Are Ikes Worth It

Our would imagine if they were rolled and sold that way, someone would purchase and put them away. You cant lose at face value.

The only thing wrong with face value is that you have to move them on at cost to prevent loosing a dollar each on them. Make sure that you have a buyer first.
Buying them, and selling at cost just seems like an exercise in futility to me!

If you are thinking of buying in bulk just to put away, their investment rate increase woud have to be better than inflation, just to do better than break even. Some investment in storage would be required, depending on the time.

THe only way to make a profit is to go for the rare varieties and errors, but that is outside the terms of reference for this question.

I see several ebay auctions of circulated ikes. They sell for 1.50 - 2.00 ea. That would be a good way to get rid of them after cherrypicking for errors and building a few circulated sets. Of course if that is too much trouble you can always get a dollar at the bank.

I got a load from a bank, filed an album or two, put the rest in tubes. No prizes in the lot but I like them all the same. Unless you find a rarity, there is no reason to expect a profit anytime soon (I don't). The fact that they've not been minted in 35 years is enough for me.

Circulated Ikes have no numismatic value over face. People will pay over face not knowing that simply because they didn't circulate at all when they were being produced and they haven't seen one in years. I get as many of them I can get from the banks, coin dealers and anywhere else just to spend them even though I know they will be pulled from the cash register and not be sPent again. I've seen people at flea markets asking from $3.00 to $5.00 for circulated Ikes and even tell people who are looking at them they aren't worth more than a dollar and if they want one ask for them at the bank and they could get one or more for face value if they have any at that time.

Ed
ANA LM-3175

The cheapest ones I have seen at flea markets are $3.50. That is not including fees and stuff but still, at face, you can't lose.

Just curious, how do you go about getting Ikes from your bank?

Sel691: The way that I look at Ikes is that when I get an Ike and decide that I don't want it, I can still get rid of them for the exactly the same price I got them for (less the time that I have in them). Outside of modern circulated numismatics I pick up at the bank that I can say the same for. So I really don't consider that a loss at all.





All you have to do is to go into a bank and ask for them by name, as the big dollar coin, or the silber colored coin with old bald guy on the face. A combination of those terms may help also.

They are difficult to find at the bank, but if you keep asking you will eventually find them. They are a little harder to come accross than half dollars though.

I have over 200 of them. The worst of them I use as poker chips in my weekly poker game with the provision that I get them all back at the end of the night. To date my friends have not let me down. Two of them use SBA and Sacs as chips with another using Kennedy halves. The other two use their own private chips, but not as extravagant as the rest. By the way our own special rules do prevail on the use of private chips (buy in with green backs to cover the agreed upon face value of the chips). It works pretty good and sometimes I feel like old river boat gambler.