Appraising And Buying Coins/Paper Money.

People need to do their own "best guess" appraisal.
There's plenty of grading guides and pricing catalogs out there -- and free online.
People want the easy way out so they won't take the time to do a bit of research.
Then they worry that they might get ripped off by a buyer/dealer.

Personally, I am neither an amateur nor professional coin dealer; I don't buy coins just to on-sell them for profit. But I do volunteer for a charity that occasionally has coin collections donated to them; it's my job as "the coin guy" in the charity to do the valuation and attempt to sell the coins on their behalf. Sometimes I want to buy the coins myself, but more and more often these days, I don't.

There are three basic classes of people who fall into the "assume they want to rip me off" category.

- Collectors who paid way, way too much for their coins in the first place from rip-off coin dealers and mass-marketeers. They are in denial about having been ripped off for their whole lives.

- Inheritors who know absolutely nothing about coin collecting and who only know that Great Uncle Harry must have been rich because he was a coin collector, so his coins must therefore be worth a fortune. The fact that this is circular logic eludes them.

- Anyone who might have heard you, personally, brag or boast about the "great deals" you've made by ripping off other people. People will naturally assume that if you have no hesitation about ripping other people off, you're likely to do it to them, too. So if you must make your living by offering strangers a tiny pittance for their coins, then at least don't go around bragging about it to your friends and family, or on Facebook, or on Internet forums.

The best way to avoid having them "feel ripped off" is to be transparent about the whole process. Tell them what you plan on doing with the coins and how much you expect to sell them for (if that is actually your intention).

Another important thing to do is to avoid any kind of "you gotta sell it to me now" pressure. They have every right to become suspicious if you seem far too eager to buy. If they seem reluctant to sell, or they say they want to sell but seem to get cold feet or suddenly become sentimental when it comes time to actually start to part with things, then let them walk away keeping their coins.

I'm not a dealer at the moment (was a part time one in the past), and what I do when I appraise for someone is I estimate what an honest offer from a dealer should be, and back off of that a little bit. Then I tell them that is about what they should get for the coins and that I would buy them at that price but not until after they get at least one other price quote from an established dealer. I explain that I don't want them to have any doubts that I am giving a fair evaluation. So now they can go to a dealer with a good idea of the value. If they offer less then bring them back and I'll honor my quote, if they offer more then they are free to sell them to the dealer. If they bring them back I know I have a little built into the quote to protect myself, and if they don't they tend to be happy because they know they got a fair price and/or a little more than they were expecting. (And frankly I'm usually perfectly happy NOT to buy them because I'm just have to go through the trouble of disposing of them. On the other hand it they have something I really would want I'll point out that item and give them a specific value on it that is noticeably higher than the dealers wholesale price. Often those items do come back to me, but the person gets more than the dealer would pay for it.)

I find this works pretty well except in the cases where the people have completely unrealistic ideas about what their coins are worth. Even then once they get two or three other quotes and they are in line with mine it may (but not always) soak in that the coins aren't going to be their retirement answer.

Nothing wrong with following up on your appraisal after a reasonable amount of time. As long as it doesn't seem like you are pushing the issue, no problem.

LOL when they call back in a week because the pawn shop offered less!

Drop it $50 for an *** Edited by Staff | The bad word filter is in place for a reason. Bypassing the filter and making the intended word obvious anyway is completely unacceptable. *** fee!

I edited the word out. *** is self edited. The edited word is NOT obvious, it is completely replaced with asterisks. I did not use alternate characters, such as 5 or $ for S, to make the word legible. I'm not trying to bypass a language filter.

Staff note: It was apparent what you meant. No other word with that many letters would be paired with that second word you left unfiltered. Consider this your second warning. Argue this again and you will be done here.