Tips On Selling Coins To Dealer

Welcome..to better help you with your questions maybe listing some of the coins would help so you have a honest number number to work with.

First off to CCF!

I'd suggest posting photos of the higher value pieces on this forum to get the memberships thoughts on condition. Armed with that information you can estimate the value.

Make sure that you get at least a few offers from coin dealers. Depending on the quality of the collection it might be best to break it up and sell it to dealers who specialize in that area of numismatics (such as old copper or capped bust coins for example)

On low value coins (under $50 a piece) I'd expect to take at least a 30% hit (price below guide) and a slightly smaller hit on higher end coins. On coins whose primary value is their metal (silver/gold) it would be customary to expect anywhere between 70 and 90% of the melt value of the coin from honest coin dealers. The less than honest ones sometimes quote 25% or less so be careful.

Large as in shoe box, or large as in Lambeau Field? You might be able to auction them yourself and cut out the middle men. But by all means, you have come to the right place to get fair and honest advice.

Everyone has provided outstanding advice!

I would suggest, if you have the patience, to hang around here and post pics or descriptions of your coins. This information will assist us in making better suggestions on how to dispose of your coins. The answer for how to sell a bunch of silver dollars is going to be very very different than if we were talking about a lot of wheat cents. lol

If you get your post count up high enough you might just catch the coin bug or possibly work some trades for bullion which would simplify the selling aspect and possible provide good deals for all parties.

Anyone with a bricks and mortar establishment looks to at least double their money when they sell an item... maybe that is reduced a little with online sales etc but this 30-50% figure seems appropriate for numismatic items. maybe the 3-5% was referring to raw bullion? Things like ingots are often bought for just below spot melt rate (like 3-5% in the case of decent quantities) since it is easy money to just flip the items off to a bullion dealer for 1% below spot.

The basic equation when it comes to selling is the quicker and easier the sale the less you will get, the longer and harder you work at it the more you will realise.

I would take the advice above and briefly describe exactly what you have and post a few photo's, that way advice can be tailored to your requirements.

Take your coins to a dealer only if you are in dire need of quick cash. If it can wait, hold on to the collection and sell through ebay once you are confident of what you have and it's worth.

I helped liquidate a large coin collection for a friend of my wife's family. I estimated the collection's worth at roughly $12-13,000 and realized about $8,500 between a local dealer and some friends who made offers on the better coins.

I feel that a fair offer was made on the junk silver (there were probably 800 common, low-grade silver dimes), but I think he under-paid a bit for th silver dollars. I had to negotiate the price on the 40% silver half dollars (he offered face initially), and declined his final offer on uncirculated silver (90% melt value). He did not accept any foreign silver, and offered face for wheat cents. Having a basic knowledge of what I was selling and when to walk from an offer was absolutely crucial to getting a good deal for the lot.

If you can post some pictures on here, we do have a lot of very knowledgeable members who can help you out.

From lots of experience, you'll probably get taken. By that I mean no matter how honest you think someone is, usually they aren't. My suggestion would be for you to simply look up how to buy a copy of the Red Book by Whitman Publishing. Then sit down using that book and make a list of what you think you have and what you think they are worth. Naturally you would be guessing in most instances but should be a bit smarter that trusting someone you don't know.
Some of the biggest problems you could run into is having a rare error coin and not knowing. A coin worth thousands could end up getting you a few dollars. Same with many coins of low mintages. Proofs, rare types, etc. If you don't know what you have, you might be giving away what could be a lot of value.
I've seen this done so many times now. People that don't know what they have just getting rid of it for practically nothing.