Hello From Texas (Again)

Definitely not better to sell the books whole. If a dealer or collector buys whole collections, they want the coins at an even better deal and you will usually get 60% of what you would have gotten if sold individually. As far as dealers go, I wouldn't sell the coins to them period.

Your best bet if you aren't pressed for time is to google coin grade examples to give you a general idea what each grade looks like. Then google online price guides for the country the coins were made. From there you will get used to recognizing the difference between each grade of coin after studying each coin in your collection and when you look them up in the price guide it will give you a general idea what the trend price is.

After all of that sell your most valuable ones individually on ebay or any online listing of your choice. If you have a bunch of coins that are collectible but worth closer to a dollar each, group them in a lot on ebay or such for quicker sale.

Good Luck, maybe after teaching yourself the grading and researching you will fall in love with the hobby and keep a small collection for yourself...?

Hi Angie! I want to offer you a resource that I use when I get a new penny in hand:

http://www.pcgs.com/photograde/

This site lists all US coins and will take you through every single grade, by numbers, with pictures of pretty much what that grade will look like. Remember that a coin in MS-65 may be worth exponentially more than the same coin in AU-53, depending on the coin.

Also, seconding the comments about Googling your particular coins by date and mintmark. I like this site:

http://coins.about.com/ It'll give you a lot of information on not just the value of your coins, but how to take care of them, etc. Please keep in mind that About uses DEALERS' PRICES, not retail, and that these prices will reflect decent grades of coin (e.g., About suggests that wheat pennies should be bought by a dealer for Three Cents each--if all of your wheat pennies are in G-4, you're not going to get that much).

Good luck!


(sidenote for mods, I don't work on/for/etc. either of these sites. PGCS was suggested to me by another member here, and About is a site I discovered while appraising a bunch of wheats for my boss. They're just personal faves.)

Just to add on to what others have said. Its always a tough decision selling whole vs individually. Parting it out usually brings higher prices but depending on what it is the extra time and effort may not be worth the marginal increase.

As far as would the buyer tell you you gave him a great deal and offer more money I highly doubt it. The best way to avoid that would just take a free day and check them or post a list of what you have here and others can comment on if these suspect you have anything rare in there. A good way too could be to take them to a coin shop just for price quote. The dealer may point out something (not all are honest though) or if you notice them looking at certain coins longer you could use that as a cue for what to look into more.

There is always problems in attempting to sell a collection.
1. Many of the coins are barely worth attempting to sell separately. In most collections there are a few coins worth a lot, some worth much less and some barely worth keeping/
2. People that buy sets want a big discount since they are buying many of the not so valuable ones too.
3. Actually one of the reasons coin collecting should never be considered an investment is just how do you sell them?
4. Coin Stores will normally attempt to cheat you since they need to make hugh profits.
5. If your not near a coin show, you could spend a lot of money looking for places to sell your coins'
6. Places like ebay take time, coin get lost, there are charges to use those sites, etc.
7. Using a Red Book to evaluate your own coins is rather highly misleading. The prices in the lastest ones are usually about 25% over reality.
8. For a decent evaluation of price using the Red Book, try to find one about 4 or 5 years old.
9. And don't forget, you'll now have to learn to tell what is a G4, F12, AU50, etc in grades of coins. Lots of luck with that.
10. About the only thing I could tell you to get the most of what you have would be to stick around here, ask a lot of questions, get the required posts to buy and sell here.
Can not guaranttee all members are honest, sincere, reliable, etc. except myself. AND not sure about that either.