Buying Bulk World Coins

Okay, so when I went to the shop the second time to purchase, the owner (who was not there the first time) was going through a purchase of a bunch of Morgans with another fellow. I listened to them talk while I picked through the coin pile. It was a little interesting and a little disappointing as well.

Anyway, after I realized it was closing time, I took what I had picked to be weighed. He took the bag to a scale and said 2 lbs. So, I went back and grabbed more until I thought I had about 5 lbs. I took it back to him, he put it on the scale and said 5 lbs. Either I'm really good at guessing weight or there was some nice rounding (up) going on! I couldn't see the scale readout because of where he was standing. I'll have to wait to weigh them when I get back home.

Only then did I ask him how much and he said $9/lb. The first time there were two women there and one of them was the one who told me $8/lb. I wasn't going to get into an argument or anything and I hate haggling so I paid $45.

It turns out that I ended up getting 475 coins from about 70 countries. So, by my calculation, I paid 9.47 cents per coin.

I was thinking that around 10 cents per coin was reasonable, so the dollar price hike isn't a big deal. I'm not sure I liked the atmosphere that much but, it's probably because I was a stranger and interested in the cheap stuff.

I have found one little gem so far and I'll be creating a new topic for what I find in this grab bag.

Skip the LMC, buy the Morgans.

Here's a pic of them sorted by country. Those most interesting to me are the ones from countries that either do not exist any longer or have changed names, e.g. Ceylon, Malaya and Netherlands Antilles.



The stack in the upper left is yet to be identified.

Can anyone pick out something special in that blurry pic?

Yes, Lots of Her Majesty The Queen, some scalloped and square coins, and some with holes. Quite a bit indeed. If you need ID's, I'm here to help. I'm used to this stuff

I also collect World coins from dealers' junk boxes, but I to go for the higher priced junk boxes, in the $5 to $20 per coin price range.
40 years ago, it was possible to get quite a few ancient, hammered and minor milled coins in this way. In those times, higher price per coin junk boxes had coins in the $2 to $10 price range.

I specialize in silver coins and because of this, I only acquire a dozen or so per year. I have always tried to cherry pick price wise.
I have never really bothered with coins in less than Fine condition.

Because I have always tried to buy well, it is amazing to see how prices have risen for the coins I have obtained, since I started such a long time ago.

There are some Israeli coins near the upper right. As far as I know, there is only one Russian (CCCP) coin and only three Canadians in the bunch (all cents).




Yes, indeed. They are mostly from Caribbean islands.




So far, it's pictured pretty much front and center.




At the time, I didn't have much reference available but, I'll be working on that now that I'm home.

Seems like a decent haul. Much of the thrill is discovering new things.

nice batch! Same as with X2AN, let me know if you need any help.

I also have a bunch of local coin shops with such 'junk' bins. Prices range from less than $2 per lb to about $5 per lb. Sometimes there's also a price per coin (from $0.10 to $0.25 usually), which is great if there's circulating money for sale, like (half) dollars, or Swiss 5 Francs (I bought a few for $0.25 each, they're worth almost $5). However, the quality of the bins also differs very much. Some have higher chances to contain silver, for example, which makes a higher price more justifiable. Some are just the Danish 1 and 2 Øre in zinc or a lot of French 5 Franc from the 1980's, which means that I won't buy there again. There seems to be no correlation between price and quality, however, it's really up to the shop owner's imagination, it seems. Nevertheless, it's indeed a very cheap and interesting way to kick start a world coin collection and to spend a few hours in discovering and learning.




Paying with that may end you up in jail.