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 Replies: 64 / Views: 7,118 |
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New Member
United States
27 Posts |
Recently inherited a large coin collection from grandfather. Need some advice on the best way to sell it. Do I break it up, little by little and sell the coins on ebay or do I just take it to a professional dealer? I realize if I take the collection to a dealer I will mostly likely only receive a small percentage of it's worth. Thanks for the advice! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2543 Posts |
If you have the time and patience, do your homework, Red Book, Graysheet, appraisals, break the set up and sell piece by piece. A dealer will give you quick cash for less than half of what it is worth. Patience and homework will give you max value. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1745 Posts |
Quote: If you have the time and patience, do your homework, Red Book, Graysheet, appraisals, break the set up and sell piece by piece. A dealer will give you quick cash for less than half of what it is worth. Patience and homework will give you max value.  , if you have the luxury of time, take it. Be patient, study up and who knows, you might keep the collection and become a collector. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1511 Posts |
with both. Do research and piece it out, selling to a dealer will result in roughly half value. If you do the research you could piece it out to a major auction company, heritage and teletrade will slab the coins for you (through a third party grader) and sell them, granted there are fees you would still make more than selling to a shop (most of the time). If you post pics of the coins on here we could help with grade and value... (And we lloovvee pictures!) Or if you have a interest in coins you could possibly you could use your grandfathers coins as the base for a collection yourself... Just a thought.. And after the time and energy you spend in going through them all you might decide to hold on to them .. Another option would be to stick around here and make enough quality posts and sell here. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
979 Posts |
You could make a video and show off the coins. Then post the video here and people can highlight some more valuable pieces. Don't handle uncirculated coins with your hands though, use cotton gloves or you will ruin their value
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7184 Posts |
first of all  second, DON'T CLEAN THE COINS TO MAKE THEM LOOK BETTER! Otherwise sound advise listed above, learn what you have and what the values are prior to attempting to sell. |
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
A lot will depend on what in it, but if youre looking for top dollar at the very least you will need to piece out the most valuable pieces and sell them yourself.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
Before you sell, you need to know what you are selling. Otherwise some buyer, who knows more about coins more than you do, could take advantage of you. I would not sell high value items or lots of more than, say $50, on ebay. To make this sort of decision, you have to know their value. Really high value coins are best sold at auction. Valuing? Now that you are member you can at least post pictures here on the CCF, and ask for advice, but you can't sell them via the CCF, until you have 250 quality posts. The other advice given here so far is good, and well worth heeding. |
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Valued Member
Canada
55 Posts |
Mah5259 I was, and still am, in exactly the same situation. You have already got a lot of really good information from some really great people here so that is good.
What I did first was get all the coins sorted by country. That in itself is a bit of a task for people like you and I that don't know much about coins. Then I started up an Excel spreadsheet that has the countries sorted by different tabs at the bottom, and then Year, Denomination, Mint Mark, Type, Grade, Value, Value information and Notes. Then I just started tearing through the coins. I haven't filled in the grade section on a single coin yet. I am working on figuring out what coins I have first, then I will start using some online resources (like this fantastic forum) to start putting grades on the coins. The thing is that a high grade coin can be a MASSIVE step up in value but learning to grade a coin isn't the easiest thing in the world.
The best piece of advice I was given though was really simple. Take your time. Your grandfather more than likely took decades to collect those coins, so try and not be in a massive rush to unload them. I have been picking away at my grandfathers collection now for 4 months or so and I have learned an awful lot about coins in that time, and trust me when I say I an not really a coin collector. It certainly has helped me feel closer to my grandfather which was more than likely why he wanted you to have the collection in the first place.
Sorry for the long winded ramble, but I hope it helps a bit.
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New Member
United States
28 Posts |
I inherited a colection myself recently. I'm up to over 1000 coins cataloged. Funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I've been bitten by the bug! So don't be too quick to sell. You might discover a new hobby like I did. Quite by accident. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3755 Posts |
The other thing you can do is get a person to sell them for you on consignment. Generally that will run about 15% of the sales and any fees incurred selling the coins. You still end up with more in your pocket for the coins than selling to a dealer, but less hassle than trying to sell them yourself. Only caveat being have a good idea of what you have before you hand the coins over to someone to sell. A signed by both parties inventory of the coins is a must. Starting collecting and adding to the collection you inherited IS the best option IMO.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1195 Posts |
Quote:I inherited a colection myself recently. I'm up to over 1000 coins cataloged. Funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I've been bitten by the bug! So don't be too quick to sell. You might discover a new hobby like I did. Quite by accident. Good one!  To the OP, Time is money: If you got the time it takes to post pictures here and thoroughly research what you have just fell into, you learn how to piece it out and will get the most money out of the collection that way. In the process, you might fall in love with the collection or parts of it. If you sell, I would stress keeping at least 5 pieces from it to remember your grandfather by. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2311 Posts |
You should post some photo's of the coins for us.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1208 Posts |
Welcome
Take your time, you might like it and decide to keep them and build on them, you never know.
Don't take your birthright to a stealer. No honor in that for you or your grandfather.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
meksmk: We were hoping that you would be! Coin collecting can be a bit like that. |
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Valued Member
United States
386 Posts |
How lucky you are to inherit a collection! You are now rich in more ways than you know. There's probably more like me who would love to have the collection their parents or grandparents put together. Fortune touches us all differently. Take the advice that's been given: Hold the coins for now.
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Replies: 64 / Views: 7,118 |
Posted 01/21/2013 2:16 pm
