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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,803 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
627 Posts |
Well I think I'd like to jump into the ancient world of coins. I bit about me first. I'm a gambler at heart, I'm a reseller of coins, and I don't mind working for my money ie. cleaning coins, that's the hobby part that I enjoy. What are your thoughts on buying uncleaned lots? A waste of time, or would I end up with some decent coins.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4253 Posts |
I think you will find there are very few great finds in unclean lots. I found that for every one coin worth keeping, you will clean 6-7 coins that are not worth keeping. Many on this forum find it fun to clean, but I found it frustrating.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
4208 Posts |
I find it fun, you get lets of variety. Its all about the seller for the Uncleaned coins and I can personally attest to the fact that Chimaira Antiques Coins are a great seller. If you want something particular, he gave me a small request.
My first batch was great, 10 coins, 1 junk, 1 bonus which was much earlier and a great coin, the second batch I sacrificed condition for size. Coins are about £1.20 each from him, minimum 10, you can buy batches up to 100 and order quantities of each batch.
You can sell the junks at about 50p each I reckon and the alright ones about £2. Then you could hit a jackpot and find a great coin to sell for more, but the entertainment of cleaning off the dirt of 2000 years and IDing is also worth a bit. I have, so far, in 22 coins, had one alright condition Pergamon coin from 40-60 ACE which I messed up and one coin of Eudoxia so I like to think I'm averaging a profit all considered.
TL;DR: Its fun to clean coins, you can sell them on any condition at cheap, I reckon I'm doing well from it, use cAc Uncleaned Roman coins, £1.20 per coin.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2044 Posts |
 I usually buy coins that are already at least partially attributed. Occasionally, I've cleaned a coin or two until I got this 50 coin lot recently. You can read about it if you like to see what you can get from lots. BenByfield has some really nice uncleaned lots as well. Most of mine are low quality late Romans and other unknown coins that you can have fun cleaning and attributing as well. I know I'm having fun with the lot! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1549 Posts |
Uncleaned coins are for students and collectors who want fun and education (not profit). You describe yourself as a reseller. To make money (the goal of reselling, I assume) you need to be able to buy things you can sell for more. In modern coins that can mean buying wholesale lots (perhaps, a roll or set) and breaking up the group. In ancients, wholesale might mean $10,000 plus for small collections (from widows?) or buying individual coins your knowledge of the subject suggests are going too cheaply considering the demand for that item. Wholesale lots otherwise tend to be groups of coins not easily sold individually or that the seller is too busy to describe individually. You will need the skill to tell which is the situation. Getting rich in ancient coins would require knowing what you are doing or finding a market that knows less than you do and does not know where else to buy coins. Cleaned or uncleaned, this is not a field where you can send your business card to a wholesaler and get a dealer stock of easy to remarket coins 'worth' twice what they are asking.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
4208 Posts |
On the wholesale note, if you have that much money knocking around, the cheapest I've seen for uncleaned has been about £1 per coin for 5kg or about 80p per coin for 20kg. You would have a hard time getting rich through that unless you sold every coin, unbiased, at more than you bought them for, and that wont get you many regular customers. It would not be a 'fun' experience. Plus, you'd need an entire bathtub of olive oil and an army of volunteers to clean them.
Perhaps you'd be better buying individual coins to make a profit, or maybe trying to strike a deal with detectorists and clubs to buy any coin they have/find at a baseline price?
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Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
I've said this before on other threads, I like uncleaned lots. I enjoy the process of cleaning them and discovering what is under all that dirt. That being said I haven't bought any uncleaned lots in over two year. I would buy lots of a 1000 coins at a time but in the last few years the price has gone up too high. I don't see making a business out of uncleaned coin unless you buy bulk lots from Europe and sell them as unopened lots.
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Pillar of the Community
3352 Posts |
Hi tfred => hmmm, well I used to spend a lot more cash on Canadian coins than I'm currently spending on ancient coins (and that's sayin' quite a bit) ... => once you've collected all of the main-stream Canadian set-coins, it takes a whole lotta cash to buy youself a "slightly rarer" MS-65 quarter, or an old Dominion of Canada Note ... but amazingly, you can still find a 2500 year old Greek coin for less than $100-$200 ... it seems ridiculous, but it is true!! => and the coins are usually 500 x times as interesting as the English monarchs during the last couple of centuries (although Fast Eddie certainly was a playa!!) anyway tfred => I hope that you have a good time sniffin' around the ol' ancient stable!!  Edited by stevex6
08/19/2012 8:05 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5155 Posts |
@ Tfred- Rather then getting uncleaned lots, you should wait your effort and buy the piece that catches your eye, what delights the soul and does not break the bank. There is something for everyone. You said you were a gambler at heart well you might find something like this appealing. The astragalos is an ancient gambling or game piece.  Corinth AR Stater Corinth. Circa 345-307 BC. AR Stater 8.45 gm Pegasos flying left Helmeted head of Athena left; astragalos behind, ref: Pegasi I pg. 254, 400.  |
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Pillar of the Community
3352 Posts |
tfred => awesome, it's another Canadian thinkin' about collecting ancients (it must be contagious?) ... Hey, if you do end-up buying an uncleaned lot, then I wish you all the luck in the world (some folks really seem to enjoy cleaning the coins to get to the unknown "candy center" ... I have never tried it myself ... I don't have the patience required) ... However, if you decide to merely buy a nice looking ancient coin instead, then the best advice I can give you is: => "Post your potential choices here in the ancient section 'before' you pull the trigger and spend your cash ... the guys on this site are awesome at spotting fakes and/or knowing which coins are total winners and which coins are merely common also-rans" Oh, and don't forget to have some fun while collecting!!  Edited by stevex6
08/20/2012 07:35 am
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,803 |
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Posted 08/19/2012 5:24 pm
