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 Replies: 7 / Views: 1,413 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Title says it all--you can't shop world coins on ebay without seeing a handful of "by the pound" lots of world coins, usually from the same few sellers, and always with the same stock photos. I have always avoided these, assuming they are just a scam and carefully picked through to ensure a certain % profit is made. Has anyone taken the plunge? Are they even remotely worth it? Personally, I have always stuck to listings that depict the actual coins you will receive. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
5239 Posts |
The problem with "sight unseen" bulk lots is that you have no idea if you are getting a decent mixture or not.
I have searched through 1000s of pounds of coins in dealer's bulk bins over the years, and there are certain coins that are so extremely common that they among the first that a new world type collector would get. Some examples:
Germany 1, 2, 5, 10 Pfennig post WWII
UK: 1, 2 pence post 1970
Belgium: 1 Franc post WWII
France: 10, 20 Centimes post 1960
Coins like these are next to impossible to sell to anyone but a new collector.
So if you don't want your lot filled with these, but want some variety, you have to see before buying. You will certainly get a lot of the common ones, but you don't want 95% common, perhaps 25%.
Remember some facts:
Dealers will purchase bulk coins for $3-4 Canadian per pound (here in Canada at least). Assuming 120 coins per pound, and $3.50 per pound (which is what my local shop will pay)that works out to 3 cents per coin for the average random mixture.
Dealers typically sell from their bulk bins at 20-25 cents per coin, and you can choose.
So if your purchased lot has 10% keepers and 90% trash, and it costs you $10 per pound, and you sell the "trash" and keep the 12 "good coins", you will recover $3.15 for the trash, and your 12 keepers will have cost you 57 cents per coin. With these assumptions, you would be much better off picking from the 20-25 cent bulk bin. One of our local shops even has a 10 cent bin.
Of course, you can make different assumptions and get different numbers, but if you see the bulk lot you are getting you can get a rough estimate of how good it is:
% of trash; % of 25 cent coins, % of $1 coins and so forth.
Of course, if you have a use for multiple examples of the most commonplace coins then you will not be disappointed with the sight unseen lot. Just look at the per coin price and compare it to the price of bulk coins where you can choose.
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
Often US dealers who buy estates and collections might pull obvious silver world and dump the rest. For them the time involved in researching world coins makes dumping them in bulk preferable.
Same with tokens.
Find an active US dealer and offer to buy all the world and tokens they get. They win and never have to waste a minute. You win if you learn those fields.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3343 Posts |
European airports used to have charity drop boxes for pocket change. Post Euro they lost all their value. The ebay lots probably come from this supply. "Two minutes ago I would have sold my chances for a tired dime." Fred Astaire
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
I have actually purchased a few legitimate "my dad died and here is his collection" lots off of ebay before, and received some pretty nice coins for very cheap. Lots do typically contain a lot of 1970-2000 pre-Euro coins that I suspect were sold wholesale when the old currencies were demonetized; and there are usually a few earlier (WWI-1950s) coins as well. I was just curious about those lots in question, and how heavily they are cherrypicked. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1913 Posts |
Mine have always been worthwhile and legit. Can also depend on the person selling. Mixed coin bags can be a good way to begin collecting world coins at a good price. I did just that. If you develop a dialog with what looks like a good seller you can get some good bargains. Some sellers might be regarded as having too many "junk" coin duplicates from ...say Mexico...or Canada. I've sold bagged coins by the pounder, two pounder and even five pounder. Yes I picked out what I wanted and had much surplus. So some new collector will get those and pick out what they want too. So they then will have surplus so they might donate them to the Boy Scouts or a VA Hospital where they can be enjoyed by even more collectors
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Pillar of the Community
United States
992 Posts |
It depends on what you want to find. If you like post-1960 junk coins, you'll get that. If you are looking for silver, you won't get any, except what was salted in for bait.
'Unsearched' means 'Unsearched by me'. 'Hoard' means 'Pile', and 'Treasure Trove' means 'Big Bag of Coins of No Value'.
Once I got one of these that had about ten Pounds of British coinage, I sold it to a buddy taking a vacation, he wanted some coins in his pocket on arrival for parking, tips, whatever, and his kids learned how to make change before they all went abroad.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2781 Posts |
I did pretty good with them while working on a world type set. I would often find coins worth $5-$10 and the odd gem. If you buy from the guys who use stock photos its a bit of a gamble - big difference between parking lot rejects and the euro exchanges, once you find a good source buy as much as you can!
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Replies: 7 / Views: 1,413 |
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Posted 03/05/2016 4:15 pm
