Inherited Collection - Need Some Advice.

Welcome to CC!

Carl offers sage advice! Get yourself a Red Book and go through each coin to make sure you don't have anything really valuable. Based on what you've listed, it looks to be all common stuff. A dealer would probably offer you about half what you can get if you sold on your own.

Thanks for everyones advice. I have done some poking around on various sites to get an idea of values, but when I check ebay it doesn't look like much is moving for the prices I've found. For instance I found a site that stated 1900 Indian head pennies go anywhere from $1 to $26 per coin depending on the grade. I have 2 X50 tubes. Randomly examining them I guess I could say the average (uneducated) value would be $4. So should be able to sell them for $400.00. However looking on ebay it seems people can't give them away in bulk, unless I am looking at incorrectly. In total I have 550 of these coins in plastic tubes dates 1900 - 1907. That is in addition to individual packaged UNC coins of various types. I guess it seems like they should be worth more.

I will try to post pics of the Liberty and Morgan silver dollars at some point as well.

As far as a dealer goes. I have someone that is will to travel across town this week to take a look them. They seem to be reputable and they consign. SO I guess I will see what he has to say.

BTW. If economic times were better I would not be so quick to get rid of these coins. It seems to be a pretty nice collection even if it is not as valuable as we thought. I do find it fascinating. However this is only 1/5 of my grandfathers collection. I have other heirlooms from both my father and grandfather that are much more precious to me.

For values you can simply the process by using Numismedia. It's one of the better online price guides IMO. Remember, all book coin prices are approximations. Nothing is hard and fast in terms of pricing with numismatics.

http://numismedia.com/fmv/fmv.shtml

I understand times are tough, your story is one of many after the last 4 years. I'm sorry that you feel pressured to quickly sell. If you take your time, you just might be rewarded with an interest in collecting coins and learning to make more money from the sales. The general rule: The faster you have to liquidate, the less money you'll get. The slower you do it, the more $$$ you'll make.

You should also consider keeping only the best coins of the lot. Having a stash of decent coins can be a little safety net should you ever be pinched for money again.

Well, now you're thinking straight....TAKE YOUR TIME. A lot people make the mistake of instant liquidation for the cash. That's fine if you're really desparate for money but if you're getting by just fine, the best thing to do is to LEARN about what you have and catalog it.

At this point, my advice would be to check for any important key date, variety, error or high grade coins that could have significant value. Also decide if anything has sentimental value. Then learn about the values of the common stuff and sell it slowly to maximize what you get out of it.

"I have other heirlooms from both my father and grandfather that are much more precious to me."

Zaushd, this trumps any and all value of your coins.
And, at the risk of totally alienating myself from this group,
coins are LESS important than other family treasures.
Your kids and grand kids, now or in years to come, nieces, nephews and the like need to treasure their
family much more than they need a few coins.

Of course, follow the advice given here.

I would say the proof sets (especially the earliest ones) will sell for more when kept together instead of busting them up and selling them seperate

All great advice. Thank you. I was debating on cleaning the more important ones up, but now I won't.

I was also thinking of hunting down some missing dates to complete sets. I'm jst not sure its worth the effort if I end up selling it all anyway.

A lot to think about. Thanks again. I'm going on vacation this week and will have to re-examine what I want to do.

Yea thats pretty much what is expected from those offers. Collecting isn't really declining but prices are at the moment with the down economy. Better time to be buying then selling but your best bet is certainly to piece out the more valuable coins