Reliable Appraisal

If it is a small collection, you could likely get a free appraisal and an offer, but without having some knowledge about current values, there is a chance that someone or other might try to take advantage of your ignorance.
Larger collections may cost some type of fee for an appraisal, since you would be taking some professional's time and expertise to do work.
As one dealer told me recently -- "The opinion you get is worth the price that you paid for it."

Mike, welcome to the forum! We're pretty friendly here and the collective knowledge of the membership is awesome.

I used to do appraisals (two or three times per year) for persons in similar situations : they inherited a collection or they've been accumulating coins for decades and want to find out how much they're worth. While a dealer would have more and faster access to coin identification and values, an experienced collector might be a better way to go since you're more likely to obtain an honest, solid, and realistic appraisal without the dealer's inherent need to buy collections to stay in business. This isn't to say most dealers aren't honest, but unless you know and trust one, it might take some time to find such a dealer. A private collector who doesn't need to buy coins to stay in business might take longer to appraise a collection, but will give your friend a square deal. Also, with the internet, if a collector runs across a coin for which he needs more info, he can quickly look it up online. Many larger towns and cities have coin clubs where one might find such an experienced collector who is willing to do an appraisal.

S/he might not charge at all if the collection isn't particularly large, e.g., is a typical unsorted shoebox type collection. On the other hand, a collection might be too large and/or too varied (mixture of US, foreign, and ancient coins, tokens, and medals, etc) for even an experienced collector if he specializes in, say US coins or just hasn't the time to research certain coins, but s/he will let you know this once s/he takes a quick look at the collection. A collector isn't in it for the money; rather, he just likes to look at coins. I did my last appraisal for a Georgia woman who had a couple large boxes of coins - maybe 300 to 400. I had a LOT of fun spending the day going through them, mostly US coins from early 19th century cents to Proof and Mint sets of modern coins. The only down side was telling her that none of her coins were worth over 50 dollars, even the oldest coins, that most were common circulated coins worth only bullion prices, and even most of the Mint and Proof sets had devalued from their original purchase price. She was only a little deflated but took the info in stride.

There are also professional appraisers who are not coin nor antique dealers. Check your yellow pages. However, such appraisers tend to hover around cities rather than rural areas.

A fourth option is for your friend to get him/herself educated on coins and do the appraisal him/herself. Of course, this will take a longer time and if the collection is really a mixed bag of non-US, US, WW2 script and coins (common among senior citizens), tokens, etc., this time might become burdensome. However, again, with the 'net, it can all be done from a desktop computer. And he/she might discover a new hobby!

Fred