Something To Think About

That's some heavy stuff my friend. I don't know what would be best. I think proof coins fetch more when they are removed from the package. I think if you make it look good a nice proof collection in a album might fetch a bit more. I would say do what makes you happy. Your family will remember dad working on his coins. Come to think of it I would rather have dads proof album he worked on rather than his 30 proof sets in the mint box.

I'm starting to think along those same lines. I'm 55, post liver transplant, severe diabetic with kidney failure and I worry that my wife will be taken advantage of when she sells off my collection. Maybe she won't have to sell it but that's probably naive thinking on my part as she will outlive me by quite a few years most likely and money will become an issue. She doesn't have a clue as to the collections worth. I have to come up with some sort of a game plan and very soon to make sure she gets the most out of many hours of trying to get the best deals I could get. I've started to organize some but I have much work ahead of me to make this as simple as possible for her. My Indian cents are in a Dansco but the rest is a mess!

heavy topic....I have found that most modern proofs singles are priced higher than the set. I love the idea of the coin software and the assigning a number.





Anybody with experience that is evaluating your coins after your no longer using them....ummm after your gone. will be able to go through it fairly quickly so the time factor should not be too big of a deal.

I went through my Dansco albums, graded the coins, compared the grade to the RedBook price and put it all on an Excel spreadsheet.

This way my wife would at least have an idea which of the coins have key potential and which don't.

I then had my spreadsheets verified by a coin inspector. (He agreed with all my grades except one Morgan he thought was polished. Pretty good for me I thought! He took almost 4 hours to go through everything!)

I know it sounds morbid, but the last thing I want (if I die) is all my careful study and investing in these coins to go to waste and someone to take advantage of my wife in a time of extreme duress.

I think of it as protecting my wife and family.

AND make sure she knows where the spreadsheets are and what your information/codes mean!!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most coins considered more valuable if they're still in their original mint packaging?

Like you guys, I don't want my sons to loose money on the transaction and plan to catalog all my coins and their general retail, not blue book, price. In the description of the coin, I'll give them the reference I used and where to go to get the current prices.

Selling a coin collection is probably somewhat like selling a house; everyone may not be thrilled at the way you decorated.

In that situation, I think ease of selling is probably just as important as maximum price. I would leave them in the original packaging. You might get more if they were broken out, but they'd be harder to sell. And harder to sell often means a lower price, particularly when there's an immediate need to sell and someone who's not knowledgeable. And there might be an immediate need, I'd assume that selling would probably be a last resort type of thing, which would unfortunately place them at a disadvantage. Also, for someone who's not knowledgeable even if they got top dollar they mightn't necessarily know it & may still have feelings of guilt for letting it go too cheap.

With all that said, what I'd do in your situation is scrap the software idea. I know it's easier to keep track of everything with software, but you also have to worry about things like what if the hard drive crashes, or they upgrade computers between now and the time they might sell, since hopefully it will be a long time... or the learning curve on the software itself...no, you want to make it as easy as possible.

I'd first go for anything particularly valuable(IE over $15 per coin, or whatever value limit you might have)... place those all in one box or area. Label the box "expensive" stuff. Place each in a 2x2, put today's date, a value,and any special notes on it. IE Walking liberty quarter. VF. $65. 8/29/2010


I say do the loose ones first because mint sets tend to have a stable value and tend to sell more like a commodity-- ie they take less knowledge to sell than loose coins. So in most cases loose coins are more important to assign the value to. Then I'd do the mint sets, which again I'd leave everything in the original packaging.

Get a piece of acid free paper and maybe an acid-free pen, look at each set and write down the approximate retail amount you would reasonably expect to sell it for. Maybe include both a retail and a "do not take less than this" price. Then if there is something specifically special about that set (ie it's pre-1971 and has a deep cameo) write that down too, so that it is known. Then slip that inside the envelope or box that way each one has a slip.

Date everything too, so that (hopefully) if it is many years from now, whoever is looking will know if those prices are out of date and if so then they can proceed a different route or maybe inflate it by a certain percentage. And maybe also place the current silver value in there as needed--just a note that silver coins are worth 13x face value as of today. That way if it is many years down the road (hopefully) then they can have some idea of how out-of-date things are, and update the values appropriately.

A typical slip might be "1956 proof set. Retail value $X amount. Above normal value for this set because the half dollar has a cameo effect. Silver value alone is $xx as of 8/29/2010.

If it did come down to selling, all of this would help tremendously because it's easy. The value is right there on the item, in your handwriting. They know if they sold it for that amount or close to it that you'd be OK with that. The last thing anyone left would want is to feel like they gave stuff away "in your eyes" because even then yours is going to be the opinion that would matter.

And, the other nice thing about this, is if you're assigning the value, it may incite you to look closer at what you have, and you might see stuff you forgot about or notice details you never looked at before! Can't tell you how many times that's happened to me.

I have been thinking about this subject for awhile now. My wife knows exactly what we have in our coin collection as she was the one who took care of it after her father passed away. She made a list of everything and where it is located. Since I have been collecting I write down what I have paid for each item. Except for a few minor glitches it works pretty good.

My daughter shows no interest in the coins and I am sure would be taken advantage of if she had to sell them. My wife on the other hand knows about CCF and I have told her that if she needed to sell this would be a good place to do it, she understand Greysheets and how to put a reasonable price on coins. I have been buying mostly slabbed coins to make it easier for her.

We have talked about 10 years from now, I will be 66 then, of selling alot of the collection and using the money to take trips and enjoy ourselves. Whatevers left after we are gone the daughter gets.

I like the idea of downsizing and buying better grades of coins but the wife, in case things get bad, likes the thought of having silver around.

I have everything in Dansco albums. I also keep a spreadsheet with values, although I only update it once a year at best. My collection will not make my wife or son rich, so my hope is that the sentimental value will win out. I hope they appreciate having something that I cherished and that they will keep the collection intact.