a discussion from 2020 on another collector list that asked the same question. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/acsearch-premium-vs-coin-archives-pro.364422/ - Broucheion My opinions as expressed in that thread haven't changed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtisimo Posted June 12, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted June 12, 2023 Sixbid’s archive works perfectly fine for my purposes. I haven’t felt the need to upgrade on any of the other available archives. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Severus Alexander Posted June 12, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted June 12, 2023 14 hours ago, CPK said: But is it really worth 7.5x the price?? Nope. I received a trial month or two from CoinArchives, and while it yielded a few extra results, it was missing far more. It does have a good search engine. As I said in the CoinTalk thread referenced above, if you spend 1K+ on coins in a year, an acsearch subscription easily pays for itself and then some. I would add that it also depends on how many searches you do. If you’re only interested in a coin or two per week, each with 20 comps, maybe cobbling together free resources is OK. (It might take an hour to do one coin properly.) But I typically look up many more coins than that, sometimes with a hundred comps or more (for my purposes)… using free resources would take far too much time! Whereas with acsearch, one coin takes only a minute or two. @Curtisimo: there’s another reason why you think I’m a bargain ninja! Sixbid doesn’t cut it for researching prices IMO… while Sixbid also has a few extra results, it’s missing too much, and is too basic. For example, when ordering the results by hammer, Sixbid simply lists them in numeric order: 500 GBP, 550 USD, 600 GBP, 650 EUR… Whereas acsearch lists them in a single currency of your choice, using historical exchange rates in accordance with the auction date. So that 500 gbp result from 2019 gets correctly listed as having hammered at the equivalent of 600 USD. Without this exchange rate function, you only get a vague idea of the coin’s hammer. (That said, sixbid is a useful supplement, especially for Naville results. I wish acsearch included Naville.) 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtisimo Posted June 12, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted June 12, 2023 41 minutes ago, Severus Alexander said: Nope. I received a trial month or two from CoinArchives, and while it yielded a few extra results, it was missing far more. It does have a good search engine. As I said in the CoinTalk thread referenced above, if you spend 1K+ on coins in a year, an acsearch subscription easily pays for itself and then some. I would add that it also depends on how many searches you do. If you’re only interested in a coin or two per week, each with 20 comps, maybe cobbling together free resources is OK. (It might take an hour to do one coin properly.) But I typically look up many more coins than that, sometimes with a hundred comps or more (for my purposes)… using free resources would take far too much time! Whereas with acsearch, one coin takes only a minute or two. @Curtisimo: there’s another reason why you think I’m a bargain ninja! Sixbid doesn’t cut it for researching prices IMO… while Sixbid also has a few extra results, it’s missing too much, and is too basic. For example, when ordering the results by hammer, Sixbid simply lists them in numeric order: 500 GBP, 550 USD, 600 GBP, 650 EUR… Whereas acsearch lists them in a single currency of your choice, using historical exchange rates in accordance with the auction date. So that 500 gbp result from 2019 gets correctly listed as having hammered at the equivalent of 600 USD. Without this exchange rate function, you only get a vague idea of the coin’s hammer. (That said, sixbid is a useful supplement, especially for Naville results. I wish acsearch included Naville.) There is no one whose opinion I trust more than yours on such things. I tend to have a bias against paying for subscription based services. I tend to prefer to buy a product outright or else pay per use. I’m just not sure I’d use it enough to get good value. I may change my mind and give it a shot at some point. I’ll make sure to post my experience with it if I do so you can have a chance to say “I told you so.” 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benefactor kirispupis Posted June 12, 2023 · Benefactor Benefactor Share Posted June 12, 2023 FWIW, I also was in the boat where I didn't feel it was worth to invest in a search engine. I have since changed my mind and become a member of acsearch, and I agree it pays for itself. It has its quirks, but I've definitely found it useful in determining how desirable price-wise certain coins are. CoinArchives is useful for showing current auctions, but that function is free. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roerbakmix Posted June 13, 2023 · Member Share Posted June 13, 2023 20 hours ago, Severus Alexander said: Sixbid simply lists them in numeric order: 500 GBP, 550 USD, 600 GBP, 650 EUR… Whereas acsearch lists them in a single currency of your choice, using historical exchange rates in accordance with the auction date. This you can do with sixbid as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hesiod Posted June 13, 2023 · Member Share Posted June 13, 2023 4 hours ago, Roerbakmix said: This you can do with sixbid as well How do you do this on sixbid? It seems to take the nominal number when sorting by price ascending or descending, ignoring exchange rates at the time; whereas ACSearch to have saved the conversion rates on the day of the sale and use that when sorting by price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roerbakmix Posted June 13, 2023 · Member Share Posted June 13, 2023 Under ‘currency ‘ it is calculated for current exchange rates, but doesn’t take inflation/historic rates into account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Severus Alexander Posted June 13, 2023 · Supporter Share Posted June 13, 2023 7 minutes ago, Roerbakmix said: it is calculated for current exchange rates, but doesn’t take inflation/historic rates into account. I just checked this, and it does seem to use historical rates. Unfortunately it doesn’t display the original currency also, but this is much better than I thought. Thanks for the correction, @Roerbakmix! I still think it’s worth it to me to get acsearch (you also get lots of free image searches, which is great). But I think some people could definitely get by with sixbid plus the free version of acsearch, searching out hammers as needed. On 6/12/2023 at 10:03 AM, Curtisimo said: There is no one whose opinion I trust more than yours on such things. I tend to have a bias against paying for subscription based services. I tend to prefer to buy a product outright or else pay per use. I’m just not sure I’d use it enough to get good value. I may change my mind and give it a shot at some point. I’ll make sure to post my experience with it if I do so you can have a chance to say “I told you so.” 😉 You tend to target a small number of coins in an auction, whereas I cast a wide net. So you might well have no need for the paid service, especially in light of @Roerbakmix’s revelation about the currencies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benefactor DonnaML Posted June 13, 2023 · Benefactor Benefactor Share Posted June 13, 2023 How far back do the sixbid archives (or the numisbids archives, which I assume are pretty similar) go? The advantage of acsearch is that it goes back 15-20 years, and very occasionally even further back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benefactor KenDorney Posted June 13, 2023 · Benefactor Benefactor Share Posted June 13, 2023 Interesting topic. I might have missed some things in the responses so I apologize in advance. As to the first question: Honestly I do not know if there is value to one service over the other. I do believe that all of these compilation sites generally use the same public data, though there are agreements in place to provide exclusive sales results. This is why on some services you will see the estimate but no sales result and on others you see the hammer price. Honestly it really depends on what you are doing with the information. If you are simply using sites for attribution there is no value for the paid subscription. But if you are using the sites for sales data for future bidding they have value. What that value might be worth is entirely dependent on what you are bidding on and its value and your opinion. Some sites charge more (honestly I think only because they were first and charged what they wanted, nobody could complain as they had a monopoly). Really, its only a matter of time before someone offers it all for free for users in exchange for advertising income. This is the way. Or, the future. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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