Bitcoin Forum

I have no experience with purchasing physical Bitcoins but I am wondering why some people sell Cassius coins for more than they are worth?
How exactly does that work?

Jewelery also sells for more than the price of the gold it contains, it's a novelty item, a collectible, and this type of objects often sell for much more the "raw materials" worth.

Because Casascius coins are limited supply (Casascius stopped selling these coins). And users want to have one of the coins on their collection. Also casascius redeemed coins had interest for collectors.

People don't buy casascius coins to get the bitcoins from the coin. It is not a currency exchange.
They buy it as a collectible that they will keep for a long time and hope that the price of the item will rise. Just like most other physical bitcoins, they only have a limited amount that will be sold - that's why the coins gain worth after some time.

Because they're famous. Look at 80% or more of news items about bitcoin and there's a photo of a casascius coin. There are many other physical bitcoins out there but there'll never be another as well known.

Casascius coins not Cassius were the first ever physical bitcoins. Every topic about bitcoin a casascius coin is displayed. So if you can get one never redeem it, instead  you  will get more for it.

Things that are collectible drive their own value based on all sorts of reasons. In this case I see the coin scarcity and historic (first ever physical manifestation of a bitcoin) as key drivers of the value. I also think that most values for these coins are way out of wack and most sellers come up with their values arbitrarily so as to just try to make as much money off the sale as possible.

Just let it go and press ignore, it is just another signature spammer, he has clearly no idea what he is talking about, any replies will just result in additional 0.0000001$ earned for him.
Unfortunately are the sig. spammers slowly creeping into the market place section  :-\

 
A lot of the prices are backed up by what coins have fetched in an auction.  The seller doesn't have much control over the final price in that scenario.  I recommend looking through the auction section at what casascius have fetched there.
 
This looks like the latest completed auction for a casascius: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1331289.0

Guilty as charged.

That said, the value is really determined by the purchaser, not the seller.

When I was tasked to help out the General Motors accounting team through (plan B) their bankruptcy, I was shocked to learn how much in materials it costs to actually build a car.  You would be surprised how little the number is.  An overwhelming amount of the costs are in the planning, testing, and tooling of the needed machines to build the parts.  If you think the value of something is only determined by it's raw materials, I would allude to you overpaying by about 90% for every new car you've ever purchased.

It's both of these things and more, that would be my answer.

And OP, these coins aren't sold for more than they're worth, they're worth what they're sold for.  Or if you were meaning their nominal bitcoin value, you have to take into account collector value, metal value, dealer markup, scarcity, and all of those other things that drive any coin's value.  Coins sell for more than their face value all the time--just look at old silver coins.  Does that make sense?