Here I Am - With A Problem!

Hi and welcome. I hope you can find some answers to your problem here.

As I see it, there are four possible routes you could take.

The Quick Way - sell it over the counter to a coin dealer. Most coin dealers rely on deceased estate sales for their main source of supply for old coins. The advantage is, it's quick, and you get money straight away. The disadvantage is, you probably won't actually get much money - at least, you won't get anywhere near what it's "truly worth". We wouldn't recommend this path unless you and the family needed the money, quickly.

The ebay equivalent is selling the entire collection as a single, bulk lot. The end result is the same - quick money, but not very much money.

The Middle Way - A Coin Auction. There are auction houses that specialise in coins, and consigning your coins to auction is the traditional way of getting a little more for your coins than what a dealer is prepared to pay up front. The disadvantage is, you have to wait until the company holds it's next auction before you get your coins sold, and you may end up with some coins not selling, in which case you'll have to sell those by some other means anyway. Many auction houses also aren't too interested in handling smaller hoards and collections - if the collection is below a threshhold estimated value, it isn't worth their time.

The ebay equivalent is splitting the collection up into a handful of smaller, bulk lots. Extra work, but (potentially) more money. There are also people who are prepared to accept a collection on consignment for selling on ebay. Some forum members may be able to help you out in this regard.

The Slow and Tedious Way - going on ebay and selling each and every coin, individually, with nice clear pictures and accurate descriptions of each coin. Basically, you'd become a coin dealer yourself. As you can imagine, this takes a lot of time and effort, you've got to have the free time and computer skills, you'll have to educate yourself about the coins you're selling so you can at least appear to know what you're talking about, and again, perhaps not every coin will sell straight away. But it's how to see the best price realised for the collection.

The Much More Interesting Way - become a collector yourself. That's how many of the regulars here on the forum got their start in collecting - by inheriting a collection. If you feel yourself being drawn to numismatics, and would like to purchase some or all of the coins yourself, you can either go to a dealer, explain the situation and ask his opinion on the collection's true market value, or post the parts of the collection you're interested in buying right here on the forum for a free approximate online valuation.

And in conclusion, some general pointers for a beginner.

- Don't clean them. You may think they look grubby and ugly, but to a collector, they're old and beautifully toned. One thing that breaks a collectors heart is hearing about someone who, in all innocence, has polished up a nice old collection of coins "to make them look new again". Cleaning almost always makes the value of a coin go down.

- Books are good. Buy or borrow a catalogue covering the kinds of coins in the collection. Mainly American coins? Buy a RedBook. Mainly Australian coins? Buy a Maccas or Renniks. Coins from all over the world? The Krause world coin books are what you need. These books will let you know exactly what kinds of coins you've got, and can tell you whether or not you've got anything truly rare or valuable.

- Ask Questions - these forums are a fount of free information from helpful volunteers. Don't be afraid to ask. We like pictures, too, so if you have questions about particular coins, a scan or nice sharp picture of the coins in question always helps.

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Originally posted by Sap

The Much More Interesting Way - become a collector yourself. That's how many of the regulars here on the forum got their start in collecting - by inheriting a collection. If you feel yourself being drawn to numismatics, and would like to purchase some or all of the coins yourself, you can either go to a dealer, explain the situation and ask his opinion on the collection's true market value, or post the parts of the collection you're interested in buying right here on the forum for a free approximate online valuation.

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This is definitely the Much More Fun And Enjoyable Way!


Do:

Buy or borrow lots & lots of books to educate yourself about coins.
Ask questions - as often, and as many as you need to.


Don't:

Clean your coins.
Handle expensive coins or proofs without gloves on.


Sap pretty much covered everything else that I can think of!

If you aren't interested in collecting yourself or taking the time to learn about your coins, small lots on ebay may be a good route. However, there's a wrong way to do it and a right way to do it. The right way will take a bit more work, but the payoff will be far greater.

WRONG WAY - List the auction with a title something like, "OLD COINS." Put 50 coins on a table and take a photo which is so far away that none of the dates or details are visible. As your description, state something like, "This is a lot of 50 coins which I inherited. I know nothing about coins, so you can be the judge of what it's worth."

These listings are potentially great for buyers who are willing to take a chance on unknown coins. They are horrible for the sellers, because most people aren't going to bid much on the *chance* that there might be something good.

RIGHT WAY

Step 1 - Check a website like this one (or buy a RedBook) and scan each type of coin you have in your collection for the valuable dates. If you have any, set those coins aside. Those coins should be listed separately on ebay. If you have any questions about those coins, post photos here before you list them on ebay and the experts can help you.

http://www.numismedia.com/fmv/fmv.shtml

Step 2 -
Break up the remaining coins into small lots. Try to make a good mix of good coins and worse-quality coins. Here's why: If you list a bunch of garbage, you're not going to get very much. On the other hand, if you list a lot of 50 coins and 15 of them are in bad condition, the potential buyers still have the mindset that they're bidding on 50 coins. They'll bid because of the good coins, but the effective price you'll get for the crappy ones will end up higher than if you listed the bad stuff separately.

