Coin Collection As A Whole

Foreign or local, I think the answer's the same. You'd generally get more for selling them individually. You'd be lucky to get $500 for your collection "worth $1000".

There are two reasons for this:
- Coins sold in bulk normally get a bulk discount effect, even for "completed sets". This is, after all, how many dealers make money - by buying bulk lots at a discount and selling them individually.
- Collectors are reluctant to pay "full value" for bulk lots because in all likelihood they'll end up with a lot of duplicates or other coins they don't really want.

Of course, individual sales take a lot longer.

I agree with Sap - if you're gonna sell 'em, do it individually.

Seems like a thousand coins for average price of $1 each will be a lot of work and take a significant amount of time to sell individually. Plus you may have to deal with a customers who don't pay or want to return them or exchange them, etc. IMHO, you need to properly account for the time required to sell them individually. If you really enjoy selling them individually and don't mind putting in all the effort and time involved, then it can be worth the extra $500. But if it takes 100 hours of extra work, you will be making roughly $5/hr, not including overhead such as gas for trips to the post office, listing fees, etc. Being someone without much free time, I would be happier with the quick $500.

It really depends on the value of each coin and the venue in which you are selling them. Your hypothetical situation for selling would end up being very different if you:

a) had 9 coins worth (book value for grade) $90 each and 991 coins worth 19.27 cents each;

or,

b) had 1000 coins worth a dollar apiece.

There's "lots" of ways to divvy up your collection to realize the most money. I've been in the auction business (live and internet) for about eight years and encountered so many scenarios already that I can honestly say there's no one best way to sell. There are plenty of bad ways, one unattainable perfect way, and a few decent ways. You hope to avoid the bad, and stay out of denial about the unattainable, so you end up finding a decent way wherein buyer and seller are satisfied.

I'd say that knowing what you have to sell is an outstanding first step. It's mind-boggling that so many people don't take the time to learn about what they own. You should be very proud of the amount of work that you've already done.

Good point t360. When the time comes to sell your coins, it's important that you know a lot about them, but it's even more important to be able to COMMUNICATE a lot about them. One way to I like to learn about selling coins is to scour old auction catalogs. It helps if you have the 'prices realized' guide from each auction as well. Cataloguers have a tough job making each coin sound exciting, even when the coin should sell itself. When the time comes to sell, imagine you are cataloguing your coins for a major sale. Even a minor coin has good points and can be described using creative language. When selling a big collection, you will have some disappointments and some surprises, so you have to treat each coin as if it will be the surprise.