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 Replies: 10 / Views: 324 |
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New Member
United States
1 Posts |
*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum.  ***I've been collecting Silver Eagles for many years and recently completed an inventory of the collection as part of a broader effort to catalog my coins. The 96 piece Silver Eagle collection currently spans 1986 through 2025 and includes a mix of: • Proof issues with original government packaging and COAs • Slabbed MS69/MS70 examples • Burnished issues • Anniversary releases • Special labels (First Strike, First Day of Issue, Early Releases, etc.) • Raw examples from various years As I've cataloged more of my collection, I've realized I'd like to move toward a smaller, more curated collection focused on a limited number of exceptional pieces. I'm not in a hurry to sell, but I am trying to understand the market before making any decisions. My question is this: Does a long-term Silver Eagle collection like this carry any meaningful premium when sold as a collection, or is the market generally better served by breaking it into smaller groups or individual coins? If you were a buyer, would the fact that the collection was assembled over many years influence your interest, or would you primarily evaluate the individual coins? I can also put in list of all the coins if helpful. I'd especially appreciate feedback from collectors who have assembled, purchased, or sold large Silver Eagle sets. Thank you in advance for any advice.
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Moderator
 United States
15386 Posts |
 to the CCF |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2213 Posts |
Welome to CCF! The best time for you to sell was when silver spot price was over $100 oz several months ago. Spot price is currently in the $70s oz. Silver spot price will greatly affect how much money you'll get as will some collectable value. If you can wait, watch silver spot prices and sell if it goes higher but nobofdy knows when silver will top $100 again. Buyers won't care much how long you've been collecting. They will consider current prices of what you have. A lot of collectors won't or can't afford to buy a big collection. Dealers will. You could contact some of the major online dealers and sell to them like SD Bullion, APMEX, Monument Metals, Bullion Exchanges etc. Several onlline dealers post their buyback prices like JM Bullion. If you have any, check local coin stores or coin shows coming soon. Dealers need to make a profit. They may only offer near spot price or a percentage below spot and sell to others at higher price unless it's a low mintage or highly collectible coin. There would be fees of couse and it would take time/effort but you could create a store on ebay and sell them yourself. Check ebay sold prices so you know what items are going for currently. You could save money and sell them here on CCF but you have to have a minium number of posts, 250 I think. Edited by livingwater
06/01/2026 9:55 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
733 Posts |
I doubt anyone other than a dealer will buy the entire collection since it spans a variety of collection catagories. ebay is a great way to figure out the value of individual coins in your collection. Search for a specific coin, check the SOLD listings, and sort by MOST RECENT and then LOWEST PRICE. You can also focus on items sold through auctions to gauge interest—if an auction had 17 different bidders, it might be worth listing that coin as an auction. After all this research, you may find most of your collection is worth just over spot, and once ebay fees are factored in, you might realize selling to a local dealer for melt would have been simpler. If you do sell on ebay, be cautious with anything not slabbed, as buyers could claim a coin is fake, keep it, and still get their money back from ebay. |
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Moderator
United States
187555 Posts |
to the Community! |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5238 Posts |
I think that any collector of that material probably has most of them and wants only a few to complete their set. I and probably most collectors would not pay any premium based on its being assembled over many years.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1214 Posts |
Quote:
I can also put in list of all the coins if helpful. I'd especially appreciate feedback from collectors who have assembled, purchased, or sold large Silver Eagle sets.
Go ahead and list what you have. I've assembled a complete (as far as I know) OGP silver eagle set. One each of the bullion (those are just in capsules), Every individual proof and Uncirculated. Every set with an ASE in it, and the complete set, not just the ASE. I've never really thought much of what the best way to disperse it will be. I have very little along the way of graded ASEs. A few of the rarer bullion ASEs that need the implied mint mark. Probably less than 10 graded/slabbed. |
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Moderator
Australia
16806 Posts |
The sad fact of our hobby is this: nobody pays a premium for "intact sets" - whether that be complete date-mintmark sets of Lincoln cents, or complete date-mintmark sets of ASEs, or even mint sets still in their OGP. Attempting to sell the entire collection in one go would almost certainly result in you getting bullion value only for the set.
The reason is simple: anybody else out there who might be interested in collecting a "full set of ASEs" probably already has some of them. They're not going to want to spend extra money just to buy a bunch of duplicates that they're going to have to turn around and sell. They're going to want to buy the individual coins they don't already have, and to find them, they'll go looking for people selling those specific individual coins.
The coin dealers who are big enough to have the cash supply needed to offer you up front payment for your entire collection are going to be doing exactly this with your coins after you sell them to them. That's how most coin dealers make most of their profit: by buying up entire collections, then breaking up and selling off those collections one coin at a time. What you never see coin dealers doing is the opposite: you never see them sitting down and attempting to assemble entire sets of coins from the disparate coins they have in stock. Well, I suppose the mass-marketeering coin merchants might try that kind of thing, but I wouldn't consider those corporations to be "real coin dealers".
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Moderator
United States
187555 Posts |
Well said, Sap.  The only real value in our sets is the joy we had building them. |
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Moderator
United States
94666 Posts |
to CCF. any ASE collector would buy them individually as the hunt for them is the best way to get the quality they want. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5601 Posts |
Dearborn is 1000 % correct, ......  That's how it is done, .....  |
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Replies: 10 / Views: 324 |
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Posted 06/01/2026 07:31 am
