If You Ran A Coin Shop.....

To give you a good answer ... opinion or suggestion I/we would have to know more.

- For what purpose would you want to hold the coins
-- To build your holdings
-- To add to your collection
-- To build inventory for a future coin shop

- Also we would need to know what sort of coins you are
getting in the bags of coins you are buying.

Maybe you could give us a idea of what coin/bullion experience you have. For example, do you know all the
different coins series and how to grade them.

I would keep all coins in Fine or higher that are Mercs and down, SLQs and down and WLHs and down.
I would also keep MS Washington quarters, if the silver craze goes down collectors will reappear in the market for MS Washingtons. Keep semi-keys as well, as the years go by problem free coins in G+ will be worth more.
I would keep all Barbers, regardless of condition unless you cant read the date or its problems or something.



Remember, shockergd- I ONLY say this because I would BUY those for a small premium depending on coin of course. There you have it from the customer himself, I'm sure many collectors think the same. Us collectors have similar interests, you know. (but of course you do, youre one too!)

Good luck dude! I would LOVE to be doing what you're doing!

Shockergd - Sounds like you have a pretty good plan.

I think, how much coins you keep would depend on how much you can invest.

It looks to me you have two main goals, one to make money
on buying/selling silver. Two, is to put better coins away.

If I was making 10 to 30 percent (not sure what percent you are making) I would want to keep increasing the amount I was putting into that venture. You also would not want to take every good coin out because you have to sell some of the good coins to your current customers.

I do agree with most of what your keeping.
If I was picking coins to keep
- Of course keys and semi keys
- very high grade Washington and Roosevelt
- XF/Au Mercury dimes and Walking Liberty halves
- for common Barber and Seated coins F/VF or better

I would pass on slick low grade coins unless they are key dates

This may sound like a stupid question, but do you actually have a shop? As in a physical establishment. I can't imagine being able to make enough money to support oneself off just buying and selling and searching junk silver coins. The time spent alone would likely equate to less than minimum wage.

Maybe I'm just not fully understanding the question. If I ran a shop, I would need to invest quite a bit of capital to make sure I'm stocked in albums, common date coins, PMs of all sorts, coins tubes, etc...isn't that the question.

As far as what you should keep for later.....NONE of it, you're the seller. Get all the junk silver coins out you feel deserve a numismatic premium, and sell them as such. Make sure your margins protect you against drops in PM prices. You're not really in the business to be speculating on the future price of PMs, and certainly not on the long term price of say, a Barber dime.

I've heard of store owners holding on to PM and not selling in the recent craziness of price movements, but I've never herd of a store owner keeping a certain numismatic coin "in the back" because it might be worth more in 10 years. That's what your margins are for. Greysheet prices also reflect upward and downward trends.

In your first post you mentioned you are buying coins from the "we buy silver" places. Do you mind sharing what percentage of spot you are able to buy for from those places?

I'd buy at that rate if I could cherry pick only those coins I wanted or if I was trying to build up a silver stack. I'm not so sure I'd be interested otherwise. Too much volatility in spot prices to work with that kind of margin.