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 Replies: 25 / Views: 4,066 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
509 Posts |
The "What age will you liquidate your collection?" thread started by glenzy1 prompted me to start this one. For those of you who are planning to pass your collections on to your heirs (like me), have you given any thought to educating them as to how to dispose of them? Or perhaps leaving written instructions? This is assuming your heirs (like mine) have no interest at all in numismatics. What concerns me the most is that their first instinct would probably be to take them to the nearest coin dealer with the assumption they'd get fair value. A Big No No and a certain rip-off. (I'm not disparaging dealers as I know they have a business to run). Next is they'd have no idea at all as to what their value actually is. Even if they're slabbed, AU55 wouldn't mean anything more to them than PR62 and the difference between TPG's or even what a TPG is would be totally meaningless. A raw coin would be complete outer space and put them at the mercy of the first snake oil salesman. Thoughts, ideas, suggestions? How will you handle it?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1406 Posts |
I hope to have my collection organised enough for my heirs to figure out basically what to do. I have always wanted to collect every modern coin minted by the mint (in BU) and hope that my heirs continue the collection as a family heirloom. I also wanted to try and get as many classics as I can but condition would not be too much of an issue on these.
My instructions would be to continue the collection of every modern coin minted in BU each year. Who ever is willing to do this will get the collection and hopefully pass it along to the next generation. As far as the classics, well those will be incomplete so I may have instructions as to save some, upgrade others, complete a set you like, sell off, I don't know yet. I'll come to that when I get closer to the organising part. My main concern would be the moderns. Relatively low in value so the temptation to sell would be less (hopefully) then my dieing wish to have a Family Heirloom Coin Collection for the generations. After All, with so many coins being minted these days, how many collections in the future will be so complete.
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Pillar of the Community
2223 Posts |
I can see it now, someone wheels in a handcart with a heavy box on it to an episode of Pawn Stars. They heft it up on the counter and start going through it. Face value is in excess of $15,000. Pawn Stars offers them $7500.
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Moderator
 United States
188342 Posts |
My wife knows to keep them for my son. The task falls on her for now because he is not old enough yet.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
759 Posts |
I actually have an Excel file named "If I Croak.xls" where I have all financial information summarized like bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, mortgage, etc. One of the sheets is a coin inventory with Description, Date, Mintage, Acquisition Date, Price Paid if applicable and estimated current value. Some valuations are linked to spot price inputs. My 8 year old already knows ebay to maximize proceeds and dealer for speed. I have a note included that basically says, "Enjoy them if you'd like as there is lots of history there, liquidate if you so choose, but don't you dare sell without doing some research and if you can, try to hold on to one of the gold coins and one of your favorites to keep and pass down. You'll be glad you did and so will I." Digital copies in several places. That about covers it for me. Took me less than 2 hours and it was kind of cool to see the coin inventory come together. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
524 Posts |
I'm not as organized as Onebowl but have the same basic idea. I have everything typed out with current value,by silver value or set value. My wife knows my daughter is to get my collection but if she ended up in a bad situation she at least would have a guide to start selling by.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
just letting SOMEONE in your family be familiar with the collection is important. Otherwise, there is no sentiment in it. Let them know if you meant it to be kept, sold, saved as an investment...
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Valued Member
United States
301 Posts |
Yes, leave instructions for heirs, written or otherwise! I experienced this first hand. My wife's mother passed a few years ago, and she had a pretty large collection that her and her husband had assembled over the years. As business owners for over 40 years, they had pulled everything collectable out of the drawer that came into the store.
We had to split the collection four ways, which turned out to be no small task! For none of us being collectors ourselves, I think we did okay splitting it. We searched key dates on coins and did the best we could.
It took us longer than 12 hours straight to split it. I was always partial to collecting myself, so I enjoyed it and have since become a collector myself.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2797 Posts |
I've done a couple of things for the wife should I "croak" first. - I have catalogued and priced (retail and "don't sell for less than") significant coins in the collection. This is on an XL spreadsheet and on the 2x2 with a catalogue #. I update this at least every three months. - I gave her my login and p-word to CCF and instructed her to come here for advice with a list of members who she can trust explicitly. That ought to do it.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
830 Posts |
Some good ideas here, thanks. I might add this could even come in handy if you become incapacitated for some reason, like oldtimers or something and a loved one is your power-of-attorney.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Only people to leave this all to is my Son and his Wife. However, neither has any interest in coins, knows nothing about coins, could care less about coins.
If and when the time comes and if they even find out about that, since they live in another state, possibly everything will be ransaked by neighbors first. Then what is stolen will be taken to a bank as just coins.
So watch you change. My STUFF might well be there soon.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1406 Posts |
Quote:
I can see it now, someone wheels in a handcart with a heavy box on it to an episode of Pawn Stars. They heft it up on the counter and start going through it. Face value is in excess of $15,000. Pawn Stars offers them $7500.  If they keep expanding the amount of coins then this may just happen. What are we up to each year, $20+ face value for business, proof, and silver proof. Redic! |
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New Member
United States
13 Posts |
Hello, I'm new around here and was going to be quite for a while, but what I did was break out all my extra morgans and start a new set for my son whos active duty Army and gave them to him with the proviso he hold them till hes my age at least, (51). In my morgan set each coin is in a holder and marked with the Vam#, my wife is smart shes no collector but she understands value. I have done the same with my bust halfs, each clearly marked with O# and grade. Made it easy for them.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1285 Posts |
I have hand written notes inside of mint packages (value / rarity etc) and maintain a excel spread sheets for certain fancy sn's. Although my son is 10 he knows which items are tough to find / valuable etc and the reasons why. I educate and teach him what I learn along the way. My brother also knows about certain items. IMO, a list of who to contact (trust worthy dealers / forum members) is very important. see below Quote:
I gave her my login and p-word to CCF and instructed her to come here for advice with a list of members who she can trust explicitly. Seatednut, I Could not have said it better. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Look outside the family for once. I know family is number one always, but some families are like that, in that they do not have the mindset to sit down about something. Different kinds of hobbies exist for a reason. So if you want to fund their hobbies via your own, that's great. There was that recent idea of the "coin godfather". If you don't feel you can do that, why not have them auction it off at a prestigious auction house?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19949 Posts |
Quote:I actually have an Excel file named "If I Croak.xls" where I have all financial information summarized like bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, mortgage, etc. One of the sheets is a coin inventory with Description, Date, Mintage, Acquisition Date, Price Paid if applicable and estimated current value. Some valuations are linked to spot price inputs. My 8 year old already knows ebay to maximize proceeds and dealer for speed. I have a note included that basically says, "Enjoy them if you'd like as there is lots of history there, liquidate if you so choose, but don't you dare sell without doing some research and if you can, try to hold on to one of the gold coins and one of your favorites to keep and pass down. You'll be glad you did and so will I." Digital copies in several places. That about covers it for me. Took me less than 2 hours and it was kind of cool to see the coin inventory come together. I hope that file is not on your hard drive. If someone gains access to your PC, they can cause severe damage. I just had to bust my wifes chops for having an Excel file with all of her credit cards, CCV codes, exp dates, account numbers and passwords on her machine. I printed it out, secure deleted the file with 10 passes, deleted the temp file and Office document recovery file (hidden). This is definately not something you want on your PC. |
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Replies: 25 / Views: 4,066 |
Posted 06/02/2011 4:55 pm
