I got back about an hour ago.....turns out it was a 2 1/2 hour ride each way & I spent 5 hours looking through stuff. Unfortunately I got into it so deep that I forgot I took the camera so the only pictures I'll be posting will be of the coins I brought home. Those will be posted on the grading forums over the next few days.
The very first thing I looked at were a few items of WWII militaria. Two knives I couldn't identify, an English helmet in mint condition & a German helmet also in mint condition. It was a little bit creepy holding a helmet that had a swastika on it. Next I went through 4 small jewelry boxes & sorted out the gold & sterling jewelry from the costume jewelry, which I further separated into good & junk.
Finally I started on the coins. Before we started we talked a little bit about melt value & collector value. Fortunately this lady had done her homework & had a general idea of what was what. I would have been interested in buying all her silver, but with spot as high as it is I'm not willing to pay more than 80% of spot. I knew she could do better than that & told her so. We then discussed her options & she is either going to go through
APMEX, or drive to Atlanta(2 hrs) to a guy that will pay in the 90-95% of spot range. We both agreed it would be too much of a hassle to sell the volume she had to private individuals at spot. I didn't get an accurate count & estimate there was around $500 face of silver.
First up were several of the old blue Whitman folders. I lost track of how many there were. Almost all of the cents had been polished which was a real shame because there were multiples of almost every date but the keys. The only key/semi key was a 1909-s that had been polished. There were a couple incomplete indian head folders also that had been polished. There were also multiples of
Franklin halves, WLH's, roosevelts,
Buffalo nickels, V-nickels &
Washington quarters. Due to condition issues these will be kept in the family or sold as "junk" silver.
After that came the ziplock bags of silver coins. There was a lone 1854 quarter, 3 Alabama Commemoratives, 5 Stone Mountain Halves, a small assortment of foreign coins, a small bag of tokens & about 40 Morgan/Peace dollars. There were also numerous bags of
Washington quarters, 40%
Kennedy halves & 90% silver halves from walking libertys through Kennedys. I went through every last one of these looking for coins that would be worth more than melt either due to condition or due to rarity. Except for the commemoratives there wasn't really anything worth more than melt. Interestingly, there were only 3
Barber coins....2 quarters & a half.
Once we got through all the bags she pulled out the rolled dimes. Before she contacted me she had an offer from someone that wanted $200 face in dimes.....so she rolled all the dimes that weren't in folders up. I was getting ready to start unrolling dimes for inspection when she suddenly remembered she had more folders. These weren't really folders, they were albums that looked like Dansco's but weren't & I can't remember the brand. Anyway, there were four albums of Morgans, several Walking Liberty albums, several
Mercury dimes, etc. The coins weren't in much better condition but some of the folders had key date coins. I spent the rest of the time looking those over & making an offer for all the coins that were worth more than melt.
I didn't get a chance to look through the dime rolls or what appeared to be a couple hundred rolls of wheat cents. Due to the fact that there were several albums & folders of each denomination, some full, some just missing keys & others partially full we are fairly certain that the deceased individual had been through all the rolls for better quality and/or key date coins. We're also fairly certain these coins have not been checked for varities. I'm pretty sure the dimes will get sold as "junk" & the cents will stay in the family. I may get a chance to go back & look again, she said she has only been through 3 rooms worth of drawers & it's a big house.
This has been a long post & I know ya'll want to know what I came home with so here's the list. Thses are WELL circulated pieces & most of them have been through an old cleaning in the past. I bought most of these for resale with the knowledge that they are not as valuable as problem free coins & paid accordingly. It's pretty hard to judge what problem coins will sell for, I'm fairly certain I paid a price that was fair to me & them.
1854
Seated quarter2 Alabama Commemorative halves
Stone Mountain half
1921
Walking Liberty half1938-D Walking Liberty
1921 Peace $
1882-CC Morgan
1888-S Morgan
1890-CC Morgan
1893-CC Morgan
1895-S Morgan
1916 Mercury
1926-S Mercury
1921 Mercury(2)
1921-D Mercury
Edited because I forgot the 1926 Mercury had an S mint mark.
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Posted 04/13/2011 9:08 pm