Add very descriptive titles to your auctions with good keywords. Use every character available in the title, since the more keywords you use, the more views your listing will get.

Take VERY GOOD photos of each coin in the lot. Make sure that the dates are visible. Make sure that any mint marks are clearly visible. Sometimes the mint marks are on the reverse of the coin, so if you don't see one on the front (obverse), it doesn't necessarily mean that there is no mint mark. You don't know anything about the coins, so make sure that your photos are clear enough that collectors will be able to tell exactly what you have.

Start the bidding at $.99 and run the listing for 7 days. I know it's scary to start the bidding so low, but the collectors won't let it end that low. They know what they're looking at and they'll pay a fair price for it. You might not get many bids until the last few minutes of the auction, so don't get nervous if the price is still very low after 6.5 days. People will be looking at your listing for 7 days, but most will just "watch" it and not place a bid until the very end. The big advantage to starting the bidding low are lower insertion fees. It also saves you from having to research the values of your coins in order to set a fair starting price.

In the description section, indicate that you are not a collector and received these coins as an inheritance. Make it clear that you don't really know what you have, so the buyers need to rely on the photos to assess the value of what you're offering. Be sure to list the type of each coin you are selling and the date/mint (Coins with no mint mark are P-mints).

Selling your coins this way isn't going to get you the best prices, but it will be better than anything a dealer would offer you and it's a lot less work than learning about each coin and listing them individually.

Consigning the coins to an eBayer with coin experience is another possible option, but it could result in return which isn't significantly higher than what a dealer would offer you. You'd need to look into the fees associated with it. I don't know what coin consignment fees are, but I know for most other types of products, the seller takes about a 15% to 25% cut in your sales prices. If it's that high for coins, you need to seriously crunch the numbers before you decide if it's a good option or not. It would certainly be less work for you than eBaying the coins yourself.

Hiya All,

Thanks so much for the VERY speedy and informative replies.

Mahgobbi and Sap, you two are great! Dealing the coins is certainly a dark area for me and you have shed light in the corner, so to speak. Great and useful suggestions.

Sawmill, thanks for picking up on the organization aspect of all this. Were I to post a picture of this "collection" ya'all would simply not believe it. I will have to start sorting things out. By the way, a considerable portion of the "stash" appears to be wheat cents (how am I doing so far?) in paper rolls. Many of these are marked like 1943D EXF Do I need to pull these out of the paper rolls to inventory, or...........? And I just noticed that a poster in another topic was asking about collecting rolls - is there more I should know about that before I do something crazy?

Onejinx and Snooba, thanks for the ideas and the welcome. It was certainly a good idea to post up here. There is nothing like talking to someone who knows what they're talking about!

Thanks again all. Glad I found this forum!

There are so many different approaches to selling your wheats.

Start by weeding out anything your FIL might have marked as an error coin and post photos of them here. The experts on this board can tell you if they're worth anything.

Next weed out all of the key and semi-key dates (http://www.lincolncentresource.com/keydates.html)

Personally, I'd also weed out ALL 1909 cents in addition to the key and semi-key dates. They have been increasing in value a lot and will continue to do so over the next year or two.

All of the coins you weeded out should be sold separately to achieve the best prices. (The 1909 and 1909-VDB coins do best when sold as rolls or partial rolls).

The rest of the wheats can be sold either as rolls or in lots...the larger the lot, the less you'll make per coin (but also the less work on your part). Selling in rolls works very well for certain dates, but not as well for others. Most rolls will do fairly well if the coins are in nice condition (and if your FIL's grade of "XF" is accurate, then they are in very nice condition).

Be careful about offering grades in auctions, unless the coin has been slabbed and graded by a grading company. What your FIL considered an XF coin might only be F to a buyer, and you don't want to end up with unhappy buyers. It's better to say something like, "The rolls are marked as "XF;" however, I did not assign these grades. I am not familiar with coin grades and I'm not sure that the grades assigned are accurate. Please bid accordingly."

If you have rolls for each year of wheats (or a good portion of them), you might consider buying some cheap coin folders and filling them in from the rolls, then selling the folders. You'll make more this way than you would by selling as lots or rolls. Again, it's more work, but better payoff. It really all comes down to how much effort you want to put into liquidating the collection.

Welcome to the forums!

I'm afraid there's not much left to say other than that. Sap encapsulated about anything I could say.

Keep the ones the coinstar rejects.

If you have a very large collection, including modern coins, you're going to have to sort them them first before you can make sense of what you have. I used coin tubes to store the good collectible coins like the walking liberty quarters of worn barbers. The very good condition coins I put in separate holders. The general silver coins were put back in the tins I found them until I have time to go through them better. The purists here will probably shudder at doing that but unless you do this for 12 hours a day, I can't see how you can acquire enough knowledge that quickly to do a good job of it right from the start. I can't see myself sorting through ours until I'm retired ( 10 years from now). If you can help it, don't do anything with them until you know you're stuff!