What Coins Do Coin Dealers Dislike The Most?

Almost anything they can't resell quickly.

Non silver Jefferson nickels and Roosevelt dimes rank pretty low on the want list.

70s and later mint & proof sets.

Everybody has one to sell, nobody wants to buy and the few good coins have already been cherrypicked.

Counterfeits ,fakes ,and badly damaged coins .

Over the years, I have developed a short list of pet peeves, and solutions:
Basement slabbers and their ridiculously overgraded coins. Solution: I simply won't buy them. It avoids the inevitable arguments over actual grades.
Modern NCLT products. Mint customers always think they increase in value, even though most trend at (or below) melt. Solution: I don't buy or sell them.
Chinese counterfeits. 'Nuff said.

In the world of COVID quarantine, I'm not buying or selling right now. Pre-COVID, I chose to limit my areas of interest and dealing as I get older, mainly to avoid accumulating iffy inventory. There are some types of coins I don't handle at all. For example, I don't handle world coins (except Canada and the Provinces), ancients, currency, NCLT, or exonumia. I don't handle any of the current U.S. coinage series after wheat cents or 90% silver or any post-80% Canadian coinage. I do carry average circulated classic coins geared to YNs, because I want to help build the hobby.

Here in New Zealand and probably Britain too.

1. Pennies and Halfpennies, these coins are the bane of dealers lives, the 100 - 130 year old penny of Victoria is wrongly believed to be incredibly valuable by the great unwashed and dealers often have a hard time breaking it to non collectors that their 1899 Penny with Victoria just visible is not worth $1000000 but in fact worth about 8 cents in copper value.

Yes there are some rare dates and BU or even EF coins are collectable and worth some cash, but 99.99999% of the time, they are common dates and extremely worn.

The rest of this applies to NZ and my experiences.

2. Any 1967 - 1977 Mint set, especially old $1 large coins and especially 1967, 69, 70 and 74, all were minted in the high 6 figures and many people who bought them are dying so they are on the market. Very pretty coins but not even worth face value and you can't spend them. Post 1995 sets are worth mroe as numbers decreased massively.

3. Scrap silver - common date 3ds to Halfcrowns in VG or poorer condition, especially if stained or damaged, good for bulk lot sales only - you would be amazed how few of these coins people want. Of course high grade NZ silver and even any coin before 1962 is very collectable in VF or better.

4. 1947 - 1965 Predecimal coins unless in UNC or AU (Pre 1962) there was heaps of it made and heaps of people hoarded it in the wealthy 60s, again as most of these people are either dying or downsizing - mountains of it is coming on the market.

5. Old 1c - 50c coins - issued 1967 - 1988 for 1c and 2c and to 2005 for 5c to 50c. These coins were also kept in quantity and unless in PERFECT MS65 or higher condition, worth less than face. There are dreamers selling it on Trade me and the usual clown who thinks their old 1967 10 cent piece is historic, rare or lucky and worth the $500 they want for it (There is a sucker born every minute). Most dealers won't stock it and even I can't move it at face value. There are 2 or 3 rare dates and types, but again common lots never have them.

6. Modern Coin Collectables - NZ issued a lot of garbage coins lately from Lord of the Rings junk to precious gold coins. The designs are fine, but the costs for this stuff was way way way in excess of melt value. Figure a One ounce gold coin costing $3.5 - $4k (About $2.5k USD). Silver ounce coins cost $109 - $150 each (Like $35 an ounce) and people buy them as they are rare and only 1000 made but find there is no resale market and the dealer will not even offer them spot melt plus 5% on the coin - these items have no secondary resale market.

Even worse are Aluminium bronze coins (Muck metal) which are technically worth face at most and it does not help face values on these coins are stupidly low (Like $10 for gold, $1 for silver and $5 - 20 cents base metal).

7. Recent and low grade/value banknotes. Any banknote after 1967 except Star notes, along with £1 and 10/- notes from 1940 unless in perfect condition are not desirable. Every man and his dog put aside a £1 and 10/- in 1967 and the old $1 and $2 in 1990 - sadly most are worn and worth zilcho. On the other hand £10 and £50 are worth a bomb, of course back then these had a lot of buying power.

8. World modern mixed lots, especially if there's a alot of aluminium, steel, brass and bronze coins - also coins from Hispanic nations, India, Russia, Middle East and obselete European currencies like Francs, Marks, Lires and Pesetas or any inflation coins like Turkey.

Hope this helps from my side of the world.

Finally - Vague customers - dealers really don't like customers who have never read a book in their life - like "I have this old coin and there is some woman on it" and "Whats a shilling, I have never heard of it" or my coin is 50 years old is it valuable" Please try and research what you have before you bother a dealer. Seriously you get people this daft.

I'll go along with that.