Key Date Question

In regards to Key Dates... It is highly unlikely that you will find one unattributed. Occationally a rare date pops up at an antique shop or flea market but don't count on it. In my opinion, save up some money and buy the Key Date. Always but certified, NGC, PCGS or ANACS. SEGS is also reliable... Hope this helps!

Thanks so much guys. My conscience is way to strong to let me buy a high dollar coin for a little of nothing. On the other hand, I contacted a guy that had some common date Franklin halves, and Morgan dollars, for sale. I offered him 20 bucks a piece for the Morgans, and 10 for the Frank Halves, and he acted like I was trying to scam him.

A couple of reflections.

I talked to a helpful dealer once about this. He saw a lot of stuff come through his door, and had formed the impression that most people's coin "collections" were just coin hoards, which they overvalued.

I have found some genuinely scarce coins at dealers which were undervalued. No 1909-SVDB's though. Everyone is looking for that. But very few people are looking for much scarcer coins, especially foreigns. That said, I have pulled 1858-S quarters out of junk bins, and 1919-D walkers out of melt silver.

I've bought three key dates the last cpl of years. 1885 V-nickel, 16-d merc and a 16 slq. The the merc was from a dealer at a local auction, and since there was not much interest, I got it for about half price.

The 1916 quarter was in such a low grade, noone really bothered checking for diagnostics. There should be threads about all three om them in here somewhere.

Lack of competition and/or knowledge, and fear of buying coins raw are, I think, essential in order to score big.

It's all the luck of the draw. Tons of people have these coins, but it's really a matter of being in the right place when they go up for sale.

I posted a topic a little while ago about a collection I helped to appraise for someone at my wife's father's church. This guy had a good $300 face in Morgan and Peace dollars alone, plus a significant number of halves and junk silver. He didn't have anything incredibly valuable, but he did have a 1921 Peace, two 1934-S Peace (both heavily worn and one counterstamped), and a few Morgans in the 1-1.5M mintage range. Most of these were in 2x2's with the date, mint, and price that indicates they were purchased in the early 2000s. There were no other noteworthy coins except for some Barber dimes that were incorrectly labeled and I suspect were purchased for the incorrect price--noteworthy was a 1904-S labeled as a 1904-P (the coin was AG, but there was enough of an S for a definitive ID). There wasn't anything particularly valuable in that lot, but his 95 year old mother had no idea what her son had, and was about to take the lot to a "We buy Gold" place when my father in law mentioned that I could take a look at it.

There is practically no chance of finding a pre-1909 key date in circulation, but miracles do happen. I've personally found 1950-D, 1938-S, 1938-D, and 1939-S nickels in circulation, and I've heard of people finding key date Buffalos and 1996-W dimes in circulation. Also, if memory serves, lots of the ultra-rare coins (1894-S dime, 1913 V nickel) were found either in circulation or dealer's junk bins.

They are out there for well discounted prices. You just have to look.

Over the years of coin collecting I've found that so called estate sales are possibly the worst place to find anything. Normally such sales are well looked over by family members, friends and neighbors long before the sale or auction. Much better luck finding rare coins at a garage/yard sale, flea market or asking friends if they have any old coins layihng around. Even at some coin shows I've found dealers that were not aware of what they have completely. For example at one show a dealer sold me a 1945 Mercury dime with FSB's for about what a normal coin would go for. I've found dealers at flea markets that had no idea what they were selling.
There are lots of so called key date coins out there. Lots of them are due to so many not knowing what they have. Remember that just because you know about coins, your a minority. In the USA there are well over 300,000,000 people. Just how many do you think know the value of coins?

I think that Seeker is asking about key dates that pop up at garage sales, flea markets etc for significantly less than they're worth. I think it's safe to say that I could go onto ebay at any given time and find any key date I desire that's worth less than $10K. This is especially true for the "rockstar" key dates like the '09-S VDB and '14-D cent and the '16-D Merc dime.

While it's absolutely possible to find key dates at garage sales and the like, you really have to be there when somebody dies and leaves a poorly documented coin collection to relatives who are too lazy or disinterested to actually look through it. Also as a matter of ethics, I can't say that I'd be comfortable buying something like a '16-D Merc dime for just a little over melt. My wife and I had a garage sale last year, and a kind stranger informed us that a piece of office equipment (a projector light bulb that was left behind when my wife's old work moved to a different office) was worth $80 on ebay when we had it labeled for $1. What goes around comes around, I guess.