LOL OK, Marcus, since you asked ...
of course, I'm not going to give you an amount. OK, assuming you're young and curious and didn't mean to offend anyone .. for argument's sake , let's say a few £,000. Leastways, that's what my insurance company knows!
But really, that means nothing. Because what you have to appreciate is that any collection (coins included) has several
values.
Firstly, there's value in the metal. Now, I collect silver coins. Time was (when my coins were made) there was a pretty much fixed price to a pound (lb) of silver and that was .. £1 (it's not called 'one pound sterling' for nothing)
Over centuries this varied, but essentially the weight of all coins were linked to the weight of £1 in silver. The coins I collect (shillings), there were 20 to £1. So they weigh 1/20th of £1 worth of the stuff. In this case, 6 grammes (around 1/5 ounce)
Well, I only have around 60 coins. So you can see that my coins aren't worth much! Even at $22 an ounce I'd be lucky to get $170 for the things.
Of course, I'm not planning on melting them down! Plus, they do have other values.
For example, we have an equivalent to the
Red Book or Krause, called Spink. It's an annual price guide to British coins.
And one of my coins is listed at over £2000 in VF condition. Not saying I've
got one in VF! But I have an example of that type. So if you took the Spink value for all of my coins and added them up you'd get .. hopefully .. a bit more than $170!
Of course, Spink's guide is based on what Spink reckon they would charge you for that sort of coin in the stated condition. The problem with that is, if a coin is very rare, it's not going to come up for sale very often. And sales is what Spink base their prices on. So Spink's price for a rare coin might be based on an auction 20 or 30 years ago. Making it hard to be exact about the 'value' of a collection.
Plus Spink don't list all the different varieties of coin minted. Their guide is for an average coin, in a particular grade. So if you have one that is different in some way, or in better condition (for the sorts of coins I collect Spink only prices to VF grade (VF25 - VF30))
someone who knows about such things might be prepared to pay a lot more.
And of course, there's the value of a collection
to me. How much? Who knows? How do you value ten years' research, collecting, enthusiasm?
So let's just say .. it's irreplaceable. Literally of course, since each of the coins in my collection was made individually by hand so is effectively unique. Hence (unlike someone collecting MS63 pennies) I could never replicate the collection if it were lost.
That answer your question Marcus?
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Posted 06/01/2013 11:12 pm
